Skip to main content

Why study Project Management? One word - jobs!

Is there really a need for project managers?


If we look at all the advances of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other key technologies are bringing, this really takes some convincing that there are jobs. In fact, we see jobs disappearing already in recent with the coming of the AI age but my opinion is that project management expertise will still be something that is required and there will be a gap, if we do not address this soon...





I just sat through a webinar titled "Bridging the Talent Gap for Project Sucess" by Benjamin Breen, a VP at the Project Management Institute (PMI) and he provided some insights on what PMI says may be a problem...

Here are some screenshots below of the presentation slides 



The first screenshot tells us that currently, there are about 90 million project management-oriented employees across the world, but this number is projected to increase to 102 million by 2030. Thus, there are 25 million employees needed to meet global demand, or 2.3 million annually in job openings. 
  • 12 million employees driven by expansion: new products, new buildings, new infrastructure
  • 13 million employees driven by retirements of current and existing employees
I can say this...most project managers in my company are mostly in their late 40s and 50s - we need to build up some technical expertise before taking up the PM job, typically a first-level manager. So yes, retirement is not too far away. 


The next screenshot is about the geographic locations of these jobs. Note that a large portion of the PM jobs are in China, which kinda makes sense since they are probably the fastest growing region in the world - in terms of technology, manufacturing, construction, healthcare, etc. A possible reason is the support from the authorities in politicial and even financial support, esp. in large mega-projects such as those in construction, railways and key technologies in semiconductors, rare earths, energy, and many others. 



Next come South Asia (India) region and Asia-Pacific. Again, these are from developing countries climbing their way up. Then it will be Europe and the Americas. Obviously, if there is project, we will need project managers to ensure that things run smoothly. 




The good news is that there are available jobs in PM but the not-so-good news is that few are doing it. And it is concerning because of the number of "alternative" jobs. 


If one starts talking to high-schoolers, it is crazy (at least for me) that a number of  high-schoolers who is wants to be a full-time Youtuber or Tiktoker, or a professional gamer when they grow up...versus pilots, doctors or engineers. Well, if the younger generation are only doing Youtube, then there is a GDP risk of billions if the projects do not have sufficient leaders with the expertise to drive the project to meet the schedule and budget. We are talking unnnecessary loss of close to $350B (billions) worldwide. 




Where are these jobs? There is still growth from acress the board but the top few will remain at manufacturing, information and in finance. While there will still be job losses across the board esp. for jobs related to software, IT and computer-related jobs, the good news is that the situation is not really that bleak for those interested in leading projects. 


Project management is crucial to address the common pitfalls. These include:
  • Over-optimism where we underestimate the time required, the cost and the complexity 
  • Scope creep where we were to expand the alrready good work we are doing, but fail to address the additional risk and resources 
  • "Now" planning where we focus too much on the short-term benefits without asking the questions for the long-term good

Aside from looking only at pitfalls, another way is to do well in project management is look at best practices that builds towards the pinnacles of success. These include:
  • Planning slow and acting fast, once all the plans are in places and risks have been addressed
  • Reference-class forecasting to make sure there is a market + demand for the services
  • Setting clear goals and to have the ability to say "no" to asks that do not meet the goals
  • Thinking in "bricks" and not "building", which is the ability to break up comple taks into smaller, achievable actions. This also mean that each and every small action will deliver the value incrementally to finally reach the end-goal 
 

For more information on how to get started in the world of project management, do take a look at the book titled "Simple Project Management" for more information.  The book can be purchased from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo (e-book only) or directly from the Partridge. 


Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

Time Management or is it really Project Management?

We have been told since young by others that in order to do something well, we need to have good time management.  As one who leads projects for a living who knows a thing or two about this, I will say that time management is a fallacy.  Purely speaking, time management  (just like managing people) refers to managing time in which we control time, i.e. we can accelerate it (to make it go faster), slow it down, or to stop time. We can do this with a lot of things but we cannot manage time - it continues to chug along, whether we like it or not. If you were to ask me the time and my answer is, say 9:00am, that time is already gone because it is 9:01am when you continue with what you are doing.  Time is like a freight train or a subway that we can only latch on to and hope we can do things within the allotted time. Ask the student who needs to submit the paper at 11:59pm Sunday night or the employee who need to submit the report Mon morning 9:00am.  In truth, what ...
Read more

The Mental You - Reducing Stress part 2

Just like there are always 2 sides to each story (the good and the bad), we can tackle issues in 2 ways - either head on or perhaps we can do something opposite altogether. The previous post is primarily concerned on how to overcome stress by reducing it. Another way is to focus on something totally unrelated to stress. So, rather than looking at fixing the bad, we focus on the good such that there is little room for the bad.  Let's work on this together... Positive Thinking  What do you see if you turn on the news, or start looking at social media? More often than not, aside from the beautiful people and cute cats, the news is mostly gloom and doom. There are wars and rumors of wars, climate change due to global warming causing floods, and other disasters, earthquakes at various parts of the world. So, it's no uncommon for us to no longer see the world in rose-tinted glasses but glasses with murky lenses. And yet, to reduce stress, this is the one thing we must do - to think ...
Read more

Parenting

How did you do it? This question has been asked by many of my friends and colleagues when they found out about my children. We had initially thought that what we went through is typical. But as we talked to more and more people, it is only then we realized that the journey is not so common after all.  Singapore has been ranked amongst the top countries in the world by PISA, short for the Program for International Student Assessment that is under the OECD umbrella. In some years, it is actually ranked number 1. In other words, to be able to get through the Singapore education system is difficult enough as it is.  The Journey to College  By the grace of God, both my kids did well in the system by being selected into the Gifted Education Program (GEP) - for the top 1% of students - and then getting into Raffles Institution (supposedly the number 1 school in Singapore), and achieving straight As in the Singapore-GCE Cambridge "A" levels, and then receiving offers from a few o...
Read more