The Importance of Training Project Managers

In the current business environment, the demand for project managers is ever growing. In short, project management is a provisional project constrained by time, cost and scope (A guide to the project management body of knowledge, 2013). Between the immense organization, optimization, and communication assets skilled project management brings to a project, it is easy to see why project management is a booming field of study. Furthermore, project management can be both financially and personally rewarding when long term milestones and goals come to fruition.

Project management is the discipline of using policies and procedures to manage a project from creation to competition. The intent of this paper is to assess the role of a project manager and determine if I am well suited for a career in project management. To achieve this goal, I will be discussing the following areas: job description, general career path, education requirements, salary, career outlook, and the pros and cons. I will also be interviewing a colleague that currently working as a project manager to gain a better understanding of typical duties associated with the role.

The future of project management will require a shift from a low indecision, low vagueness approach to a high attentiveness, high decisiveness approach where change is the standard and decisions have to be made quickly and decisively. Projects are becoming global with scattered multi-cultural teams being the standard. Earning a PMI certification demonstrates an understanding of complex project management concepts, an ability to lead and manage multi-functional teams and enters you in a global community of professionals and experts.

PMI’s Project Management Professional (PMP) credential is the most important industry-recognized certification for project managers. Globally recognized and demanded, the PMP® demonstrates that you have the experience, education and competency to lead and direct projects.

PMP (project Management Professional) is a prestigious and internationally acclaimed credential that is essentially beneficial for the project managers across industries. Today, many companies across the globe are giving preference to hire the project managers with PMP certification. Therefore, most of the project managers are acquiring this professional credential for their progression.

“Project+ certification is considered to be a quality certification for project managers who have yet to meet the requirements of the PMP certification. This certification would exhibit to potential employers that you have the basic project management knowledge which you can use as a stepping stone for your next project management oriented certification.” (Myitstudy)

The most valuable and sought-after certification is that of the Project Management Professional (PMP). This certification communicates the person who has earned it has shown competency and insight in project management from a pragmatic and

There are many different types of project management certification, but the certification I’m interesting in pursuing is PMP. PMP certification is one of the leading project management certifications, and one third of certified project managers obtained PMP. Unlike the other project management certification, PMP doesn’t focus on only one particular geography or domain; instead PMP certification is global (PMI, 2017). Individuals who are PMP certified have the option to work in any industry with methodology and any location (PMI, 2917). In addition, organizations that have PMP certified project manager, meet their projects original goals, and they complete their project on time and on budget (PMI, 2015).

In the past the project manager (PM) mostly focused on standard procedures, but the growth of project dimension and complexity have requested new skills and approaches for delivering successful

Regardless of a business size and type, or its product line and/or services, organizational structure and effective communication across all levels are key components of project management best practices and are essential for organizational success. One approach organizations can take to enhance its business practices is to adopt and implement a comprehensive project management system, capable of addressing organizational project requirements at various levels; small, medium and large scale projects. According to Diab (2012), project management systems are commonplace in large organizations and are rarely implemented in small and medium size companies. One could equally contend that even though the

PMP or Project Management Professional Certification is one of the prime credentials in the project management domain; and as such constitutes one of the popular discussion topics for professionals worldwide.

Organizations must make a commitment to invest in IT project management in order to ensure proper success of their IT projects. Over the past twenty years, numerous reports have been released from both industry experts and research analysts alike that indicate a common theme of failing IT projects. These reports indicate that without a significant change in the management of IT projects these trends will continue.

The evolution in institutes and association in project management had Initial activities concentrated on information exchange and project practices but soon expanded into the area of certification. The requirement for certification standardization by the associations - first PMI in USA, and later APM in UK, developed their own reference documents. The first version of its (Guide to the) Project Management Body of Knowledge in 1976 and reviewed by 1983 was produced and Various other national project management associations produced their own versions, in some cases quite different from PMI‟s. these BOKs were developed over the period 1976 – 2001 [Morris et al 2006]. PMI became the primary basis of certification program in the mid 1980 's with further updates in the upcoming years. On the other hand, Professional Standards Group (PSG) of UK Association of project managers (APM) leads to development of APM’s body of knowledge. The content of APM’s BOK was dictated by APM certification programmer, which made document to be the bedrock from which aspects of education and training of project managers are addressed. By questioning individuals in various industries their use and understanding the 44 ‘topics’ of project management which have been complied by various systems of Body of Knowledge ‘elements’ used by APM (G. Themistocleus, 2000) APM‟s early BoKs were academically led and one later version had a research based

(Partington, 1996) States that with the rapid transformation from bureaucratic and hierarchical structures to more flexible, organic and matrix organizations conferences, seminars and organizations proliferated on how to manage projects. The PMI (Project Management Institute) was founded in 1969 as a nonprofit organization with the sole objective to “foster recognition of the need for professionalism in project management; provide a forum for the free exchange of project management problems, solutions and applications; coordinate industrial and academic research efforts; develop common terminology and techniques to improve communications; provide interface between users and suppliers of hardware and software systems; and to provide guidelines for instruction and career development in the field of project management” (Healy, 1997).

Project Management has become increasingly important for any corporation, organization, government agency, and even small businesses in the last couple of decades. Project Management, as defined in the text, is the application of knowledge, skills, and techniques to accomplish projects successfully and proficiently. It is a tool utilized to keep projects and its tasks organized, but if not used correctly, can bring down the entire project operation. I have witnessed, first hand, a Project Manager (PM) accomplishing his goals and tasks successfully for a particular project. Everything was running like a well oiled machine, when what I can only explain as “a god complex” intervened and halted the project three