About Project management?

Question

If you were to do a project management course what type of things could you manage?

Answer 1

A project management course normally teaches you the "hard skills" that you need in order to manage any type of projects. A project is defined as "A temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service or result". As you can see from this definition we are not talking about a specific industry or about a specific type of project.

So in your project management course you will most likely be taught the tools to initiate a project, followed by planning skills, then you will need to learn about how to execute it, monitor and control it and finally how to close out the project.

This will teach you the PM related skill. A project management course normally does not teach you the industry specific skills. So for instance if you are managing a project in the construction industry, you are going to have to learn the construction specific know how separately. This is why most project managers either start out with small projects in a specific industry or they are already experts in that industry to start with. Like a construction engineer who becomes a construction project manager.

Until next time,

Cornelius Fichtner, PMP

The Project Management PrepCast™ - http://www.pm-prepcast.com

The Project Management Podcast™ - http://www.thepmpodcast.com

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Answer 2

If you became qualified to conduct projects using 'Prince2' methodologies or perhaps PMBOK, you could manage large IT projects.  It is a process recognised internationally.  If you did a course on Microsoft Project, you could help project manage the mess Microsoft create when "improving" their products. ;-)

Answer 3

Project Management focuses on a projects that have defined goals, budget and timeline.    Examples are construction projects, industrial capital expansion projects, or consumer product design, development and launch to manufacturing.

Answer 4

Anything that related to building constructions and building materials.