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Professional Development Plan PDP Assignment

   

Added on  2021-05-30

12 Pages4282 Words130 Views
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLANNAMEDATE

IntroductionAs a project management professional, I am glad that so far I have learned a lot in my schooling endeavors as well as in projects that I have participated in. However, I believe I have just gotten started; like a child getting into upper grade; while I believe I have gained significant technical skills and knowledge in project management, I feel that the real deal is in practical applicable skills and more importantly, the soft skills necessary to become an effective project management professional. This PDP is a honest assessment of the self, as well as an itinerary and plan on how I will improve my skills based on a self assessment and a skills gap determination, to match my future ambitions as a project management professional. My PDP goal is to hone my technical project management skills, gain extra industry standard qualifications and certifications, and improve on my soft skills in order to enhance my overall competencies and effectiveness as a professional development manager. Career Goals and AmbitionsI have high ambitions to get into a senior project management position within five years and become a key decision maker in a large organization, most preferably, a publicly listed company; this is because I believe that the project oriented company is the company of the future; it is the company that will become successful and competitive. My skills as a project management professional will be useful to such an organization. Later on, I wish to pass on and share my knowledge and skills to upcoming project management professionals and to promote the profession as much as I can, by becoming a senior member of the national or regional project management body, such as the project management institute and conducting talks, training, and mentoring lessons. To achieve these lofty ideals, I wish to earn the highest professional competencies and qualifications and also improve my soft skills since I believe these are crucial for my effectiveness. The certifications and qualifications I want to attain are industry standard, and apart from improvingmy skills and offering me new technical and practical competencies, will enhance my reputation and employability in th field of project management. My skills development will occur in phase, acquiring technical skills and certifications and using the gained skills in my employment at a practical level to internalize them before seeking extra certifications. In the next one year, I wish to complete the Project Management Professional (PMP) certification; I believe this should be my foundation course in industry standard training. My college education in the field of project management has been academic; this course (PMP, will provide me with the necessary skills and competencies needed to become a competent project management professional. After 18 months, I want to start pursuing certification in PRINCE 2, undertaking PRINCE 2 foundation and the PRINCE 2 practitioner certifications; these I hope to complete within a year after commencing the training. In these certifications as well, I will study part time and use the

internet and online learning to learn at my personal pace (applying project management approaches in my studies!) and complete the course while practicing the skills so learned in an employment environment. After 2-3 years in employment, I expect to have gained the necessary experience and skills to get a senior position/ promotion or be in charge at least of a medium to large project. After three years, I wish to embark on an MBA course, which I will undertake while also pursuing another project management certification related to IT, specifically, Project Management in IT Security (PMITS); the world is becoming ever computerized, and businesses and organizations are increasingly using Information and Communications Technology (ICT) resources to gain competitivenesses and meet their business and financial objectives; in all these, especially with the advent of cloud computing and big data, security is paramount, and so I believe the PMITS course will give me the technical skills to manage such projects. The MBA course with project management will provide me with the necessary skills in business and management as I have an ambition to become a senior decision maker in a large organization in a period between 10 and 15 years from now. The MBA will provide me with business oriented perspectives to make me a good manager, leader, and decision maker and help the organization(s) that I will work with adopt the project oriented organizational structure and culture. Currently, MBA prograns have become increasingly focused towards project management (Burnsed, 2011; Coolman, 2017).Apart from the highly important technical skills and competencies in project management, I also recognize the equally important role that soft skills, especially leadership plays in project success and in making one a successful team leader and player (Azim et al., 2010). Projects create changes; projects start with an objective, for instance, changing a software system. To achieve the objective, plans are developed to implement the changes that are desired and keep stakeholders involved. Execution of th plan results in the desired change. Change is an important and inevitable outcome of projects; because of this, the project manager works in a unique environment with temporary structures and teams. As such, while management and leadership are complementary, they are markedly different. Manager, including the project manager deals with complexities involved n managing projects, including developing and executing project plans; leader address change (Krahn& Hartman,2004). The role of the project manager as well as that of a project leader are significant and complementary because the project manager also has to be a project leader, and a leader requires specific and unique practical skills and competencies in effective leadership to lead and manage change for projects to succeed (Cserháti and Szabó, 2014). If change is introduced in organizations, the environments in which these projects are managed will also experience increasing change: project manager are thus required to not only apply skills and competencies associated with management, but also to a significant degree, use leadership skills and

competencies to ensure project success. The project manager has a broad role, but which is perhapsdefined in a very narrow sense. Based on what I have studied so far and the projects I have been involved with, including a businessexpansion project plan, I feel that I need to acquire and hone skills in the following areas of leadership competencies as relates project management;People managementConflict resolutionRisk management Influencing, and Project control People management in the context of project management is crucial for successful project delivery and change management because people are inherently resistant to change (De Bakker, Boonstra, & Wortmann, 2010); to ensure the desired changes happen, the project manager needs the requisite soft leadership skills to manage people. People can be fickle, with beliefs, emotions, ego, and perspectives; as a project manager, I need high level skills to manage these human characteristics in order to create a shared vision among teams, deal with their hesitancy to adopt change, and get themto do their best in ensuring the desired changes are successfully undertaken. Based on my experiences, this is an area I need to improve on a lot. Conflicts are also inevitable in project teams, because of human qualities that make machines sometimes better companions; machines will do what they are told, people will either question what they are asked to do or do it as they interpret. This creates conflicts and conflicts and disagreements must be effectively managed to ensure a shared vision is achieved when handling projects. All projects have risks; they may succeed, fail, or succeed only partially. Without risk, organizations cannot define their future objectives; on reason many projects, especially large scale IT projects fail is because risks are not managed effectively. Practical skills in how to manage risks will greatly enhance my competencies as a project manager and as a future senior decision maker in organizations. Influencing is an area I need to improve on; it is a key competency when it comes to getting stakeholders and even team members to take certainpositions. As a project manager, I carry a heavy weight of getting stakeholders to adopt my plans, accept changes that I initiate, and get team members to do more, such as work overtime to ensure project objectives are achieved. Having excellent influencing skills will make me ensure desired changes are achieved by influencing how stakeholders perceive project management and how organizations ought to run projects. I believe many projects fail because at some stage, there is a loss of control of important aspects including the project plan, scope, or the triple constraints. I feel I need practical leadership competencies in project control to achieve my future ambitions and goals

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