Project managers play key role in global economy
Manish Kumar Singal

PROJECT management is a fast growing discipline whose scope is immense in this age of globalisation. In today’s world, a knowledge of project management is highly useful for managing projects and improving the efficiency of an organisation.

Says P.D. Karan, Executive Director, Project Management Association (PMA), "Project management is applicable not only in developed countries but also in developing countries. Rather, its use is more in the developing world. There are about 30,000 active members of the Project Management Association all over the world. In 2004, its membership was estimated to be around 180,000.

"For any profession to flourish, there is a need of qualified people in that profession. Similarly, to avoid time and cost overruns and to bring quality to project work, qualified and certified project managers are needed.

The first project manager was certified in 1986. In 1994, there were about 4000 certified project professionals globally. Today, this figure is over 1,50,000. The almost 40-fold increase in the certification of project professionals is a clear-cut indicator that the field of project management is highly sought after in the developed economies.

What it entails

Project management involves optimisation of resources through the use of scientific and coded processes. It is, in fact, more applicable to transition economies like China and India.

It provides a holistic view of a project’s life cycle, from the inception stage to implementation and finally completion phase.

To manage global teams and to leverage the intellectual and labour components from one corner of the world and deliver them to another part, there is a need to establish processes and methodologies to optimise the deployment of resources.

Driving force

Today, both the government and companies are laying huge emphasis in getting project management professionals certified.

"Project management is the main driving force in China today. India must not be complacent as a country or as a society to ignore such powerful signals from neighbours like China," says Karan.

Areas of work

There are four major streams in this field: project management for economic transformation; best practices of project management/lessons learned; new frontiers in project management; and project management in the government.

Says Adesh Jain, a certified project manager, "Project management can be used over 25 sectors of industry. These include infrastructure of a company or any organisation, in the telecommunication sector, information technology, energy and energy resources, research, manufacturing, banking, poverty alleviation, transportation etc."

Eligibility

The minimum qualification to join this course is graduation and the candidate must have around three to four years experience in a managerial position.

Adds Jain, "As far as the remuneration is concerned, companies in the US are offering project managers around $150,000 per annum, which is a good amount."

It is impossible to build a career in any progressive company without an advance level of certification in project management, feels Jain.

Training talk

Since project management is less known and talked about profession in India, hardly one or two institutes in South India are offering this course. The IPMA offers an online course in this stream to professionals and this is acceptable in Indian as well as foreign industries.