How to Become a Project Manager

Project managers are an important part of any IT project. They are responsible for organizing, coordinating and managing the work that occurs as part of an IT project, and contacting anyone active in the project. Being a project manager isn't an easy feat - but it’s rewarding and can be an enjoyable job role! In this post, I share some suggestions on how to become a project manager.

The First Step - Career Progression to Project Manager

Firstly, let’s outline some of the ways an IT professional can become a project manager. Typically, IT professionals begin in an entry-level position, in a technical role, one that is very hands on with technology. This could be a software developer, tester, network engineer, or other similar roles. They typically get some experience in this role to find out how the IT industry works, how the company functions, and what the job role involves.

The next phase depends on many factors like the individual, the organization they are employed in and the job market at the time. Most of the time, the next step to become a project manager is to move into a team leader job. This tends to give you a a bit more responsibility, and will assist you to develop your communication skills and management, both skills necessary for project managers.

After getting some experience as a team leader, quite often the next phase is to move into project management, either as a junior project manager next to another senior project manager, or as a full project manager.

Now, the path I outlined is just a general one. Your experiences and opinions may vary - which is actually a good thing! Having various paths to the same goal is yet another reason why IT is such a good industry - there are a lot of choices! To actually progress from one role to another, though, you need to learn different skills.

What Skills Do Project Managers Require?

The thing that makes project management jobs so different to other jobs are the skills that they require. Some of the skills that project managers need to learn are:
• Communication - the ability to speak with different types of people in different varieties of roles is important for a project manager
• People management - Dealing with people’s workload, requests, issues and accomplishments is one other important skill for all kinds of managers
• Time management - There are numerous things which happen in a project management role, that time management is a crucial skill to have
• Leadership - General leadership qualities are helpful for project managers
• Planning - The ability to make plans, stick to them, and come up with alternatives if (or when) they go off target is significant.

Additional skills or traits that project managers should have include responsible, hard working and honesty. These are what separate the regular project managers from the great ones.

How to Become a Project Manager From Your Current Position

The big question for you is how do you get to become a project manager from the position you’re in now? There are some things you’ll have to do if you'd like to get there:
• Assess your own skills - Look at your own skills and choose where your strengths and weaknesses are. I would assume that your strengths are directly related to your job role. You’re probably good at speaking if you’re a business analyst or good at analysis if you’re a network support engineer.
• Rate yourself on the project management skills - The next thing is to rate yourself on each one of the skills which are necessary for project managers (see the above section). The relevant skills that you’re not confident in are the ones you’ll have to concentrate on improving.
• Start with small experiences - A good way to start learning to be a project manager is to start taking on small elements of a project manager role. You could speak to your boss about it, perhaps taking on some planning tasks, or writing minutes, or organizing resources - all this experience is going to be helpful in becoming a project manager.
• Look for junior project management roles - You can do a search on a job website (not while at work, though!) for more information about the job descriptions and prerequisites for the role. This will assist identify what you need to do to get to a junior project management standard.
• Look into project management qualifications - There are a few entry-level project management certifications that you may find beneficial to obtain if you’re considering a project management career. Two of the most common ones are the Prince2 Foundation and the Certified Associate in Project Management (CAMP) (more on these in a later post).

If you start studying project management, taking on some tasks a bit at a time, and enhancing the skills that project managers need, it should place you in a great position! Lets hope these pointers have shown you how to become a project manager!