A Career in Project Management
Abstract
This paper describes some of the functionality and benefits of project management in an
information technology environment. The paper provides a comparison of leadership and
management roles. The paper shows how project management skills relate to information
technology jobs in the scope of real world examples. From this paper you will be able to
see some of the requirements, some of the challenges as well as some of the benefits of
becoming a project manager in an Information Technology field. This paper will give some
insight on project management in general as project management can range from a small
privately owned company to global corporate project management.
A Career in Project Management
Program management is the effective implementation of change through multiple projects
to realize distinct and measurable benefits for an organization (Becker, 1999).
Many people confuse program and project managers. Smaller companies such as Nextel
Partners, INC. (2002-2007) did not have a budget for both project managers and program
managers, so they made the title Program/Project Manager. For descriptive purposes
program managers generally work on ongoing “overall” courses of action, such as
maintaining low cost structure, working the business efficiently to maintain or expand
budgets and working with the operations teams to help ensure smooth transitions with
changes in production or productivity issues. Whereas, project managers are typically
working with specific issues that are time based and help individual issues that collectively