Not Too Exciting, But Necessary

HOT READS FOR THE PRACTITIONER

Title: Project Management

Competency: project management, planning, controlling, administrative control

Who benefits: employees involved in project management   

Consultant Usage: possible references for employees

What’s it about? One of the competencies this site supports is project management.  In my nearly 150 Wednesday posts I have never written anything about this competency.  I feel slightly guilty but remain uninspired.  It is not a thrilling topic.  But project management has grown exponentially during my career and much too often people are thrown into a project without the proper skills.

If project management holds no interest for you, stop reading this post.  Come back next week.  Maybe I can thrill you with another topic. 

If you are involved in project management, and especially if you have that sinking feeling, I have some development suggestions for you:

Workshops:

If you live in the greater Los Angeles Metropolitan Area I can highly recommend the The Caltech IRC 10-Day Project Management Certificate.  All classes are on Saturday at Caltech in Pasadena.  Einstein did a lot of learning there.  You can too.

If you live out of the area and would like entry level courses in project management, the American Management Association offers courses all across the United States.

If you live somewhere on the planet and would like more advanced training, I can highly recommend Kepner-Tragoe Project Management and related courses.

Videos:

If viewing is your thing, check out the slightly offbeat website How To Find Project Management Training on YouTube Like A Ninja. 

 Or you might want to go to an introduction the PMP certification process at Project Management Professional (PMP) Video Training.

Books:

If key concepts and fundamentals of best-practice project management techniques are what you are looking for, try Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Project Management.

McGraw-Hill has a good reputation as a publisher of quality books and The McGraw-Hill 36-Hour Course: Project Management, Second Edition should not be an exception.  The book is very broad and less nitty-gritty than some more technical books, but I like the way the authors put project management in a greater context.  

Website:

Visit ProjectMinds for a lengthy list of  project management educational programs (including online), websites, software (some free), and associations. They also provide a free download book and a number of free articles.

Well if you have read this far, the above should keep you busy.  As for me, I have to move on to my next project.

Catch you later.

Bill Bradley

Bill Bradley (mostly) retired after 35 years in organizational consulting, training and management development. During those years he worked internally with seven organizations and trained and consulted externally with more than 90 large and small businesses, government agencies, hospitals and schools.