What Kinds of Obstacles You Will Meet As You Want to Transition to Project Management
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We Are Often Limited by Skills
Several months ago, I read a post on Reddit talking about transitioning to the project management. The role was a marketing manager, but he said often he handles many project management stuff, which made him think about transitioning into the project management.
But he was kind of hesitant to make the decision for some reasons. Firstly, he was working remotely with a satisfied salary, and he was afraid of his wages being reduced due to the transition. Therefore, he decided to consult others for assistance.
Well, when I read the post, I felt sympathy for his internal status because I’d faced the similar situation as I tried to transition to a project manager from a software engineer. Anyone who’d like to make a transition in their career path would inevitably go through similar internal struggling.
Why Are We Afraid of Transition to Different Roles?
Anyone hopes to get things right for the first time, not to mention their career path. Unfortunately, that is not always the truth for most people, even for me. When it comes to career transition, there are many factors impacting people to make decisions. Let’s talk about the primary 3 reasons regarding the marketing manager. Well, I think it might fit most scenarios when you were considering career transition.
- Salary Deduction
Firstly, it is the salary that matters to influence our decision. Most people get hesitant because of possible salary deduction when they try to transition to a different role. Take the marketing manager as an instance, he doubts whether he could get satisfied salary as he does now. After all, some people need to support their family. Salary deduction would impacted their decision.
When I started transitioning to a project manager, I also had the same doubt, because I don’t have much experience as a formal project manager despite that I’d handled partial stuff, for my manager. Therefore, I felt stressed about the decision.
- Position Change
And another reason is position change. If you were a supervisor, and then you became a subordinate. Can you afford the mental shock? The role also mentioned his concern about the lower position for the change.
In terms of career transition, that seems inevitable to confront the situation since you need to get familiar with project management stuff entirely again to ask for another position raise. In my opinion, this part won’t impact me a lot except salary deduction. If that could fully helps you understand what project management is, the position change is desirable.
- Work Adaptation
The reason is kind of implicit. In fact, it indicates that you are going to do different things as you transition to a different role, and more than you think of. From the example, the marketing manager said he had revolved around project management. But he did not reveal how much he was involved in; we could not predict how much he would get accustomed to when he transitioned to project management.
For most people who’d like to become a project manager, they don’t have a clear preview what the hell they are facing. Maybe that would be beyond their original imagination, even if they feel having done much about it.
How to Strategize The Career Transition?
If you read here, I believe you are eager to know how to transition to an ideal role in your career in a smooth manner. You might ever have came across the similar doubts as the marketing manager did. And in this article, I’d like to share some doable approaches to assisting you transition to an ideal position without much effort.
In the beginning, I hope you could find the opportunity of the internal transition in your company. In this way, you could get the best option without paying too much, especially your salary. If you don’t dislike you current position but are still seeking a transition, try to talk about the idea with your supervisor. He might not be able to help you right away, but he would know you have the idea. Once there is an opportunity for that position, he would definitely think of you.
Besides that, for those who have no idea what project management is actually doing, joining a bootcamp is another option to understand its content. As I know, many bootcamps would design some side projects aiding you to experience the practices rather than just obtaining a certification. And you could connect with people having the same goals.
Last but not the least, buying an online project management course is the simplest way to helping you decide whether to make the decision. Some people have wonderful imagination regarding what they want to transition to, but they don’t get to the core of it. Learning from online course provides you fundamentals about project management. And you could apply the knowledge to the project you are working on, to create experience actively.
Let’s recap the strategy here.
- Internal Transition
- Join a Bootcamp
- Buy an Online Course
Well, I Don’t Use The Above Strategies …
In fact, I didn’t apply any strategies I mentioned in this article. Some readers might ask me why. Because when I made the decision, the seed had been in my mind for a while. So I directly transitioned to the project management by applying for the job.
That did not mean I did it right away. Instead, I failed for the first time, and then became a system engineer for a while. Fortunately, a certain HR felt I was suitable for their technical project manager due to my background and experience as a scrum master. So I was able to transition to project management without salary deduction, and even raised.
As time passes by, I come to understand 2 primary core skills a project manager should have: authorization and empowerment, I always apply agile methodologies to implement the skills, and have been far away from the technical domain.
Coach’s Murmur
As you made a decision, try to afford any possible results. In fact, anything we meet is a good thing that tells us something we need to know. Transitioning to project management essentially broadened my vision no matter to team building, goal alignment, and management practices that empowering members to achieve product goals.
If you still feel a little concerned about transitioning to project management, feel free to reserve a web call below with me.
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