Moving From an Environmental Consultant to a Project Manager - Options?

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ben127
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Hi,

I currently work as an Environmental Consultant. My job involves project management (managing contractors, finance, colleagues) but is a mainly technical role where I write the technical reports. I want to focus on the project management side of things because I'm beginning to find the technical side of things dull and the pay in an environmental job is very poor.

My question is, should I go and study my PRINCE2 to get a better academic project management background? What types of role might be open to me?

Does anyone have any experience of making this kind of move. My degree is geography and my masters is environmental assessment. I no longer want to work in environmental consultancy because I am driven but fed up of the poor pay and conditions associated with this kind of work and the detailed technical reports I have to write.

Ben
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TonyD
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My advice is this. Go ahead and take the Prince2 training but do it so that you understand the project methodology and how to properly execute and document a project. Don't do it expecting that a company will hire you based on you having the Prince2 certification.

Over here in North America we have the PMP which is the equivalent to Prince2 and I already see a change in the industry for PM postings. Not too long ago (about 5 yrs) you would find that 80% of the PM jobs required the PMP but now you mainly see them say PMP is an asset. My guess is that many companies got burned in their hiring of a book smart PMP certified PM and realized that the experience of the candidate was more important than the fact that they were certified.

Even in my company we had several certified PMP's who couldn't manage a small initiative. That is why you don't see any University churning out PM's because a person can't be taught to become a good PM. The very good pm's are the ones who have this innate ability to lead people, coupled with their real life experience and therefore are able to handle and make sound decisions on a project.

PM is truly one of those fields where studying doesn't do much good and its the actual work experience that really matters.

So for yourself if you really want to become a PM, try to put yourself in oppurtunities to lead a project along with enrolling in a PRINCE2 course so that you know the terms and PM methodology and can apply them to your project.

Good luck!
"When you fail to plan, you plan to fail" - Benjamin Franklin
stonesfan
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Very true regarding soft skills. Dare I say these generally come with general life experience or managing small low risk projects in your existing role. Would definitely recommend PRINCE2 although would agree do not expect this alone to get you a job in PM. If you are one of those ultra sharp, information absorbing academic types PRINCE2 can be achieved in just 5 days of boot camp training. And let's face it you wouldn't put someone in charge of a £50k project let alone a £5 million project on the basis of 5 days of boot camp.

However if you have the soft skills and have worked in a project environment, PRINCE2 could just help you land that job you dream about.

Out of interest I thought PMP was only for existing and established PM's?
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TonyD
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stonesfan wrote:Very true regarding soft skills. Dare I say these generally come with general life experience or managing small low risk projects in your existing role. Would definitely recommend PRINCE2 although would agree do not expect this alone to get you a job in PM. If you are one of those ultra sharp, information absorbing academic types PRINCE2 can be achieved in just 5 days of boot camp training. And let's face it you wouldn't put someone in charge of a £50k project let alone a £5 million project on the basis of 5 days of boot camp.

However if you have the soft skills and have worked in a project environment, PRINCE2 could just help you land that job you dream about.

Out of interest I thought PMP was only for existing and established PM's?
Thats correct. You need to have 3 yrs of work experience hrs or 5 yrs depending on if you have any post secondary education. However not every applicant is audited and I've come across some PMP certified people who couldn't hack it as a PM and I question if they really did have the experience since they couldn't even manage a small initiative never mind a project. The few I came across were not so surprisingly not doing the PM role in our company and were doing technical roles even though they were PMP certified. If you look up other forums you will read up on discussions about how some recent graduates at age 25 were PMP certified and many of us can't figure out how that is possible!

Anyhow point being is these examples have tarnished and diminished the PMP credibility and I wish PMP would do more auditing in to clamp down on these fraudsters. And as I mentioned, these fraudsters have turned many companies to not require PMP, but list it as an asset.
"When you fail to plan, you plan to fail" - Benjamin Franklin
stonesfan
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That's sad that a prestigious certificate has been devalued somewhat by a lack of scrutiny of its applicants. I guess at least, unlike a lot of technical IT qualifications you can't 'cheat' by braindumping the exams. This is also the case of PRINCE2 and APMP. At the very least you have to put in some serious study to achieve accreditation.

I guess though there is always the catch 22 situation that applies across all trades and professions of 'have certificate but no experience' and struggling to get your first break into the roll of which you have trained for.

Guess a logical route to become a PM is (if possible) to get involved in small low risk projects in your current role. Get a feel for what PM entails and learn by your mistakes. Take P2 or APMP or maybe both and achieve accreditation. Then apply for a role in a PMO as project support or assistant PM. Once this far, its all down to you to prove to your company you are worth the promotion to PM.
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