How to Become a Project Manager: A Comprehensive Guide

If those responsibilities sound appealing, you probably want some more details on this career path. In this article, you’ll learn about the responsibilities and job profile of technical project managers. Continuing your education can help you advance your project management career and position yourself for future leadership roles. An MBA in Project Management is specifically designed to prepare graduates for upper-management positions, such as general manager, department manager, team leader, operations manager, and more. If you have yet to become certified, your MBA program can prepare you to sit for the Project Management Professional and Professional in Business Analysis (PMI-PBA) exams. At the entry level, you can expect to assist a lead project manager and eventually take ownership of small projects or specific tasks for larger projects, such as budgeting or client relations. As you gain experience and expertise, you may have the opportunity to lead entire project teams.

• Top management often gets to make the final decisions; therefore project management process is so hard to implement in a company where the principal and project managers hold similar powers.
• If you’re looking to become an IT project manager, Jennifer Bridges, PMP, explains the job description, skills, qualifications, path and training involved.
• Continuing your education can help you advance your project management career and position yourself for future leadership roles.
• If you want to take on more responsibility at your current job or are just starting out and believe you’d be a great project manager—the market needs you!
• “I do not have the technical skill to become a software development project manager.” I hear this all the time.
• They should also be able to analyze data and assess risks objectively.

Hiring managers will expect to see a resume from a Project Manager, so you’ll want to highlight all your technical skills, as well as your soft skills, on your resume. Check out this guide on how to build a technical resume, as well as this advice on how to showcase your soft skills. Our Learn How To Build A Website Skill Path is a great way to learn the basics of web development while also learning how to collaborate with developers.

Become an Assistant Project Manager Now

Because you’ll be earning a technology degree, it’s a good idea to use your electives to learn more about succeeding as a business manager. Expect to work at one or more entry-level jobs to gain at least a few years of work experience. Then, you may be qualified to pursue a role as an IT project manager. You can also work on earning one or more voluntary certifications to further your career goals. In fact, the career path to becoming a project manager without a degree is all about developing your hands-on project management experience. The IT project manager’s objective is to successfully lead information technology projects to completion while staying on time, on budget and within a predefined scope.

User Interface Designers and User Experience Designers are people of art. Software Engineers are people who write code and do all the mental work to develop a software application. Software is actually all the software applications and programs on the hardware you use. It includes apps that you use on your Mac, PC, smartphone. Once you are surrounded by software engineers, QA, BAs, and so on, you start to learn everything like a sponge.

Organizational Skills:

Once you’ve figured out your existing project manager management skills, you can build on them by learning some hard skills in project management. These include Agile methodologies , the Waterfall software development method, risk management, planning and forecasting, resource allocation/budgeting, and analytical skills. According to Jennifer Bridges, PMP, the meaning behind project manager qualifications can change depending on the business and the role they’re hiring for. Essentially, a project manager who’s qualified has the temperament, skills, and experience needed for the position. Typical requirements generally include at least three years of experience in a related role, the ability to communicate, formal training, and a PMP certification. Certification can be acquired through a professional association, a university or college, or through a specially focused online learning program. The IT project manager career path lies at the intersection of business and information technology.

If you specialize in a sector such as information technology, you can also pursue industry-specific project management certifications, such as the CompTIA Project +. Usually, you will need to gain work experience after graduation before you qualify to sit for this exam.

Lot’s of Job Opportunities for IT Project Managers

With this course, you’ll learn how to use the latest project management tools and techniques, and how to deliver a project on budget, on scope, and on time. You’ll also develop leadership and people skills, and obtain the 35 education hours required to take the PMP certification exam. Your project management career can start with a project manager or business administration degree. Not having a diploma in project management is not a disadvantage; if you study it daily in an academic environment, you’ll have a head start. It’s never too late to switch to a career that suits your interests. Usually, projects will belong to another line of business, such as software, art, logistics, economics, linguistics, etc.

• When it comes to hard skills, you should know that there is no specific project management skill.
• So again, they have an interest in becoming a project manager for the IT part of the project.
• If you’re interested in starting a project management career, you don’t need a degree in a specific field.

Most project management roles require a bachelor’s degree or higher. You can start your project management career with a degree in business management, but some universities also offer specialized programs in project management. As a result, most professionals enter a full-time PM role only after earning a degree in project or business management. Other degrees that can help launch you into your PM career are economics or business analytics. You can earn the PMI’s PMP certification—largely considered the gold standard in the industry—with only a high school diploma. However, to qualify, you must have 60 months of professional project manager experience, while bachelor’s degree-holders only need 36 months. You also need either CAPM certification or 35 hours of professional development courses in project management.