How do I become a project owner/project manager in tech

[Cornetti]

Sorry another career post, inspired by a poster yesterday asking about career in tech.

I’m senior in a small media company earning around 35k per year. Project management is part of my role and I’m good at it but I don’t have any formal training/certificates. I also do not have any IT background.

I love many aspects of my job but I am at the point that I can’t progress much further and most crucially the opportunity for expanding my project management experience, the part I enjoy the most, is very limited.

How do I find out more about the field, should I approach a company and persuade them to take me on as a trainee? The job adverts seem to ask for experience already which I don’t have yet. Should I invest in Prince2\agile project management before I start approaching? Am I too old in early 40s?

You're definitely not too old. Training may help but most companies want real world for an experienced hire Related roles: Project office administration, Business Analyst - these are roles in their own right but people move into PM easily from. Agile and prince are very different ways to deliver - Agile can give you a road into Scrum Master which may be if interest. Take a look online and see which appeals.

You can access tonnes of free stuff on Agile/Scrum online, I'd be tempted to have a good delve before investing in training (all my training in Prince and beyond hss been provided by the company I worked for). Look for roles that your current project management experience would stretch to and tailor your application. Don't fret about meeting all the criteria but emphasize the areas that fit. I think you just missed the Women in Tech conference but look for networking events as companies are often there recruiting. If you look at Meet Up many areas have Project Management or Agile meets, these are great for networking and learning. Good luck, let me know if you have any other questions!

Thanks @Nayday that is so helpful.
I have started reading about agile, and I really like the idea of it. Scrum master sounds like a job in wrestling- I just looked it up, and yes it appeals very much.

This may sound really ignorant but part of the reason I love my job and feel so confident is that I’m really familiar with the content - would you have a huge range of industries you may find yourself working with as clients or do companies specialise eg public service/publishing/business?

I had PM experience but no official training bar MS Project. I got a job with a Big 4 Management Consultancy and used their in house methodology.

Look at the Safe PO/PM certification. Product School runs loads of sessions through eventbrite and LinkedIn. Follow Product people on LinkedIn and Twitter.

I would look into scrum master courses. I don’t know anyone that looks for Prince or similar these days.

Product and project managements are totally different disciplines. I’ve recruited both and it’s really infuriating when candidates mix them up and an automatic no on the basis that they don’t understand the basics (sorry i know you didn’t confuse them but a pp hinted at then being the same thing).

On the whole PMs will specialise in particular industries so you could remain in the area you know

I work in tech and have worked with product/project owners from lots of backgrounds. If you already work in a role that includes some form of project management, client communication and balancing priorities then you could do a product owner role without a lot of training. As PP has said do some learning about scrum and agile and find out about the different roles. I echo what PP has said you could go in as a Business Analyst and move up. Tech is a great space for those looking to move into, especially women as our value is starting to be seen.

Something you could do is approach a local software house/tech company and see if you could get a couple of days work experience/shadowing with someone in the role. It would be worth using a couple of days annual leave for.

I’m a scrum master, I moved into that role from a generic project management role and did my certified SM course whilst already doing the job. Don’t discount your current experience, you need to have good people skills and organisational ability as a scrum master which you can probably demonstrate in your job at the moment, and depending where you work you don’t actually need a tech background.

Don’t waste your money on Prince 2 as tech projects tend to be Agile rather than Waterfall, if you’re keen to do a course do the certified scrum master one.

I'd be happy to give you some advice. I work in PM in IT projects etc. You're definitely not too old! As others have said: have a look at agile/scrum/PRINCE2/PMI. I'm sure you've probably got a lot of the skills that you'd need for a scrum master/product owner if that's what you want to do.

You don't necessarily need to go in at trainee level, if you've got a PM background. We take on our associate PMs who have a basic knowledge and then they're mentored by a more experienced PM whilst they get more experience in "smaller" projects.

Practically speaking, could your current company get you training or experience in the areas you want to move into? Can you look at volunteering and getting some project experience in this way?

Feel free to PM me if you want more info.

Most PM roles are asking for knowledge of Agile at the moment so that's what is look into.
Prince seems to be old hat these days.

I'd also look for Delivery Manager roles.
As part of the move to adopt Agile methodology my employer changed all PM job titles to Delivery Manager.
And Business Analysts became Business Designers

Thank you for all the replies and advice, that is so generous!

My company is happy for me to have training and are very supportive but I don’t have a mentor in-house (there’s literally nobody with the skills and experience) and I find myself needing to figure out a lot of things by myself. I also feel that I have come as far as I can go both in terms of projects I can do and money I can hope to earn which is why I’m thinking about moving.

What I do know how to do is work in teams/lead teams across departments, talk to stakeholders, work with talent/freelancers/outsourcers, keep an eye on the budget, and support people.

Most areas I know are shouting out for Agile knowledge. Only thing is they are looking for experience

I know you say opportunity is limited but is there any way you could get some experience?

Hi

I'm a PM in a tech role, I have Prince2 Practitioner.

I had zero experience in my company's product before the role & I wasn't & still not required to be technically minded. However I do have several years of PM experience.

My current employer paid for my Prince.

Feel free to ask any questions.

My DP is a freelance Agile Transformation Coach - happy to share his website (which, allegedly, is quite good!) by PM.

The most obvious route into tech for you would be to find tech that’s in the area you’re expert in, and go be the business expert there as a business analyst or similar. That would give you experience of tech, projects, products, development lifecycle etc.

18 months as a BA, if you wanted to move into project management, it should be achievable.

Move to a bigger media company for more opportunity?
Media is a varied beast, but there is a lot of project management in it. Production mgmt, managing sales pitches, etc. Knowledge of the business area and project management skills puts you in a good place.

What type of media do you do?

Agile training, specifically in SAFE. I was an ad exec, then ad acc director, then digital specialist trained as a PO. Then PO in a tech company, now PM in tech company. The last 3 roles happened across only 3 years.

Properly trained PO's with any experience are like hens teeth at the moment. My company is currently looking for 3 without success. The pay is very good.

Apply for jobs in tech consulting organisations that need industry experience (media).

In my area there are quite a few PM jobs in digital health in the NHS at the moment, might be worth a look?

For my team, we look at if people have the skills for the job rather than specifically pm experience.

DH is a Scrum Master and from what I can see, agile done right is quite a specific mindset and quite a lot of organisations seem to pay it lip service while still in fact clinging to deliverables based on a waterfall approach. I'd say your description of what you'd like to do is more product owner/delivery manager OP.

FWIW DH has a technical background in the types of work he is now an SM for, but he's the only one who does.

I employ into the roles you are thinking of.

I'd go for experience over certs anytime.
Tbh. I'm unimpressed by a list of certifications.

The only one I'd possibly look for is SAFe for Agile roles. More and more clients want this now.

I work for one of the big companies mentioned here.

I've always worked for technology departments within a business working on projects for the company. Some PM/SM roles will require technical expertise in the domain of the project but not all. You soon pick up context anyway and rely on the people in the project to advise (and learn to ask the right questions!).
Terminology:
Prince - teaches Waterfall delivery. It's probably not as 'trendy' as agile right now but waterfall is going nowhere, massive companies and projects trust it and it often suits traditional companies (who like when am I going to get it, how much will it cost - here have this fixed budget)
Agile- look up the principles and manifesto. Steer clear of anything project management and agile e.g agile prince. Scrum is an agile framework for iterative product delivery. See also kanban, but scrum is probably best ti start. Tonnes of free scrum learning - Scrum.org or Scrum Alliance. You can actually apply/use scrum with non-IT work and problems so you could start having a go using scrum in your current role on a suitable deliverable, or adopt some of the working practices and principles with your team. That would be fantastic, and also often how agile/scrum gets going in a company. Lots of agile groups on LinkedIn...also see Mountain Goat blog...

I wouldn't worry too much about Safe to start off with, Safe training is related to scaling agile in a business (Scaleable Agile Framework). It's also been around for years and you should understand what it is, but start with the foundation of agile and scrum otherwise you won't really know what you're scaling! The training you'd look at as a scrum master is with Scrum.org or Scrum Alliance. If you look at either of those they will explain other roles in Scrum also mentioned here such as Product Owner. PO is a very different role, focused on the product itself and the priority of work for the team to deliver value. Very commercial as you would expect.

Some great advice above. You’d really have to do some scrum/agile training. That would be expected if you were looking for a role externally, and it’s good on your CV.

After you do the basic, try use parts of it in your work to get some practical experience. Then you’d have a better idea where you might want to specialise.

Train and learn and experiment where you are. Age and experience is worth a lot in those roles. Nothing worse than an MBA straight out of college trying to do those roles!!