What Kind of Degree do you Need for Project Management?
Project management is the perfect role for a natural leader who can communicate their ideas well, organize projects to bring ideas to life, and motivate others to achieve set goals on time. While natural instincts are a plus in this path, good project managers learn the craft in school by taking project management degrees at various levels to meet their educational aspirations. Let's take a look at what project management is and how a project manager might benefit from formal education.
What is Project Management?
Project management refers to the planning, organizing, managing, and completion of your team's work, to achieve set goals within a given timeframe. It is about knowing what your goals are, how you plan to achieve them, how long it will take to attain them, and what resources you will need.
In fact, the primary goal of any project management endeavor is making sure that everybody in your team knows the purpose of the project, its goals, and its scope.
Almost all projects go through the following steps in their life cycle:
- Discover what your client needs to determine the goals of the project.
- Come up with an strategic plan detailing what needs to be done, how it will be done, when it should be finished, and who will do it.
- Start working.
- Check to see if the work is going according to plan, identify problems, and then make adjustments.
- Deliver the project once it is finished and close all contracts after getting the client’s approval.
The person in charge of the planning, management, and execution of a project is the project manager. They make sure that everything follows the vision and quality standards of the client, and are accountable for the failure or success of a project.
The Importance of Project Management
Without project management, the development and execution of projects would be chaotic. Ergo, the discipline’s main aim is ensuring that everybody involved in a given project knows what the goals are, what needs to be done, what resources are available, how long they have to complete the set activities, and to whom they should report if they encounter a problem.
When everybody clearly knows their role and how to accomplish it, your project stands a better chance to meet its requirements. Also, unnecessary mistakes are eliminated, which would require more time to fix.
A project’s chances of success are higher when all objectives are achieved on time and at budget, and the client is pleased with your quality of work. Project management principles ensure that:
- Your team members know their tasks and which resources to use
- You track your time by creating timesheet reports, which allow you to reallocate free time to additional tasks and estimate future deadlines
- You identify mistakes and errors whenever they occur by supervising all your team members, to avoid in future projects
- You assign team members to solve any problems arising immediately
- Your team members collaborate efficiently in real time
- There is transparency and accountability
- Your client can monitor the progress of the project and suggest improvements wherever possible
How a Project Management Degree Helps You in Project Management
Project management remains a valuable occupation that is essential to an organization’s overall success. Project managers are required to manage and motivate a team of employees and supervise large-scale projects from start to finish. Thus, a degree in organizational leadership with a special focus on project management is invaluable in cultivating a unique blend of soft and technical skills.
Earning a project management degree could equip you with the necessary knowledge and skills related to planning, budgeting, negotiating, supervising, communicating, resolving conflict, and other technical aspects.
Why You Need Formal Education for a Future in Project Management
Students who acquire a degree in project management usually end up becoming project managers. Here, you can choose to work in various fields and manage different types of projects including:
- Information technology projects
- Construction projects
- Business implementation projects
- Reengineering projects
Earning Your PMP Certification
The Project Management Professional (PMP) is a globally-recognized certification used by over 750,000 project managers across the globe. The prerequisites for earning your PMP certification are:
- A secondary degree (associate degree, high school diploma, or the global equivalent) with at least 7,500 hours managing projects and 35 hours of education in project management.
- A four-year degree with 4,500 hours managing projects and 35 hours of education.
- To maintain your PMP, you need to earn at least 60 professional development units every three years.
Are you interested in the field of project management? If you want to earn a Bachelor of Science Degree in Organizational Leadership with a Concentration in Project Management, ECPI University offers this degree at an accelerated pace. For more information, connect with a helpful admissions counselor today.
It could be the Best Decision You Ever Make!
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