Sunday, October 19, 2008

Project management

What I find interesting about project management is that we often look for people who have managed similar projects. If you have managed a digitization project in the past, then you can manage a digitization project in the future. However, project management is a skill that can be applied to any type of project. If I can manage all of the steps (and contractors) in order to successfully build a home, then I can have the skills to manage a digitization program. However, I may not have the subject area knowledge about digitization that I need. The good news is that knowledge can be attained.

What has been the most successful project that you have managed? Was it work related or perhaps something that happened in your personal life (remodeling a kitchen, settling a tricky estate, coordinating an international move)? If it wasn't completely successful, what did you learn from it and how will that impact your next project?

If you are interviewing someone for a project management position, consider asking both about professional and personal projects that they have managed. You may find that the person has managed large projects as a volunteer or managed interesting projects in his/her personal life.

If you know nothing about project management, there is an open source project management handbook online. Although written specifically for IT projects, anyone may find it useful. [10/20/2008: URL corrected]


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4 comments:

Martin Locock said...

The link to the Open Source management book points to a news item about Twitter?

Rahul Sethi said...

In my opinion project management learning always comes from practise once you get your hands dirty. Ofcourse a lot of it depends on what your objective is and what is the scope of the projects you'd ultimately be managing. One of the ways to start, apart from reading is to start using Project Management Tools - they more often than not have the essentials of PM built in. I started using Deskaway - taught me a lot about my business and now im dwelling deeper into the subject.

Project Management said...

Great stuff,I really appreciate useful blog,I am also new to project management,thanks indeed.It's very nice.

krishan kukreja said...

yes Jill, project management is a skill that can be applied to any type of project and i agree that the specific knowledge can be attained too.
But !!there is a learning curve for every tool we use and for every thing new that we learn and that impacts the efficiency in other words somebody who has done a similar project earlier brings something extra on the table ( in the form of lessons learned, practical problems etc.. etc.). So, it's the trend to hire an experienced fellow from the same industry.