What does it take to make a career in Project Management?

A career in project management is a little bit like deciding to become a carnival clown. It sounds crazy and takes the right person to do it but if you are good at it, it can be very, very rewarding indeed. You need to have two very basic skills in order to actually succeed in a career in this industry. First of all you have to be good at working with people. I know that seems like it should be a no thought idea but in this position you will be working with a large number of people and if you are either really bad at it or you just plain don't like people, this might be a good time to reconsider this as the path you wish to travel to start a life long career. You will be dealing with people above you and delegating and working with the ideas and thoughts of those below you while keeping the feelings of both in mind and still traveling towards the common completion of the project.

The second thing that you need to possess is a real desire and passion for this type of work. It can be long hard hours that often end up with great results that quite often do not get the thanks and accolades that they should receive considering the amount of time, energy and effort that actually go into it. You will be taking absolutely nothing and creating a really cool something from it. As a project manager the ultimate direction and the final result is in your hands.

The one constant thing that you will find in this position, often more than any other is change. Things change on an almost moment-by-moment basis and in the interim you have to keep the people above you happy, the people below you happy, yourself and personal life happy and the clients happy too. Now how much fun is that I ask you?



You need to step back and look at things from many different positions during the course of the project. You will need to objectively check out the possible scenarios and the ''what if'' things in order to assure that the complete project has been thoroughly thought out. The more often that you can manage to do that throughout the course of the project, the more likely you are to have a great killer project and a long career in this business.

You have to be able to take a mid stream correction in direction that would throw a normal manager into a tailspin and you need to act as if it is just fine. That is because in the course of running a project you are likely going to have many things that will happen that will cause a change in direction of where the project is headed and what direction you and your team are going to have to travel in order to make it to that destination successfully.

The more you are able to adapt and overcome without missing a beat, the better off you will be and the more successful your career in this industry in likely to be. The chances are that if you have made it this far in this article, there is a good chance that you have the right stuff you need, to be able to make it as a project manager.