9
I think the different levels can relate to the Agile Onion as described by Simon Powers.
Entry level: Can implement the tools and processes, but doesnt have a good understanding why the processes, practises, principles and value's exist. Could lead to cargo-cult Agile.
Intermediate: Can work on a team level, but does not yet have the experience to change ...
6
It will be very hard to break into Project Management "cold" - You will definitely need enough experience in the field/sector you are applying for to be able to talk credibly about it and this can only take time and experience.
One way in might be to begin working in a PMO (Project Managment Office) perhaps as a PMO administrator- That way you can learn the ...
6
This is always going to be a subjective measure because it is not a binary decision-it is not like an exam that you have either passed or not.
Having said that, in most situations I have come across it is decided through defined (and somewhat arbitrary) combinations of:
years of experience in Project Management
experience with different team sizes (i.e. ...
5
In my organization many PMs get very little say in Human Resources decisions for their projects. The functional manager says who they can spare that fits the criteria and that is who the project manager gets. This said I don't think there is anyone who doubts our PMs are in fact PMs. I think the same holds true for costs. If you are managing projects you ...
5
Job titles mean whatever an organization wants them to mean. However, in my experience a Product Owner (or, in less agile environments, a Product Manager) is often responsible for a single product or a closely-related suite of products.
Advancement within Product Management is generally into managing a portfolio of products. In some companies, a Product ...
4
Wow, huge question!
Let's talk about:
Capabilities: Personal skills and knowledge
Talent: How much effort is necessary to be good at something?
Potential: The end of development within a specific domain
To identify the next good PM you need to:
Identify the required capabilities within your company. I would prioritise leadership and communications like ...
4
You can be a Scrum Master, but without any experience in Agile, you will not be effective. The training itself is two days, and does not cover most of the extreme cases you'll meet day to day.
If you would like to be a good Scrum Master, be part of a team that actually is agile, and learn form its Scrum Master. If you would like to land a good job, do the ...
3
You should expect to remain employed with a start up or a 100-year-old company for 1) only as long as you're needed, either your role or your capability set; 2) only as long as they can afford you; or 3) only as long as the company remains a company.
What you are really asking for is a risk assessment. Start ups have higher risks all the way around; that'...
3
Leigh,
As a manager at a large fortune 500 company and having experience hiring and managing project managers, I think you might be trying to do too much. Keep in mind that anyone looking for a PM right now is probably going to have a stack of resumes from qualified candidates and will automatically weed out those without a PPM certification or the proper ...
3
There are a ton of skills that transfer but I think the most valuable asset you have are the years experience of service. Consulting firms that do public sector work, especially DOD and military, hire guys like you all the time. You need to settle around DC to reduce chance of travel. In today's dollars, you could likely expect $100k to maybe as high as $...
3
Here's the problem for organizations and predicting future job success:
What are the attributes and work behaviors consistent with a particular job role's success?
How do you observe or test for those attributes and work behaviors that produce both RELIABLE and VALID results, minimizing biases?
How do you pay for this?
For a job role, if you try to do ...
3
My background is similar, so I'll tell you my lessons learned.
To get started, let people know you are interested in the PM role, and that you would like to work as a project admin or coordinator to get some experience. These are roles where you get to see a lot of the management activities but for the most part you don't have a lot of responsibility for ...
3
Junior
A junior scrum master should understand and be able to explain the fundamental principles and founding ideas behind agile. They should be able to explain to the more reluctant members of a team why they are doing Agile.
JSM's (if I can shorten it that way) should be able to facilitate and mediate all of the basic Agile ceremonies at a very informal, ...
3
In our organization, junior SMs facilitate the cadence of the project. They make sure the meetings happen, make sure the right people are there, help the team members self organize, and also track things like story point burndown, etc. They provide summaries of team work at internal sprint reviews, and bring up issues the team has to management. As with the ...
3
Obviously it is possible that a PM for a particularly prestigious product would command a higher salary. However, past that, salary differences are often more about where you work and your experience than the type of project. It's useful to remember that there are some companies that are only able to offer the services they do because of very strong internal ...
2
I would say that, rather than being about the job title, it's all about the skills you display, use day-to-day etc etc.
A lot of PM roles are very heavy on coordination, some focus on leadership etc..it all varies by organisation and industry.
I would say that a project coordinator is not yet a PM (not ultimately responsible for delivery), but it's on the ...
2
What is a project manager position? What do you envision you would be doing as a new graduate with PM title? Would you be overseeing a $500M construction project, a $100M IT systems implementation, a $40M new product development?
Projects are a function of work first. There is a huge range of projects running from a $1,000 3-person landscaping job to a ...
2
TL;DR
Entry-level positions are often a numbers game, where the goals are to find a role where your background fits the immediate needs of the employer and where your resume and interviewing skills show that you can quickly learn the on-the-job skills needed to grow as a professional. There is no perfect formula for being an ideal candidate, and ...
2
There are more similarities than differences between these two types of management. I would submit that there are no differences in the soft skills used in either management. The differences you would experience is that a project has a definite end where as a department, or any operational function, has an indefinite end.
Therefore, the set of different ...
2
Personally, I would recommend Prince2, PMP, and Agile courses if you're looking to study - professional courses teach you a great deal about project management and don't take as long/are not as expensive as degree/masters courses.
Having said that, project management is less about process and more about people and communication skills - you don't need ...
2
Rephrasing what's being said, if someone is calling you a "project manager", you must know what the project is first.
Only once you know the project and its goals, you'll be able to start drawing how you can get to the solution.
A project manager of no project is like consder a peasant as a "driver without a car", i.e. nonsense.
2
If you're competent and the project is successful, you can expect to be a PM at a start-up.... as long as they have a project for you to manage.
You asked what happens 'when the project is finished' -- You either start managing the next project, or, lacking a 'next project', move to a new role with the same company, or move to another company.
So, as ...
2
A project is a project, whether it's in construction, human resources or IT.
Therefore, focus on the achievements that you got in each of them, accounting the size (budget, scope, resources and schedule) and everything that you did to flawlessly accomplish the proposed objectives, or not, and the reason behind it.
Having that clear understanding will enable ...
2
(1) As a PMP you will be managing different aspects of project development, starting with people. So I would say your skills do transfer to PMP. Discipline is also very important. But this is just common knowledge. These skills apply to everything in life.
(2) Career growth? Just google around for some statistics. Nowadays you can find all sort of stuff on ...
2
As the matter of fact anyone could become a project manager.
Read some books and materials related to it.
Pass some certification which is valuable in your region/company.
After you are ready inform your company that you want to become one.
Introduce some things that could be improved on project management in your company.
2
Complementing Alexander's answer:
Read some books and materials related to it.
The Mythical Man Month
Peopleware
Pass some certification which is valuable in your region/company.
PMP
PMI-ACP
2
I´ve been working as Project Manager for IT for more than 10 years. It was my profession, and I had some colleagues with the same role in my organization, and we all think that it was our profession.
So no doubt about that, I would like to add, that it´s one of the most demanded and complex professions that companies are looking for, actually.
Detecting ...
2
The PMBOK-Guide knows five types of estimates. One of them is the Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM). It has a range of -50% to +50%. As it is literally the roughest estimate, I guess your colleagues are referring to it as the minimum criteria.
And just in case you are curious, the other four types are:
Preliminary Estimate: -15% to + 50%
Budget Estimate: -10% ...
1
PMBOK tries to add all of the possibilities in the details. However, not all of them are required to be included. This is one thing, second thing, if you notice the PMP exam tests the process groups not the management areas, which makes them less important (but still important).
As an example, how many project managers does procurement? I think less than ...
1
"Junior" and "Senior" are relative titles.
Semantically speaking, you would need minimally 2 PMs in order to quantify that one was "Sr" to the other. Comprehensively, you may need 3 or more PMs, since "jr" and "sr" titles define classes, and a population of 2 hardly creates differentiated 'classes'.
E.G. "junior" PMs would often report to the "senior" ...
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