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From Slump to Success: Formalizing the Project Management Process to Increase Wins

Most individuals can manage a project, but the real question is whether they can manage it effectively and successfully. Formalized project management training can help ensure the answer is ‘yes’.
October 22, 2019
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The Project Management Institute (PMI) defines projects in a broad but precise way. They call them “a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service or result.” The broadness of the statement allows it to include virtually every sector, and indicates that each project – even those within the same sector – can look exponentially different from one another.

While the details of each project may vary wildly, the steps of how to succeed in a project remain fairly standard. In fact, the structures of any kind of project in any industry can look strikingly similar. According to PMI’s Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK), there are five basic phases to every project: initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling, and closing.

The goal of the certificate is to help current and future project managers alike to formalize their knowledge in project management to improve project success rates.

Learning how to effectively manage programs runs deeper than just understanding these five steps though, and although project managers may be able to work through a project without understanding such formalized steps, it is certainly more difficult.

The John Molson Executive Centre (JMEC), in partnership with the Schulich School of Business Executive Education Centre and York University, offers the Masters Certificate in Project Management. This program is established as Canada’s most respected project management certificate, and Concordia is one of nine universities across the country that offer it.

Alexandre Aoun

The goal of the certificate is to help current and future project managers alike to formalize their knowledge in project management to improve project success rates. Participants in the program benefit from a learning schedule of 17 days spread out over five months, allowing them to continue with their everyday lives and work schedules with minimal disruption while completing the program. In addition to being an accommodating schedule for busy individuals, participants recognize another key benefit to the program’s format. “It gave us a great opportunity to apply the content, and really understand it instead of going through it quickly,” says Alexandre Aoun, a Senior Accounts Executive and graduate of the program’s 2019 cohort.

Ted Suss

Whereas many programs are targeted to individuals with certain levels of experience, the Masters Certificate in Project Management is beneficial for both participants with little to no project management experience and those who have been in the business for years. Ted Suss, a graduate of the program, has had a Project Manager title for almost 10 years. “Everything I learned about project management was basically on the job, and I didn’t have a wider perspective, or necessarily knowledge on best practices,” he says. For him, it was beneficial to have that experience behind him to back up everything he was learning. “I could tangibly take everything I learned and apply it directly into something in my day-to-day life at work, or at least I could understand how it was applicable.” 

I was highly impacted by the vocabulary and the standards that are expected in project management.

For Suss, it was beneficial to have the chance to take a step back from the project details he works with each day and simply take the time to think about project management as a concept. He says the program gave him the opportunity to sit and contemplate the theory behind project management, a luxury he doesn’t have the time for during his action-oriented, day-to-day work.

Alina Bogan

Alina Bogan, a Senior IT Analyst who works in a project management department also found great value in the program. “I was highly impacted by the vocabulary and the standards that are expected in project management,” she says, explaining that the program offered her clarity on something that once felt almost like a foreign language. While the program did help her to better manage and understand things that occur in her current position, she also says that she believes it opened new opportunities for her future as well.

The program has been designed to define and clarify best practices for its participants, and to create value during project execution – a goal that has certainly been achieved. “Things are a little bit more clear and organized in my head,” Suss says. “I know it’s made me a better project manager and manager of project managers.” 

 

> Learn more about the Masters Certificate in Project Management

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