Making a Career in Project Management
Projects are unique endeavour undertaken by an Organization to fulfill specific objectives and goals. For instance, increasing the manufacturing plant capacity is a project, implementation of ERP software in an Organization is a project, and so on. Business organizations are going hi-tech and they would see more of the trend of having designated leads to represent the department’s IT priorities in each departments . The IT priorities laid down needs to be implemented successfully and this will create opportunities for business-related project management tasks. This makes it the right moment for students to make a career in Project Management !
A recent study conducted by project management consulting firms indicate that their project management training initiatives have improved many aspects of business and project performance atleast by an average of 28 percent. This implies that every business functions be it be HR, finance or any other will invest in project management training.
Why Career in Project Management
Its an opportunity – and many b-schools have already introduced project management in their curriculum. With dynamic business environment- implementing changes would be an ongoing activity in any business operations and thus it makes mandatory for management students to develop an eye for project management .
The ensuing race for business success with IT enabled approaches is all that matters and therefore expecting project management skills of a employee is not a surprise. And good IT project managers can write their own ticket at a lot of companies.
What is Project Management ?
The Project Management Institute (PMI) is the body that defines standards and regulations for Project Management.Project management is the discipline of initiating, planning, executing, controlling, and closing the work of a team to achieve specific goals and meet specific success criteria. It becomes important for several reasons:
Leads to high-quality, low-cost products, and satisfied customers.
Effectively use resources (people, money, and time)
Manage a portfolio of projects that are all building blocks of the overall strategic vision.
Capture the collective wisdom of staff and lessons learned on previous projects or information about the overall growth and development of individuals and the organization.