Project manager - RE-TRAINING but in what?

[edison]

if you switch focus you will almost invariable end up at the bottom end of rates, there are very few and far between roles around £600 a day for any roles, so coming in as a newbie and having that exception is less than ideal. Reskilling to keep current, I'm all for (I've changed focus at least twice in my contracting career) but doing it to keep at top dollar straight away won't work.

If rate if your key factor, have you thought about skilling up rather than across? You say you are a PM, have you tried Programme roles?

That's a very good suggestion but the trouble is there are so many programme managers also not working at the moment so competition is tough. Along with programme manager roles, maybe look at developing skills in Portfolio Management/P3O?

[andyg]

been contracting in the project Manager space for about 15years and given market, would like the opportunity to retrain and specialise in what is considered to be ‘hot’.

Security seems interesting but I have no idea where to start?

Aim is to be employable at all times and be able to earn upwards of £600/day. Current market conditions make it hard given influx of PMs, change managers etc

Thanks in advance

Cloud Security; I'm currently at HMRC as a security architect. Lots of work on, PMs with some security experience are in demand. There are plenty of online course that you could take to give you enough knowledge to be able stand on your own. Remember, you are the PM so are not expected to have in-depth knowledge. Look for courses that cover migrating business applications to the cloud, security controls in the cloud. Good luck

[nomadd]

been contracting in the project Manager space for about 15years and given market, would like the opportunity to retrain and specialise in what is considered to be ‘hot’.


Thanks in advance

Member of Parliament.

or

Tax Inspector (esp. IR35 investigation.)

[Mephisto]

Grief, I've only been on the boards for three minutes this morning and already I'm feeling sorry for myself!

Good morning fellas.

This is why I only check in every now and then to see what's what. It's thoroughly depressing on here generally.

Contracting is finished, Bob's taken all the good gigs for 100 a day and distributed it to all his mates offshore, what roles are left are INSIDE IR35 and subject to 99% tax, what's the point any more etc.

[LondonManc]

If you’re a PM then logical steps are agile scrum lead, product owner or similar. Learn Jira and the concepts of pure scrum - 5 sprint ceremonies etc - and you’ll be well placed. A backlog is just a Gantt chart with no dates on it.

[BigDataPro]

If you’re a PM then logical steps are agile scrum lead, product owner or similar. Learn Jira and the concepts of pure scrum - 5 sprint ceremonies etc - and you’ll be well placed. A backlog is just a Gantt chart with no dates on it.

This is exactly what I have been saying. PM's naturally fit into Scrum Master roles as it is more talk and less technical.

1. Do a Scrum course + certification
2. Watch YouTube to get an idea of how it is done and learn those terms (Sprint, Retrospectives, 3 Amigos, Acceptance Criteria)
3. Familiarise yourself with tools like Jira
4. Finally reword all PM experience as Agile/Scrum in your CV

[eek]

This is exactly what I have been saying. PM's naturally fit into Scrum Master roles as it is more talk and less technical.

1. Do a Scrum course + certification
2. Watch YouTube to get an idea of how it is done and learn those terms (Sprint, Retrospectives, 3 Amigos, Acceptance Criteria)
3. Familiarise yourself with tools like Jira
4. Finally reword all PM experience as Agile/Scrum in your CV

Hardly - Scrum masters are supposed to remove anything that hinders work being done, your typical PM is the greatest impediment you could add to a project.

All the good scrum masters I've dealt with come from a dev background.

[Paralytic]

Hardly - Scrum masters are supposed to remove anything that hinders work being done, your typical PM is the greatest impediment you could add to a project.

All the good scrum masters I've dealt with come from a dev background.

This. I've seen so many conflicts arising out of PMs moving into Agile and not changing their thinking - especially those PMs who traditionally micro-managed their teams. It takes a while for some to realise they don't lead or manage the team - they are part of the team and, in some respect,s actually report to the team (servant leader)

It is definitely a viable career path, but requires a different mindset and different/additional skills.

[Lance]

in my experience failed project managers aren't any good at anything else.
The good ones usually can do other things and that's what makes them good. But they tend not to do anything else.

IMO the OP is best off trying to carry on being a PM but look at what projects he/she specialises in. Focus on the, rewrite the CV to ensure that the last 5 years match that specialisation.

When the market is slow diversifying is not going to help as everyone else is doing that.
Narrow the focus, and put the price up.

[BigDataPro]

Hardly - Scrum masters are supposed to remove anything that hinders work being done, your typical PM is the greatest impediment you could add to a project.

All the good scrum masters I've dealt with come from a dev background.

Scrum masters with Dev background are good at removing technical impediments no doubt, because of their dev background they can validate story points provided by the team, but are not great at handling impediments from the Business side.

OP is already a PM and is interested in retraining. Therefore the closest realistic, achievable option is Scrum Mastery when compared to Developer, Solution Architect, DBA etc.