Call me... a Project Manager
This achievement has been probably one of the most difficult this year but also the sweetest. I am finally a qualified Project Manager (in the making) - I have passed my Project Management exam on Tuesday, 26th June after three weeks of continues terminology, mock-up tests and 9 to 5 lectures.
Originally, I was looking at doing Prince2 Project Management, Foundation lever certification but after a quick chat with the trainer here at the University, he assured me that the Agile PM (Project Management), Foundation level programme is better suited for someone who works in the creative field. This course was three weeks long along with my other day-to-day responsibilities and it felt a bit overwhelming at times. Luckily, there were other people from different business backgrounds that were enrolled in this programme and it made me feel a bit more comfortable as it kind of shared my worries along with the group. Each session we had to go through the previous slides and check if everything has sunk in. At times it felt more like I was sinking in... It was a lot of theory with industry standard terminology and for someone who hasn't used this language - this can be breathtaking. Despite, my concerns and worries, I have to say this again, I am so happy I signed up for it and most importantly passed it with an amazing grade. It was a real learning curve that is now slowly getting into practice with the work I do. To make this a bit clearer, here are some of the reasons why and how it will benefit you as my client:
Flexibility - this course taught me how to adapt to ever-changing projects that are customer driven and maximise the productivity through various control and time management techniques.
Clearer and consistent communication - According to some statistics, communication is the key factor to project failure (have a full read of the article here). Not on my watch though! This course has focused on this and allowed me to define these aspects even more in my personal practice.
Collaboration and co-productivity is a must - it is all about how you manage to input your creative talent and your client's vision into one final product. I will be looking into allowing my clients to work more closely with me in order to achieve the best results.
Testing, Developing and Reflecting as much as you can - allows you to improve the final product/service much quicker than if you do it once. Agile PM promotes this and highly-recommends to attempt as many sessions before the final product... and even then - draw a conclusion, which you can use for the next project.
Time management sits in the heart of everything - monitoring your performance against the time you have to complete the work is essential to the Agile knowledge-based approach. It allows you to relocate resources to other areas if needed and achieve your targets even before the deadline (if this is executed the right way).
These are some of the important points I will be taking further in my photography and hopefully, it will make sense to you as well on how this will increase the quality of our relationship.
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