Choosing A Project Management Certificate...
All businesses need to Project Manage their procedures. If you're looking to find out more about training courses to join this industry, you will see how diverse the roles can be. If you have a methodical mind and can structure your thoughts well, this could be right for you. It's also useful to have good interpersonal skills as the work often requires quite detailed communication with others.
...On Time, On Budget
For businesses to be profitable margins are often tight, hence controlled project management is often essential. All stages of a business or production process need to be professionally controlled and optimised, hence the need for Project Management. Project Management is establishing itself not only as a professional career path, but also as a most effective way to control business.
There are various levels of qualifications and training, some of which require no prior knowledge or experience in industry. You will learn skills that include preparing project plans; initiating projects; executing, monitoring, controlling and closing projects, cost estimations and planning and performing quality assurance.
Tools And Techniques
There's a certain amount of industry jargon to understand with project management. As well as learning about basic PM tools and techniques, it's essential to be familiar with common terms and the current ways of thinking. Not all project managers use the same approach, but introductory programmes will equip you with a certain amount of flexibility to join most teams.
An Old And Revered Profession
As with many modern processes Project Management has early beginnings, but it's come a long way over the years. It could be said to go as far back as Vitruvius (thought by some to be the world's first known engineer) in the first century BC. F W Taylor was an American mechanical engineer who published 'The Principles of Scientific Management' in 1911. As an efficiency and management expert, he influenced other people's work, such as Henri Fayol's 'Fayolism' and Henry Gantt's 'Gant Chart'. Fayolism was one of the first comprehensive general management theory statements and the management functions and principles it described still have relevancy today. Fayol's principles of management refer to how people are managed to best effect.
The Beginnings Of PM As We Know It Today
By the mid twentieth century we had moved into the early days of the modern Project Management era, when it started to become recognised as a discipline in its own right. When the US Navy was developing the Polaris Missile system, a new technique was needed to cope with all the various aspects of the job. The PERT - Program (or Project) Evaluation and Review Technique - model was used to analyse and represent all the tasks involved. This mathematical model can still be used as a basis to find a critical path through various planned and interconnected tasks. Alongside scheduling projections came technology for engineering economics, cost estimating and cost management.
International Project Management Association
The International Project Management Association was formed in 1967. A non-profit Swiss registered organisation, it now claims to have over 40,000 global members. In terms of training, the IPMA offers a Four Level Certification program that covers technical competencies, contextual competencies and behavioural competencies.
The PMI (Project Management Institute)
Two years after the IPMA was formed, the PMI (Project Management Institute) was founded in America. The globally acknowledged project management guide PMBOK was first published by PMI in 1996 (although the latest edition now contains major changes).
This process-based guide deals with just about all information and practices in project management. Any student of project management should understand the processes and terminology that are featured in this guide. Learning programs can be accessed which teach the elements of the guide in great detail. You will be in a position at the end of such a course to take the world standard PM exams, the PMP (Project Management Professional) and the CAPM (Certified Associate of Project Management).
PRINCE2 (Derived from PROMPT and PRINCE)
PRINCE2 as the name suggests is the second major version of this PM method. It is a registered trademark of the Office of Government Commerce, an independent office of Her Majesty's Treasury. The model embodies many years of 'Best Practice' in project management.
Training programs will provide students with the ability to organise, plan and control projects using the PRINCE2 method. PRINCE2 is designed to reduce the impact when change is necessary in the commercial environment. It promotes consistency and re-usable assets. It's the sum total of over 20 years of industry experience.
There are various other training programmes and qualifications that can be attained through the professional associations. Learning how to manage people has been found to be just as important as learning how to manage processes - the best courses will deal with both aspects. Draw up a critical path now to work out the optimum career track for you.
