If Life is a Series of Projects, What Are You Doing to Succeed?

Project management is one thing we all have in common. Every person and every organization does projects. When you come right down to it, life is just a series of projects. From selecting a college and applying to it, to getting the grade you need on your class projects, to successfully studying for exams and – finally – graduation. Each of these events is a project that you have to manage.

After college, you get a job and that, too, becomes a project. Then, if you choose to look for someone to spend your life with – that’s a big project. From there, the project list goes on: Buying your first home, managing that home, and managing change as your life continues to evolve. Sound familiar?

For organizations, projects are the life-blood that flows from department to department. Those organizations grow and succeed based on their ability to successfully complete projects. Whether it’s developing more efficient ways of operating, upgrading a financial system, getting a new product to market, launching a new promotional campaign or upgrading a facility, all of these activities require Project Management.

As we all know from experience, some projects fail and some succeed. So, how can you make sure you’re on the winning side? Getting certified as a project management professional (PMP) is one way to stack the odds in your favor. When you improve your ability to manage projects, you can achieve more personal success and help your organization become more successful as well. And success is infectious on teams. When people become better at doing projects, they inherently raise the capability of everyone else around them as they step into leadership and mentoring roles.

The PMP certification is more than those three letters. It’s a solid foundation of knowledge that helps people and organizations improve the way they do projects. It gives people a common base of knowledge to build on together, creating a unity that can’t be underestimated when a team works together from the same starting point.

An important part of successful project management involves understanding how people learn. People develop capabilities through four levels of learning: awareness, knowledge, skills, and mastery.

In order for learning to occur, people must first become aware that they need to further develop their capabilities in a specific area. This awareness drives the desire to learn more about a particular subject matter. For instance, a project manager who consistently finishes projects late and over-budget may realize that he needs to learn how to manage his project team better. With this awareness, he can now determine how to improve in this area.

Once people are aware that they can develop their capabilities and become more successful, then they need to create a foundation of knowledge upon which to improve. Pursuing the PMP certification helps people develop that critical base of knowledge to improve their project management capabilities. With the PMP credential, people develop more self-confidence to learn and apply new skills in their day-to-day work, ultimately achieving a much higher level of success with their projects.

With more success comes more skill, and with the consistent application of skills, eventually there is mastery. Mastery is the highest level of learning, where people have consistent outcomes whenever they apply their skills.

How important is project management and your mastery of it? Consider this: In its 2003 CHAOS Chronicles Report, the Standish Group reported that the lost dollar value for US projects in 2002 was estimated at $38 billion with another $17 billion in cost overruns for a total project waste of $55 billion against $255 billion in project spending. Without a consistent approach to project management, losses to the bottom-line can be significant. When you’re a master of project management, you directly contribute to the bottom-line.

If you or your team members want to get achieve mastery in project management, earning the PMP credential is a great way to start building the knowledge foundation needed for individual and organizational success.