On the plus side:
- Its enjoyable – never a dull moment. Projects are new and creative, processes are boring!
- It’s a transferrable skill – once you understand Gantt charts you can run any project in any company – you’ll need a good team to handle the detail but you can get that.
- Project management will always be in demand because companies are always growing and changing and creating things.
- It’s great experience for anything else – money, leadership, customers, suppliers, quality control, estimating etc – it’s like running your own little business
- It’s pretty well paid, usually. If you’re not being well paid then have a look around for an employer that will appreciate you.
- Processes grind on for ever, with 5% extra wanted every year. Projects do end!
On the minus side:
- You can only LOSE on the listing of tasks, estimating of times, risks etc – things never go better than planned, because otherwise that course of action would have been your plan – so it’ll always be worse than you planned.
- The three circles are usually impossible – you can’t have a great job very quickly for hardly any money – and yet that’s what the customers always want, and often what the sales people have already promised them!
- You are only visible if it goes badly – if it goes well it was ‘easy’ and you probably won’t even be noticed
- Projects are DIFFICULT – because they are one-offs, into the unknown
- They are also stressful – you are clearly accountable and any failures will be clearly visible, and often you don’t own the people on your project, you’re juggling a lot of things, and there is always a crunch point at the end
Overall – yes, go for it, it’s brilliant. You are changing the world – often CREATING it!
onwards and upwards!
Note: information on Project Management Qualifications here
