Thinking about training in project management...thoughts please!

[Emptiedout]

I'm c.50 yrs old, been a creative - successful except for financial! - and supported myself with freelance with certain work (don't want to be too outing) that has kept me afloat (and the pay is ok). But the work is slowing down - maybe temporary but maybe a sign of external trends and pressures.

I'm very process led, as well as being creative (weirdly) and I'm very organised and quite assertive. I know I could do project management well.

I'm thinking of retraining to add this string to my bow. If you're in this line of work, is it worth it? Will I find work, will it take me years to find decent work? Is there any particular training, with a training body, that I should do?

All advice is welcome! Thanks

I'm been in PM since 1987

Currently happy in an Agile environment, earlier in my career my training included Anderson's Method/1 and PwC's Summit, as well as PRINCE2 for a specific client.

Project management is a funny old business, IMO, certainly very different in different industries and organisations.

Qualifications help if you are applying for a job from outside the organisation. Once you are inside, people will very soon know whether you can do the job. It's entirely possible for a great project manager to be entirely self taught and very well regarded internally. As they build their network, they could then very easily get other good roles though networking with people who know their work.

My kind of PM, in software development, is very much a people driven practice, where finding out and providing what the different people involved need, in order to get their part of the job done, is a big part of what I do from day to day. Even, in fact especially when what we need are decisions.

I'm not sure how much help I can be, since I'm constantly surprised by how well rewarded I am, for a role which feels very much like money for old rope. I love the level of contact it requires with people without ever really having to do any real work. Shall be very sorry when I do eventually have to retire.

Agile is full of buzzwords, but does also mean something.

In an Agile project you are less budget and timeline focused, and are more trying / doing things until you’ve achieved part of it and then building on what you’ve done.

In a Waterfall project (more common in brand/creative and non tech arenas) you are completing something fully and then moving on to the next thing, following a stricter timeline and budget.

Obviously that’s describing it quite simplistically.

Ah I see someone else described it better than me upthread. I’m also WAgile

I’m a project manager in the public sector. Strategic projects, can be anything from new IT systems to closing services/savings projects, structural reorganisations, transformation, performance improvement etc. I think as a new PM I would try for jobs in an industry I knew. It will be much easier that way.

I have a Prince 2 qualification (practitioner, not foundation), and it is a massive load of corporate bollocks and I have yet to work on a project that uses all the different elements. However, all projects use some of it, and it’s useful to know the framework.

I enjoy it - I like moving from project to project. Can’t imagine settling down to do the same job for 20 years like many of my colleagues.

God I feel old, that is simply Kanban rebranded. We were doing that approach to project management in the 1990s.

I manage projects but I am not a project manager. I am very specialised insofar as I work on similar projects (Annual and ESG Reports) for a range of large corporate clients. I have no PM qualifications but I am highly paid because of the specific knowledge and experience I bring to the process. I’d recommend thinking about whether this is something you could do and then, perhaps getting qualifications to improve your skills later if you need them.

I actually think if you're process led then Project Management might not suit you (although if you're creative that side will help). Good project managers are less about process (although that's important) and more about getting the job done - which often requires thinking outside the box! All depends on the role and the organisation of course

I think that's what I meant about process, but articulated it badly. I definitely am about getting a job done.

Well yeah especially processes that involve health, safety, & environment! It’s not always “get it done”, there are critical paths that have to have every i dotted and every t crossed.

I did project management and found it so dull and like herding cats in the company I work for. Couldn’t stand it.

I pivoted to product management and it is a much better fit for me. A lot more creative and can cover loads of things from software and data to physical products. I am currently creating a new suite of software for our company and working in an agile environment. I get to speak to the users, understand their requirements and feed that back to the tech team and get what we need built and then show the users again for feedback.
You don’t need to understand anything about software or data. You just need to know how to speak to people, find out what they need and be able to take that back to the team.

That’s corporate twaddle all round though isn’t it, branding something up that’s actually just common sense that people have been doing for years and presenting it as a ‘methodology’ 😆

*Agile is full of buzzwords, but does also mean something.

In an Agile project you are less budget and timeline focused, and are more trying / doing things until you’ve achieved part of it and then building on what you’ve done.

In a Waterfall project (more common in brand/creative and non tech arenas) you are completing something fully and then moving on to the next thing, following a stricter timeline and budget.*

@1990s thanks that actually does make more sense to me now, that actually sounds like quite fun work, maybe I need a career change 🤔

Yes that's why I said it depends on the role etc. The worst PMs I've known are the ones who spend all their time on paperwork, constantly updating their Gantt chart, sending emails and not actually getting their hands "dirty" so to speak.

Agreed. I am quite disillusioned of late with PMs - in my case, it is to design, develop and implement tech solutions. They are a star at calling meetings and doing slides and charts and asking for 'sign off'. That's it. No real understanding of or interest in the requirements even though they have been in countless project meetings.

Sorry OP, I didn't really answer your question. I think it would be quite difficult to get a job as a project manager with only training and no experience so you might be better off starting as a project coordinator, as many people do. Others often fall into the role in a company they already work in. Some formal training will help, but I'd suggest not going too overboard, incase no jobs come up. It might be a good idea to look at some roles advertised now to see what they are looking for to give you an idea of what you might need.

ah but if you're a do'er then you might not enjoy being a project manager. I'm 99% completer-finisher and I hate project managing because you're completely reliant on other people doing the things rather than having a task to complete yourself I'm also far too much on a control freak and would rather do it myself and know it's been done.

These two posts epitomise project management to me (I am one). There is no typical project management job, as they vary so much depending on the project and industry.

PM training just gives you toolkits to pull out as and when they are required (particularly something general like pmq). It's not representative of day to day job experience.

I work in innovation project management. Super creative and interesting. Mostly waterfall projects, but there are always curveballs, because innovation. My previous role (same company) was pm for large construction. Very rules and process based with minimal opportunity to think outside the box (and rightly so due to the safety and financial implications), both jobs couldn't be more different really

I think some of the responses relating to domain knowledge are very key here. I am a PM and work in a software industry for a particular sector. I do not have any PM qualifications at all and fell into it. I get paid on the higher end of the pay scale for a PM. The reason for this is I have 30 odd years of industry knowledge and worked as a trainer, then business analysis and consultant in the field for many years prior to becoming a PM. So I was part of the implementation process for rolling out this software which I am now the PM of (if that makes sense).

When colleagues are talking about blockers or business processes I understand what they mean and what the software is supposed to do and how fundamental it is to BAU when we go live. So many PM's just don't have that level of knowledge I have found and it is simply a box ticking exercise of "when will that be ready" or "should we have another meeting".

Whilst I think that yes you can train as a PM I think industry knowledge in the field you want to work goes a long way to you being able to do the job rather than the qualification itself.

@Unbridezilla - is Innovation Project Management actually a path in itself?

Anyway, so much to think about, thanks everyone.

The takeaways:

• Too corporate jargony bollocks and too process heavy - too DULL!
• I might find it challenging as I'm a doer, and will be reliant on others to complete tasks
• Not sure of what industry to go into - and not sure if the industry I'm in is the one I want to stay in

It's really hard. I'm at a crossroads in my career. I spent so long freelancing to support my creative endeavour. As I said, I've had a fair bit of creative success (to the outside world and to some people, it's perceived as a LOT of success - ridiculously, i've even been asked on occasion why I haven't retired yet 🙄) - but not made enough money through it.

But now the industry I've freelanced in has started to slow, so contracting work is harder to get. I've never, ever worked permanently/full time for anyone and don't want to start. But I'm 50ish, and need to 'pivot' (apologies for the jargon), and I'm seriously at a loss as to how/what.

I've always been driven and clear, and honestly, I feel like I'm going around in circles.

Thank you SpeckledlyHen. It is good to hear it from the PM side.

It is the industry knowledge that sets a good and effective PM apart from a paper-pushing PM that can be frustrating for a business to work with. I refer to PMs on both the consultants side as well an internally within the organisation I work in.

I can count on one hand (with fingers to spare) the number of PMs I rate. Most have been pretty useless.

OP, if it is possible and probably also easier to find a role, PM in an industry (creative) that you have knowledge of.

Innovation and transformation very much are things in their own right

Oh I thought you were looking to change to project management?

Or just an interested reader?! X

@Emptiedout I think you might be barking up the wrong tree. If you want to do Creative Events Management, as I think you mentioned above, your career path is Events Management.
If you will enjoy conversations about the iterative approach we are taking to the TOM based on the group platform strategy put in during the ACR project then your career path is Project Management.

I have worked in both events and project management and they are related but different skills x

Sorry, not sure what you mean?

I'm interested in moving into something new. I am throwing around the idea of PM work, but only if it suits. Thanks for explaining difference with creative events management

Oh no sorry that message was for the lady who is a lawyer! Wasn’t sure whether she was also interested in PM or just interested in the chat!