Required for applying for a Project Manager

This article aims to help apply for a project manager. Project management is a way of promotion. You need to use your past development experience, and your salary is usually higher than that of programmers. The preparation for applying for a Project Manager includes reviewing some frequently used concepts and terms and asking yourself some frequently asked questions during interviews. Learn to use one or more project management planning tools. The above preparations will increase your confidence in your position.

It is important to think about what you want to talk about and prepare to answer a wide range of questions. Different from applying for a technical position, the answers to project management questions are often subjective. It should be noted that the project manager of a technical project is responsible for organizing project members to achieve a certain business goal by completing technical tasks. This technical task should be applied or maintained and must meet the requirements and expectations of customers/users.

The goal of this article is not to teach you how to manage projects. There are many good books, magazines, and seminars in this regard. This article or the bibliography of this article will list some. This article describes how to answer questions and ideas. Based on your own experience, you can observe other project managers and organize the answers based on the job descriptions of the positions you apply. No matter what questions you ask, no matter how you answer them, remember to use the most useful and important features of a Project Manager ....... Common sense.

1. What is real project management?

No successful project can be the credit of a person. A successful project is the result of the joint efforts of multiple departments. These people form a project team with different technical skills, talent, work style, and knowledge.

The project team needs to have a common goal, a common prospect, and a clear understanding of what they want to do. Regardless of the report structure, the team must be able to work well and motivate well to achieve business goals.

The project manager is the leader of the project team. He/she is responsible for motivating the team to actively complete the task. This position requires technical and interpersonal skills, and the daily attention is required (in the following order:

Business

Company

Project

Team

Individuals

Changes in technologies and methods

The skills of the project manager should include technical skills and management skills. A solid technical foundation can provide guidance to the team in the technical aspect, and management skills help to communicate and solve problems. Management skills are not limited to technical aspects, but also include problem-solving, estimation, planning, and interpersonal and communication skills.

You may have realized that you ignore or lack knowledge in some fields. Therefore, the readers of this article are:

People who have never done a Project Manager

A project manager who thinks his skills are outdated

2. What is a project manager?

Project Manager role

Project management repeats the process of estimation, planning, restructuring, integration, evaluation and correction, including management personnel, user participation and problem solving until the project's business goals are achieved.

What kind of people does the management need?

Every manager is looking for someone with the ability to accomplish a specific business goal. The most difficult thing is to understand what they know and what they can do. It is difficult to know how many people are needed. Therefore, you must make recruiters think you are sincere and reliable. This is not limited to projects, but also includes keeping in touch with management and customers.

Management refers to the ability to respond freely in both favorable and unfavorable environments. When the problem is not described in detail or there is no available solution, you must show your management skills. If you ask the management team to solve all the problems, what else do you need? The management team is doing your work.

Personnel management skills

Understanding people's psychology and their way of working is one of the essential qualities for project managers. Everyone is different. By understanding how you work with others, you can relieve stress and facilitate communication.

For many years, IBM's slogan is "respect everyone ". This is manifested in understanding the people you contact in your daily work. To do this, you must understand yourself and know how you motivate others or put pressure on others.

Reading books on Myers-Briggs personality type analysis is a good start. The questionnaire (MBTI miles-brigs personality targeting) produced by Catherine Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs-Myers helps people discover their personal styles and their impact on the team. This questionnaire was developed based on Carl Jung's "psychological type. Such books can be found in all categories of self-improvement and psychology in the bookstore.

You should understand your work style and remember these practical experiences. The items listed below should be the second instinct to get along with people. It is also a common sense for every project manager who wants to succeed:

Respect every employee (supplier)

Listener

Make knowledgeable decisions

Do not criticize others in public

Understand your strengths and sequence of work

Sincerely listen to the opinions and suggestions of team members

Have a clear understanding of objectives and delivery products

Promote cooperation and information sharing in the IT team

Understand everyone's work style and their advantages and disadvantages

Praise should be expressed in a sincere manner as a favorite of team members

Regard negative effects as opportunities for growth

Provide guidance in a positive way

You cannot manage what you cannot control

As mentioned above, project management is to execute a series of repeated tasks to accomplish a specific business goal. To complete the task, you must establish a control system. Therefore, we are prepared to address the following issues:

Measurement method: If the measurement method is not properly managed or used, it will have a negative impact. The measurement method can be used as an "input" for planning. It can be used to collect statistics during and at the end of a project, providing a reference for the next phase of the next project or project. It is inappropriate to use a measurement method to evaluate employee performance.

Project Plan: key checkpoints of ongoing tasks can be obtained by developing a project plan. These checkpoints are road signs for achieving business goals. Remember that a project plan is not only useful for new development projects. They are equally important in support and maintenance. Many project managers make the same mistake. They make a very good plan, but never put it into practice. In fact, they seldom work as planned.

Budget: Make a budget when estimating and preparing a plan. Many project managers need to make and manage their own budgets. If you make the actual work progress consistent with the plan, your work will become relatively simple. Most project management tools have the cost (by hour, day, or year) related to a resource. The financial department of many companies considers resource fees include general enterprise management fees. In addition, some companies may calculate the project name or user based on the management method and the employee and consultant respectively. (For consultants, they should also consider their overtime) equipment costs should also be considered separately. Remember to consider the software tools and hardware required to run the project application. (For example, a color printer in a sales department)

Employee work plan: people are valuable in any project. A person can promote the success of the project, the smooth progress of the project, or damage the project. The employee work plan can play a constructive and practical role in employee growth. Most organizations have their own formats. However, whatever the form, the following items must be included: clear responsibilities; objective evaluation of the advantages and disadvantages of employees; and opportunities for employees to participate in the formulation of their development direction and evaluation.

Rewards/stress for project management

The role of a project manager is a double-edged sword. This position must be under pressure and will be rewarded accordingly. Once you become a project manager, you must be prepared for both.

Everyone will be rewarded for successfully completing a system. It is a special reward for project managers to help employees develop their potential. People are the most important element in any task. It is proud to use your management skills to create a dynamic team.

Personnel are also the greatest pressure. After all, people will be affected by things that are not under your control. Project managers are required to deal with family difficulties and personal conflicts between team members.

The project manager is the first thing you need to do about applications or team members. Senior leaders and users think that you are the only owner of projects, such as project delays, missing requirements, System bugs, and errors.

3. Prepare for the interview

Books, magazines, organizations and seminars

The Reference Directory of this article lists many effective management practices. Find management books, including technical management and business management. Read books and articles written by management masters, such as Peter Drucker, c.a. Gallagher, and a.maslow. They provide management knowledge that is used in any field. Information management Masters such as Tom DeMarco, M. Page-Jones, Ed Yourdon, L. L. Constantine provide many well-organized and proven methods.

If you want to work with users, you need to read a professional book about fields. Understanding the business is more important than understanding the technical environment. In fact, the interview process is becoming increasingly popular. To be more prepared, you can buy a Harvard Business Review. This is a good magazine and applies to business readers as well as IT management. Many it magazines, such as the CIO Magazine and the bibliography listed in the reference books, contain articles on project management and personnel management. These magazines also contain general or detailed technical articles.

You can contact the American Management Association (AMA) and other business organizations to obtain management information. It is worth mentioning that, in 1990s, the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) of Carnegie Mellon University proposed the management software process. The latest standard version is sei9000.

Many technical seminars, such as the Digital consulting and Technology Transfer Institute, have project management and technical seminars in different fields. Another way is through your organization. They may offer courses on authorization, negotiation, and listening skills, all of which help you prepare for project management.

Software you should know

Master a project management tool. For example, Microsoft Project and Applied Business Technology/Project workbench. All these tools have many effective project management methods and glossary.

In addition to the tools mentioned above, there is also an increasingly popular tool that can help with planning, cost estimation, and management methods for projects in different technical environments. This tool is lbms/process engineer with a case interface.

If you have used such tools, you can include them in your resume. Of course, you must not only master tools, but also have solid basic knowledge and project management methods.

A project manager must be knowledgeable. Email communication has replaced telephone and mail memos. Many companies have their own systems and many others use Lotus Notes. No matter what product you use, you must have the following performance:

Be able to contact people in different geographic locations

Can effectively notify the team (including suppliers) of change scope and progress

Can quickly solve small problems

Remember the differences in people's ways of work. introverted people prefer to communicate via email. In this way, they can have time to think about the answer to the question instead of making the answer immediately at the meeting.

As a project manager, you may make reports and presentations ). Therefore, it is necessary to master the word processing software and graphics software. These software can be purchased on the market. List the software you will use on your resume.

Searching for ideas

There are good project managers and poor project managers in any industry. You can get inspiration from two types of project managers (what should be done and what should be avoided ). If possible, ask some excellent project managers how they do it. If you are not clear about your career development path, you can take an article you have just read and ask these project managers about this article.

A successful project manager is marked by an active team with a harmonious atmosphere, the trust of top-level leaders, and the respect of users. Consistent action is another sign, and it is the basis for measuring leadership. Good project managers should understand the strengths and weaknesses of each employee. They think that failure is not a disadvantage, but a learning opportunity.

The project manager must establish a set of professional standards. However, it is a failure for a project manager to manage based on a set of perfect examples. This demonstrates their versatility, but it also reflects their lack of authority and communication capabilities. The negative practices of employees who wanted to work actively can ruin the project manager. Your technical skills should be used to guide and train employees. If you are involved in programming or design, you are neither developing your team nor working as a project manager.

Project Planning Technology

The following are the terms and charts related to project planning that are often mentioned during the interview. Most project preparation tools use some or all of the terms and functions. You should review one or more useful project management tools, which helps you to familiarize yourself with common technologies and functions.

Chart type:

Gantt Chart: a chart that describes the project progress in graphs, especially bar charts. Each bar symbol represents a different meaning. For example, the bar symbol and/or color of a key task may be different from that of a Non-key task. The symbols of the summary task (activity or stage) may be different from those of other tasks.

PERT diagram: Uses flowcharts to represent the current dependencies of all tasks. PERT refers to the plan evaluation and review technology, which is a network diagram.

Task List: Lists project plans in a text or vertical manner. Generally, at least the following sections should be included: task number, Task Name, start date, End Date, duration and work efficiency.

Work breakdown structure: the structure of project tasks and/or activities.

Key Path: a path that runs through the entire project. It indicates that the dependencies between tasks involved in the project are successfully completed at a limited time. Adjusting the task time progress in the key path will affect the delivery time of the entire project. A Key Path (CRM) diagram is a network diagram used to control project progress and coordinate project activities and events.

Deliverables: tangible things that prove the completion of one or more tasks. For example, Logical Data Model.

Dependency: the relationship between tasks affects the start time of one or more tasks. For example, you cannot start programming before figuring out the requirements.

Jad/Simplified Method: Joint Application Design (simplified in the 1990s term ). A set of result-oriented, brain-oriented, and shared conferences with a shared set of commercial purpose information. This method was developed by IBM in 1970 and consists of a fixed, structured process, under the leadership of an experienced implementer. The simplified approach removes some structures, however, it still requires that all parties participate in all meetings and a recorder with modeling technology for recording. Participants include project teams, management (and users), and administrative officers. For the success of the meeting, everyone must understand and agree to the purpose and resolve their tasks as soon as possible.

Latency: the latency between the task end time and the start time of the task. This allows overlapping and stretching of the task end time and start time.

Methodology: a clear, organized, repeatable, and structured method/technology for a general purpose. These techniques or guidelines define steps, tasks, roles, purposes, and deliverables that are required for successful implementation of any system.

Measurement criteria: a consistent and repeatable method for measuring the size and complexity of a project. The standard preparation uses one of many methods throughout the project lifecycle. Today, the company uses the following popular methods:

A) function (Allan abrecht)

B. Important Events (Tom Demarco)

C) weighted average

D) code line

Milestone: the end of an important event in the project's life cycle. A milestone is usually an activity on a critical path. It does not have to be a tangible deliverable product, such as a logical data model, but it can be a user's affirmation of the work results.

Stage/activity/Summary title: summary level concept. Not all project management tools emphasize specific stages and digest-level formats, but many standard development methods use these terms for work breakdown.

Rad: Rapid Application Development (which can be detrimental to incorrect use ). One way to speed up development through Application Builder, modeling, and quick prototyping tools. The biggest improvement is to add a quick prototype throughout the development lifecycle. This provides excellent tools to understand user requirements before coding.

Resource limit: a plan and schedule developed based on the number of available resources, skill level of each resource, and resource work schedule.

Scope change: adds features required by the original design without evaluating the impact of personnel, time, or cost. Scope change may be proposed by a commercial user or enthusiastic programmer. The two affect system delivery and cannot be estimated, analyzed, or recorded.

Key points in the interview (even if questions are not asked)

If you have no management experience

For those who have never formally managed a project, they may have been informal. In those cases, when emphasizing their technical advantages, it is necessary to clearly state that they do not recognize the skills they have mastered. You can mention how you have to lead a large development team without authorization. It should be emphasized that without a solid technical foundation, your engineering tasks and estimation decisions may be overly simplified. When you are a project leader, you need to provide technical coherence to avoid team overload.

If your technical skills are outdated or different in the future technology environment

You do not need to understand how the technical environment works, but you should understand general concepts and features to determine the capabilities and weaknesses of the environment. Many project management skills are beyond the technical scope. Therefore, if your technical skills are outdated, you can still emphasize that you are technically responsible for being independent. The types of applications you manage and their commercial functions are mentioned. It mentions how the team effectively achieves the goal. Emphasize your management philosophy. When talking about superiors, people with the same status as you, how do your users and subordinates evaluate your management capabilities? Remember to mention any business knowledge you have mastered. During the interview, you should leave your fear of your skills falling behind. Once you have the job, you will be able to ask experts in the company. Informal bodies of experts from various aspects are available in all organizations. You can look around and find them out.