Project Management: How a PMO Can Make a Difference

Recently I attended a Virtual Conference hosted by the International Institute of Learning (IIL). A presentation by James C. Brown about how a PMO can make a difference was very insightful. Today I want to share some of what I have learned from him about Project Offices and the value that they bring.

PMO Perceptions

Often there are many perceptions about Project Management Offices (PMO’s) in organisations. They are considered to be ‘Report Generators’, ‘Process Creators’, ‘Infastructure builders – building and maintaining costing, time-keeping and scheduling tools etc’, ‘Dashboard/Scorecard experts’, ‘Organisational home of Project/Program managers’, ‘process police’ and so on.

In reality a PMO is and should be much more than any of the above. Let’s take a closer look at what the goal of the PMO should be.

Goal of a PMO

According to James Brown and the research that he has done, the goal of a PMO is the following:

“The right information at the right time in the right hands.”

For a PMO the commodity is information. How a PMO manages and communicates that information to others so that they know where it is, have it at the right time, and it’s pertinent to them to use it, interact with it, and make decisions with it, is the key to success.

When you want your PMO to deliver real value, you need to make Portfolio Management your goal. This would include:

Strategy development
Revenue planning and budget development
Functional resource management
Project execution

And how all of the above relate to one another.

James Brown states that for a PMO to be successful, the PMO needs to make life easier for the stakeholders by providing data that they need for decision making and making visible what projects have done for the organisation at any given time.

Types of PMO’s

Traditionally there are 3 types of PMO’s:

Auditing – responsible for auditing methodologies and compliance with quality and standards.
Enabling – to improve the maturity and effectiveness of project leaders
Executing – actively engaged in implementations, responsible for facilitating and doing project work.

The ultimate vision, according to Brown, is to be a bit of all these types, but being flexible depending on the needs of the organisation. For a PMO to survive it should become agile, which means it must learn to adapt and overcome challenges.

Some critical success factors for successful PMO’s are:

To support the vision of the Leadership team (innovation, cost savings, growth etc)
Focus on value delivered from a stakeholders point of view
Support decision management with data that matters to stakeholders
To improve forecast capabilities
To provide near real-time data that is always accessable

Subscribe to RSS for more project management articles in future.

Please share in the comments section if your organisation has a PMO and what your perception is of the value that your PMO delivers.

January 7, 2013December 24, 2018 Linky

How To Manage Projects In Today’s Risk Economy

By Fredy Rhoehrs
Plenty of risk, slow growth and unpredictable forecasting is what I hear when I am speaking with project managers today. Large organizations are facing big challenges in today’s economy. The most obvious of these is the euro zone’s debt crisis, which will limit growth for companies across the entire world.

More preoccupied with risks than opportunities, companies will remain cautious in their spending and project management investments.

“When a risk occurs, with some ingenuity, this may open up an opportunity, and conversely when pursuing an opportunity there will be associated risks. Risks are generally deemed acceptable if the possible gains exceed the possible losses.” – Rory Burke

What’s the view?

I believe project managers today will need to have an objective view of required contingency to account for cost and schedule uncertainty as well as analyzing the cost effectiveness of risk response plans. All project managers should be able to run applications and technology in order to:

Identify common scheduling pitfalls that may result in misleading schedule or risk analysis results
Integrate pre-developed risk registers and define new risk registers
Address full lifecycle risk management through advanced Monte Carlo-based cost and schedule analytics
Report confidence levels with regards to finish dates, costs, float, internal rate of return and net present value

What’s the solution?

The solution lies in following a systematic process of identifying, analysing and responding to project risk over the full life-cycle of a project and being able to report accurately on risks and risk management plans.

One such solution is provided by Oracle’s Primavera software. Risk Analysis is a full lifecycle risk analytics solution integrating cost and schedule risk management. Primavera Risk Analysis provides a comprehensive means of determining confidence levels for project success together with quick and easy techniques for determining contingency and risk response plans.

You are invited to watch this educational video from the Primavera Youtube Channel related to how to reduce risk and complexity in large organizations:

Mega Project Management: Reducing Risk and Complexity

Let me know what your thoughts are and please enter your comments below in order to understand if your business challenges today could be resolved using Oracle Primavera.

About the author:

Fredy Roehrs is an experienced business development consultant for project management solutions in Oracle Primavera. With proven business relationships in Middle East, Latin America and Spain; he can provide real solutions to all the project management challenges your company face today.

For a better understanding of the Oracle Primavera application click here.

December 17, 2012 Linky

Memorable Project – Past Forward

A novel approach to preserving memories before it is too late

By Lisa Chait

Picture the scene: It’s 2054 and a 15 year old somewhere in the world is putting the final touches on his family tree for a school project. He goes online using the latest version of the iPad (can you imagine it?) and types in his mother’s maiden name. Google throws up a few bits and pieces but one particular find catches his eye. It’s a YouTube clip of an interview with a woman who somehow looks familiar.

He has already used Geni.com to get a broad layout of who is who in his ancestry. With the amazing reach of the Internet and input from others around the globe – each contributing data and photos – the grid is rich and full.

The woman whose interview Google has found is, according to the tree, his great, great, great, great grandmother. It is the very first time he has come across her. Excited, he clicks the link … and watches her come alive.

‘Dear family’, I am your ancestor and I know most of you watching this will never meet me because I will be long gone.

But I want to tell you my Life Story because it is who I am. And more importantly, it is who you are and where you come from.‘

Memorable Project

The clip is part of the Life Stories Project that was started in 2010. Essentially what this memorable project does, is to record memories so that clients can have a record of the stories and personalities of their ancestors for future generations. Simply put, it helps people Talk Across Time.

People record their parents, grandparents, colleagues or friends stories and sometimes their own Life Stories are captured as a family legacy for their children and children’s children.

These stories offer a window into a world that will be lost forever with their passing. And they also magically take you back into the locations, stories and personalities of their parents, grandparents and even great grandparents. They have a precious key into the past that will now be preserved forever through their telling. It is about recording history NOW for future generations. Not leaving it until it is too late and we are left saying, ‘We should have’ or ‘I am so sorry we didn’t.’

The Life Stories Project team consists of researchers, interviewers, camera people and sound recordists, commissioned to record peoples lives and then edit them into beautifully watchable or readable experiences (DVD, Audio and written). The team trawls through amazing photographs and old film, discover letters, documents and fascinating mementos. They ask questions and get wonderful, moving, funny and poignant answers, supporting people to share what is most precious – the story of their lives.

The project goal is to create thousands – even tens of thousands – of conversations across time and geography that are archived forever on DVD, CD and in text. But also available online on open or private platforms so that they don’t get lost and are accessible and sharable at the click of a button.

It doesn’t matter how you do it! Use a cellphone to record, sit down after dinner or go and visit a family member. Just take something down. Anything! Or consider using the Life Stories Project team to come and handle it for you. Don’t regret not having captured your heritage.

In terms of the project vision, the team doesn’t look for lives worthy of blockbuster scripts, or ones that publishers might consider bestsellers. The project supports wonderful regular folk whose story is important and fascinating because of its intrinsic and genealogical value. Every life is important – and even more so when the family wants to capture it. The simple idea is to help people share these stories with the future. And it is the greatest privilege to do so.

To find out more about Life Stories please visit: www.lifestories.co.za

And remember to let us know in the comments what you think of this project!

About Lisa Chait

Lisa Chait is a former history teacher and radio talk show host. More recently she has co-produced, written and presented the SABC3 television and online series ‘I Am Woman Leap of Faith’ (www.iamwomanseries.com). At last count it had 38 000 online viewers. Lisa has sat up a pole for charity at the V & A Waterfront raising R1.2 million for the prevention of child abuse. Lisa is also the passionate founder and project director of Life Stories www.lifestories.co.za.

Contact Lisa on info@lifestories.co.za or +27 72 3776211

November 26, 2012June 17, 2024 Linky

Project Management – 7 Tips to Effectively Manage Project Meetings

As a project manager you have to deal with multiple meetings almost every day. Whether you plan for which meetings to avoid or attend, you cannot deny the fact that meetings are crucial for planning and delivery of projects you manage.

In these meeting, you may to interact with your project team members, colleagues, customers, partners, project sponsors, senior management on various aspects of projects like issues, plans, progress, risks, budget, resources, etc.

As a project manager, you always have limited time and if you are anyway going to spend it in these meetings – why not utilize it to the best possible extent?

Here are 7 tips to help you in effectively managing your meetings.

1. What do you want to achieve? (Objectives)

Unless you have clear objective(s) to achieve as a result of a meeting, the meeting and discussions may not lead to anything useful to organization also, potentially wasting every attendee’s time. Before you call for a meeting or attend a meeting, ensure that you have clearly defined objectives that you would like to achieve.

2. What are you going to discuss? (Agenda)

Meeting agenda sets the roadmap for meeting – as what meeting participants can expect. As an organizer you should share meeting agenda with everyone invited, well before the meeting.

3. Who is going to drive it? (People)

If the meeting is expected to conclude in terms of some decision, you will have to ensure that there will be a senior representative – decision maker, present in the meeting. The steering committee may make all useful discussion, but if it is going to be a senior manager who is expected to approve it, organizer should inform him/her about it and invite them to meeting.

4. Are you discussing off-topic and wasting time? (On-track)

It is not uncommon to see that meeting discussion goes off-topic, sub-group of people starts discussing within themselves. As a meeting coordinator, everyone would expect you to direct all such discussion to the point and that you insist everyone to focus on the agenda.

Of course, quick humorous notes/comments are just fine to make the meeting environment little relaxed and healthy.

5. Criticize concepts/concerns and not people

Project team members and stakeholders may have differences, liking for one topic over other or preference for one resource over other; however it is important to focus on the concepts, ideas rather than preferences in people.

Sometimes, meeting participant may tend to criticize other attendees. If you are in the best position; you should drive them to discuss the concept rather than the proposer.

6. Understand, Accept differences and Propose Solution

Sometimes there are bound to be differences of opinion and for meaningful discussion, you need not have unilateral/consensus on a given topic. As a meeting attendees, you should be able to accept these differences, record those and understand what works best for your organization and meets the goal of meeting.

7. Share MoM, Action Items to follow up

An equally important point to carry out is post-meeting activities. Always record minutes of meetings (MoM), enlist action points with a due date and assignee and share this information with all meeting attendees.

I am sure, as a project manager you have plenty of meetings to attend every week, too many emails to go through and plenty of agenda, MoM, action items to search through. There is no easier way of organizing all information than using central meeting manager system.

Bottom line

A meetings is like a drawing board and it’s critical to the success of project planning and delivery. You should carefully plan for it, attend and conduct it effectively.

How do you make your meeting more productive? Please share your experiences in the comments.

About the Author:

Dhan is co-founder of Zilicus, the technology company that offers online project management software – ZilicusPM. ZilicusPM helps organizations in managing entire lifecycle of projects with advanced project planning, risk management, issue tracking, timesheet management, meeting management, document management, resource management, reports and dashboards.

November 19, 2012March 25, 2018 Linky

The Right Internship Can Give Experience and Career Opportunities

By Jennifer Moore

This article is aimed at students who consider internships to expose themselves to more career opportunities, for example in project management. Also discover 5 tips for best performance on internship programs.

As a college student, you may want to take on a business internship. This is a type of on-the-job training that prepares you for your future career, whether this is in project management or any other field. Suitable internship opportunities can give you a better feel for project management and what it entails, especially if you happen to find an internship program that allows you to use your creativity, initiative and ability to guide others.

Why Should an Internship Interest You?

Just as a student studying Education needs experience in teaching, business students need internships offered by businesses. However, future employers also look for graduates with some professional experience out of the classroom. They look for candidates that take initiative and do more than just the coursework necessary to get their degree – and a project management internship could give you this experience.

Where to Find this Type of Internship

While many businesses offer specific internship programs, many of these don’t deal with project management, as this can be a delicate and complicated process. If project management is your aim, then you could look for this type of internship in the non-profit sector. It is easier to find a non-profit with internship positions for students that pertain to getting a certain project or process completed.

Once you do find the right project management internship program, then you want to follow these 5 tips for best performance:

#1 – Understand the Details

If you take on an internship offered with the sole purpose of completing a certain project, be sure you understand what the project goal is and the company’s expectation is. Ask all the questions you need in order to understand the expectations of the project sponsor and what defines project success. This will allow you and the team to develop the plan and to verify the goals.

Identify the project success criteria, how each of the tasks will be accomplished and tracked, and the time frame for when these will be achieved. This is part of the Planning phase of a project.

#2- Identify Team Responsibilities Early On

Once you have a plan you can determine what you and the team are responsible for. Whatever your project is, remember that this is not an individual study. A project team is a working unit, sharing one goal, but each member has its own responsibilities. If you take on the role of project manager, you need to identify the skills and talents of each individual team member and put those skills to work (much like your sports team coach does).

#3 – Identify the Project Milestones

With the help of your team members, you should identify the project milestones. Remember that each project has four phases; initiation, planning, execution and closure. Evaluate the process of the project against these phases and place time limitations on each of these.

#4 – Project Communication

One of the most critical parts of project management is to communicate regularly with stakeholders like management and team members. Keep everyone informed of the process and keep communications open, honest and as concise as possible.

#5 – Test the End Result

Before delivering the end results you should review, and if possible, test the results to make sure they are correct and according to expectations before delivering the finished product.

Conclusion

Many students are apprehensive about entering an internship program, and some even more so when it has to do with project management. So it’s important to realize that any company that gives you an internship position and project to manage, won’t give you any project that they don’t feel you are completely capable of handling.

As an intern you won’t receive a critical business project to work on. Even so, any project offered to you offers you a great opportunity to gain experience in the field. It offers you the opportunity to learn how project management teams really work and what is expected of you.

About the author: Jennifer Moore, an experienced business and tech writer, once worked on many training-team business projects for large corporations such as General Motors, John Deere and Trico. She frequently contributes to Degree Jungle, a research resource for college students and young professionals.

November 12, 2012May 24, 2016 Linky

Project Managers are you Lazy and Smart?

Recently I attended a Project Management Conference in South Africa, Next Generation Project Management. One of the Keynote speakers was Peter Taylor, who became known for books like “The Lazy Project Manager”, “Leading Successful PMO’s” and “The Lazy Winner”.

The Art of Productive Laziness

In his presentation about “The Art of Productive Laziness”, he introduced us to lazy project management. What he means by this is that we should all adopt a more focused approach to project management and to exercise our efforts where it really matters.

One of the quotes he likes is: “Progress isn’t made by early risers. It’s made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something” by Robert Heinlein.

Making this applicable to project managers, what he’s recommending is to identify the 20% of work you need to do today to get 80% done and that will move your project forward. In other words, prioritise the most important things first.

His Lazy Project Manager’s Theory of Projects, from a Productive Laziness perspective is:

‘All projects are thick at one end, much thinner in the middle and then thick again at the far end.’

According to the productive lazy rule, a smart project manager should apply time and effort at the critical stages of a project, i.e. the start and the finish, and less time in the middle or the less critical stage.

At the beginning a project manager needs to be ahead of the game by making sure you agree on the project scope, manage your Sponsor and properly plan your communications.

Learn as much about the project sponsor as you can from other project managers who have worked with him/her, and have a discussion with the sponsor to ask open questions about their expectations and concerns. Try to understand the sponsor as best you can.

Customise communications to be appropriate to the stakeholders. Do regular health checks and work with the people on your team and encourage them often.

Lastly he shared some best practices relating to the project retrospection that happens at the end. The prime directive for this is to make it clear that regardless of what is discovered, the team understands and truly believes that everyone did the best job they could, given what they knew at the time, their skills and abilities, the resources available and the situation at hand.

Some of the Key questions to ask include:

What worked well?
What should be done differently next time?
What do we need to discuss more in greater detail?
What did we learn?

I found it to be an interesting and valuable perspective on project management. Leave a comment and tell me what you think!

To learn more about Peter Taylor, his books and workshops, please visit The Lazy Project Manager.

November 7, 2012July 2, 2024 Linky

Project Software Selection Criteria for Non-Profit Organizations

By Sarah Clare

Non-profit organizations have special needs when trying to manage the resources to meet their goals. Unlike for-profit organizations, they primarily rely on a “staff” of volunteers, and the majority of their funding comes from grants and donor funds. Project software must have special characteristics to help non-profits meet their goals.

Here are just a few selection criteria that non-profit organizations can use when choosing the right project management software for them.

Ease of Use

A large staff of volunteers may not have much technical expertise or feel comfortable learning complicated software systems. Any project management software that you choose, must be easy to use and learn. Basecamp is one example of an easy-to-use program that allows you to track projects and tasks in an online system.

Ability to Handle unique Accounting needs

The software program, Serenic Software, offers a market-specific success kit for NPOs that helps with maintaining a current, accurate, and transparent picture of your financials.

Ability to Manage Volunteers

After fundraising, recruiting and managing volunteers is one of the biggest tasks that non-profits face. Project software should make that job easy by allowing you to monitor all your volunteers in one database. Podio is one useful system that allows you to collaborate with your team, monitor tasks and projects, and monitor your recruiting efforts.

Free or Low Cost

Non-profits are always working on a budget, and being at the whim of grants and donations makes it especially important to find ways to cut costs. There are a few options for free or low-cost project management software, like Basecamp, and Huddle. Explore these options to find one with the best features to meet your needs. Cost shouldn’t be the only factor, even though it’s an important one!

Project software can help you to better track your goals, manage the work of your volunteers, manage recruitment, track grant application and expenditures, and much more. It is important to keep these criteria in mind when shopping for project software, including trying to find some free or low-cost options to meet your budget.

What other criteria did you use when selecting project management software for your non-profit? Share your picks in the comments!

Sarah Clare is a writer and researcher for projectmanagementsoftware.com, which offers advice and reviews of project management solutions. She has recently been researching project planning software. In her spare time, Sarah enjoys cooking and scrapbooking.

October 31, 2012 Linky

Leadership Skills for Project Managers

Good leadership skills are what make a good project manager great. This article will explore the attributes that would make the project manager a great leader.

Inspire a Shared Team Vision

For a project to work, everybody needs to share the same vision for the project. Great project managers help all team members feel like they have an equal stake in a project, and empower everyone to share and experience the group’s vision. When team members share a similar vision, they are committed to deliver their best.

Integrity

Good leadership requires commitment and adherence to ethical practices. Good project managers abide by ethical standards and reward those team members who follow suit is part of the responsibility of the job.

Great Communication Skills

Project managers need to clearly communicate goals, performance and expectations; and they need to manage feedback coming at them from all directions. Being accessible, open, and direct is critical for being a good communicator. Further, having the ability to persuade team members to do certain tasks a bit differently, or work overtime when necessary, is equally as important. Overall, a project manager’s overall effectiveness is often realized by the ability to communicate effectively.

Competency in the Subject Matter of the Project

Team members need to feel like their project manager has some degree of expertise in the project’s subject matter. As such, project leaders should have the ability to lead their team with technical expertise if the project so requires it. Leaders who are seen as competent by their peers have the ability to inspire, enable and encourage.

Promote Team Building

A project manager must understand team building dynamics. He or she must go through each phase of team development – even when conflict arises – and get the team to focus on the common goal. Great project managers foster a sense of unity on the team, across personal dynamics.

Good with Task Delegation

Assigning the right tasks to the right people and trusting them to leverage the best of their abilities is a key characteristic of a great project manager.

Good Problem Solving Abilities

Great project managers solve problems by sharing the responsibility with the experts on their team. This means leveraging the knowledge of those team members and stakeholders who have the expert knowledge to assist; and setting a plan to solve tough problems by harnessing that team experience.

Stay Cool Under Pressure

In a perfect world, every project would complete on time, on budget, and on scope. Unfortunately, when the going gets tough, good project managers remain calm. Warrant Bennis stated: “Out of the uncertainty and chaos of change, leaders rise up and articulate a new image of the future that pulls the project together.” Great project managers stay cool under pressure.

I like this definition of Leadership: “leading is about establishing direction and influencing others to follow that direction”. This is a good indicator of how project managers should lead their project teams.

As a project manager you lead and facilitate the team members to work towards the same goal consistently.

About Linky van der Merwe: Linky is the Founder of Virtual Project Consulting. Her mission is to provide project management best practices and to recommend resources to aspiring and existing project managers. A certified project management professional with more than 13 years project management experience and a track record of more than 30 successful projects.

October 23, 2012 Linky

The Lighter Side of Project Management

Today I want to share a few proverbs on the lighter side of Project Management. Most project managers will enjoy the humour!

October 13, 2012 Linky

Project Management Leadership Master Class

By Kiruben Reddy

This promotional article is aimed at seasoned project and programme managers in South Africa who aspire to be more successful and outstanding in how they deliver projects. The information to be presented will also apply to CEO’s, Managing/ Project/Chief Directors, Engineering Directors, Project Leaders, Operations Executives, COO’s, HOD’s, I.T. Directors, Municipal Managers, Financial Project Managers, Team Leaders, Project Planning Managers, Business Analysts, Construction Managers.

Organisations more than ever are under pressure to operate and deliver more effectively and efficiently, place greater emphasis on stream-lining internal operations, increase focus on customer needs, on superior service delivery in relation to competitors and within shorter timeframes. This is necessary to retain their existing customer base as well as to increase their market share. With the current rate that Companies are moving at globally, coupled with the pace of change, now more than ever an organisation’s ability to execute (on time, on budget, to stakeholder expectations) is not only good for business but is a necessity.

This shift in mind-set requires organisations to have the ability to manage and effectively utilize their resources to the best of their ability to derive direct tangible value through the projects they initiate.

The Project Management Leadership Master Class will provide you with the essential insights in today’s industry and project efficiencies and touch on what’s required today to initiate, manage, monitor and drive delivery through the life cycle of a project successfully. Delivery is not only measured by the fact that it was brought to existence, but the manner in which it was executed and whether it is in line with the original expectations and business benefits of what it was intending to deliver.

Key strategies to be discussed, include:

Implementation of a project lifecycle methodology
Risk Management
How to deal with shortage of project management skills in South Africa
Achieving project results through our people

For more information, download the Project Management Leadership Master Class brochure and register for this today.

About the Author: Kiruben Reddy is the General Manager of Solutions Bridge, a 100% Black Women Empowered company and is Level 3 B-BBBEE certified. Your organization can recognize 110% of your spend for the Leadership Master Class hosted by them.

October 4, 2012March 25, 2018 Linky

Project Managers – How To Find Happiness In Your Job

By Ryan Sauer

Today’s article is about matching your work style with a dream job. It shows how you can assess your strengths and skills; then how to create a transition plan to move you towards your new job.

Working in a field and within a work setting that matches your own instinctive abilities and workplace needs can make a world of difference in how you perceive your job and your goals.

The Conative Connection

When people place themselves in a role that matches innate work styles then the job feels right. You know the feeling even if you have never heard of the theory.

When people are most unhappy in a professional situation it is often because the job they are doing doesn’t match their inherent talents or desires. The Kolbe Index made me re-consider my career path and also see co-workers differently. Someone I perceived as stubborn in my other part-time workplace, I began to see as having a different way of problem-solving as me, and so I needed to shift communication tactics when dealing with that person.

Overall, the assessment provides insight into four main categories of instinctive “action modes” that people inherently use for creative problem-solving; these are:

Fact Finder – addresses the innate process an individual uses to gather and share information.
Follow Thru – addresses the “arrange and design” part of the work process.
Quick Start – addresses the way “risk and uncertainty” is interpreted and acted upon.
Implementer – addresses elements of dealing with “space and tangibles.”

The test then matches those indicators on a continuum of workplace strengths such as being able to: “specify, maintain, modify, and imagine,” among others. For each area people have varying degrees of innate tendencies; working with a team that is balanced across the continuum makes for a highly effective workplace.

Work Style and Happiness
Knowing your work style can help you narrow down the sorts of jobs that best match your conative ability (and also clarified for me the type of work environment or team that I was or was not willing to collaborate with in the future).

It also gives you glimpses of what your perfect job would be and lays a foundation for getting there. Here are some job ideas in growing fields based upon a few highly simplified work style tendencies:

If your passion is being analytical and seeing a problem through until its completion then these areas might be a good fit:

project management
business analysis
software testing.

If you are more inclined to work on a sustained problem alone and in general feel the need to interact with people less, then here are some growing career fields would allow for that flexibility:

ROI methodology;
forensic accounting; and
IS security.

If it turns out that working with big ideas and using your innate charisma to influence teams and sustain growth is your passion then these areas might be a good match:

Six Sigma Leadership;
HR management; and
Business administration leadership.

Transitioning Smoothly
By and large everyone I have ever known that took the Kolbe Index found long lasting insights that are directly applicable to life at the present moment. You might feel that overwhelming sense to jump boldly on over to new meadows. Channeling some of that energy into creating a plan first is a great idea. Consider the following before your take the leap on over to your dream job:

Take a few online classes while you are still employed at your old job to be sure you have what it takes to be competitive for the transition.
Attend a few of the local chapter meetings held by professional organizations in the field(s) you are considering.
Attend a regional conference to learn more about key topics in the field, career growth, and employment opportunities.
Join LinkedIn and participate in forums related to your prospective field.
Explore volunteer or paid internship positions (most professional organizations have lists of opportunities on their homepage).
Identify an affordable and knowledgeable career coach and create a more detailed time line and action plan for the transition.

In a tough economy competitions for jobs is fierce; passion for a job is not enough to secure employment. Creating a strong transition plan will keep you focused on you dream, but also able to feed yourself in the meantime.

Ryan Sauer is a writer and editor for Bisk Education in association with University Alliance. He actively writes about project management and leadership in different industries and strives to help professionals succeed in getting their PMP certification online.