Lora Hemingway, Executive Chronicles |
If you are interested in furthering your career, no matter what industry you happen to be in, you might want to consider getting a masters in project and program management degree. There is always a high demand for project managers, but not all people are well-suited for the responsibilities that come along with the job. If you are wondering whether or not you would be suited to a career in project management, you need only look at the skills and characteristics necessary to become a project manager and you’ll know whether or not this is the right career choice for you.
Project Managers Are Great Leaders
As the title implies, a project manager must by its very definition be a good natural leader. You will, after all, be taking a project from the design and developmental stages right through to completion. This will involve being in charge of a wide variety of skilled workers, not all in the same field, and keeping everyone on task to ensure timely completion and hopefully at or under budget. It takes a great leader to manage the number of personalities and levels of skill you will be asked to deal with, so priority number one is that you have or develop good leadership skills.
Project Managers Must Be Excellent Communicators
Another skill or personality trait you should have is to be an excellent communicator. Again, you will be ultimately responsible for getting everything done in the way it is supposed to get done, in the time frame allotted and to communicate with various workers what needs to happen next. Some people are excellent at seeing what needs to happen but cannot communicate well with others.
That type of personality would be best suited in research and development or in statistical analysis, but certainly would have difficulty being a project manager. Do you have trouble communicating your thoughts? If so, this isn’t a job for you unless you are willing to take extra classes in communications when studying in a masters in project and program management program like this one.
A Project Manager Must Be Detail Oriented
One other important trait of a project manager is being detail oriented. Someone who isn’t able to tune into the small details wouldn’t be good in this position either. Neglecting to take even the smallest detail into account can hold up an entire project for a long period of time which would, in turn, chip away at the profits. This is especially true if those details necessitate backtracking to fix a vital step that was missed.
The most common project management jobs are in the fields of building or manufacturing, but project management isn’t confined to those two industries. It doesn’t matter whether you are a general contractor seeing to the construction of a new mall or involved in the manufacturing of jumbo jets. Your job is to see to it that everything gets done on time and per specs. One break in the chain from research to the end product could result in losing the contract or paying to repair costly errors. Not everyone is well-suited to being a project manager, but if you have these skills, this is one career choice that will ensure a lucrative future.
