You can read the books and soak up the theory but at the end of the day it is experience that counts and this is particularly true where project management is concerned. A successful project is delivered by a project manager with a wide range of hard and soft skills but top of the list has to be experience. Those of you who have read my other blogs will know I enjoy quoting the old adages so here is another – ‘there is no substitute for experience’.

So how do you get this practical experience?

Having just graduated, or having been given your first project, it is important that you realise that projects are not a solo act where the project manager takes on responsibility for the entire project including all decision making. A successful project results from a team effort and you should be able to find some of the experience you need manifested in the other project stakeholders. For example, some of your team may have worked on similar projects and will have a good understanding as to what is required.

Another way of building your own experience using others is to attend a project management course run by a time-served project manager. Their insight into the discipline of project management and more importantly their real world ‘war stories’ will enable you to enhance your arsenal of tools and techniques which will serve you in good stead when it comes to running your own projects.

Your organisation may be one which keeps project documentation. Quite often this is a job carried out by the project management office. These project histories can show, among other things, what went well and, perhaps more importantly, what went badly, helping the newly appointed project manager to avoid pitfalls. Similar projects as the one the inexperienced project manager has been asked to run also assist in the creation of task lists, identification of task dependencies and in the calculating of initial estimates for time and cost. With a similar, sometimes referred to as an analogous, project the project manager can use the actual times (or costs), slightly ‘tweaked’ if necessary, as estimates. At least the estimates have some basis or rationale. Further, project histories will give the new project manager insight into the risks and issues that the analogous project faced. Whilst there cannot be any certainty that these risks and issues will arise in your project, they may give some pointers to likely areas of risk.

Having little or no experience should present little problem to the inexperienced project manager. The trick is knowingwhere to find it.

Written by Bill Cleary- a professional consultant with 35years experience of delivering successful projects and building highly productive teams. He has been involved in the training industry for over 20 years and currently works with QA- leading experts in project management training. A practical problem-solver and effective trouble-shooter he has delivered a number of business critical projects for diverse clients in Information Technology, Training, Financial Services, The Civil Service and a Local Authority.  He also set up and ran his own London-based Project management training company and holds a number of academic and industry-recognised awards.