5 Lingering Questions on Project Management Training

Experience Sharing in Indonesia Context

By. Chalid Tamimi, PMP & Indra Pramudiana, PMP

Until the beginning of 21st century, project management has been acknowledged mostly by Indonesian construction industry companies and practitioners as a vital practical skill and knowledge. And with Y2K situation, project management got its traction in Indonesia and received enough attention from many other industries, especially from IT business and professionals.

Since then, with the agility of a few passionate and professional project management practitioners, the importance of embracing and learning project management knowledge and skills in a more structured way start being recognized by many sectors of Indonesia businesses. It was started from multinationals and big Indonesian national corporations.

We have been practicing as professional PM practitioners and PM consultants who build project management capacity and capability in Indonesia for almost 15 years now. Even today, with the positive traction and high attention from businesses and professionals to improving their project management competency, we are witnessing and we notice that there are still several lingering questions on project management training coming from individuals, companies and their HR partners before they start to send themselves or their employees to learn and pursue better understanding about project management.

The Questions

We have been presenting and sharing our belief on how project management will optimize and add values to individuals and organizations over the years. And below are some of the questions that usually come up from many Indonesian professionals or HR partners or company representatives: 

1. It's not for us. Why would we need project management?

This question mostly comes from people who were told by their boss or users from other Departments to seek more information about PM training. And that's it. They never heard or know about project management skill training before let alone its impact to the business.

2. It's for project managers, isn't it?

Some professionals may have heard about project management or project management training before. But they never got in touch with it whatsoever. This question mostyly comes from them. It's the easiest way to relate the benefits of project management. It's for project managers.

3. We don't do project. It will only beneficial for project-related job or company, right?

This comes from many companies and employees who have heard the benefits of project management knowledge and skills but still have doubts on how it can be applied in their setting and business environment.

4. Isn't it more about technical stuffs?

There are still doubts that project management training deals with more hard and technical skills. It is very understandable. Many HR partners have this kind of perception.

5. Will it be beneficial for executive level?

This question may still come from experienced project management practitioners who spent most of their career in project. They know how to manage their project and looking for ways to find how project management can help them in a more higher position or authority.

How to Answer

The discussions we have with many Indonesian companies and professionals in answering the above questions are very interesting and give us better understanding how project management is still perceived today. What we usually tell them in those discussions is basically what we believe and know about project management in the real world, some of them are:

1. Project management is for everybody and every business.

Based on our experience, today, more and more people and businesses start to see the benefits of implementing project management personal wise and company wise.

2. Everybody has their fair share to be involved in company's project. Internally or externally.

We see project managers and non-project managers who understand and apply project management approach in their job move up their career ladder better or faster. Projects usually are the proving grounds before someone is trusted to take on more leadership role.

3. Project management approach helps in structuring the works/tasks.

Based on our experience, our alumni tell us that they can better manage their tasks and projects. Many have been given projects to run, but they didn't know how to handle or even how to start the project properly. Through the proper and right training, they have better understanding on how the projects run and work.

4. It is a globally recognized and acknowledged subject.

Many of our Indonesian colleagues and alumni now are working on larger or regional projects that involve multicultural team member. The language of project management they learned helps them to communicate better in their project. It gives them a chance to perform and achieve the project target better.

5. More and more national and Indonesia-based corporations have embraced and acknowledged the importance of project management.

Project management skills have been acknowledged and embedded to the basic and vital requirements for their managers and staff. Their performance and improvement in this area are being recognized and monitored. More over, many of them have moved to acknowledging and implementing Program and Portfolio Management.

Based on our experiences, the lessons learned in implementing successful PM trainings in Indonesian are as follows:

1. Use customized and easy to understand cases in the classes. Indonesian context cases are recommended.

2. Emphasize the notion that learning about project management is not only about technical skills. It's a lot bigger than that.

3. The request for project management training usually better comes from the user. The people who want to learn it most definitely take it back better to their daily job.

4. HR partners who already well aware about the magnitude of project management impact to their business usually understand our project management philosophy well and engage with the reputable provider.

5. Once the user and HR partners have learned and understood the real project management training experience is all about, they usually become our long-term learning partners.

6. We share what all project management professionals believe, we take our life itself as a project.

Everybody wants to learn in fun and engaging environment, but the project experience, global updates, and contexts really matter when we deliver our program.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/project-management-articles/5-lingering-questions-on-project-management-training-5890699.html

Chalid Tamimi, PMP

Chalid is currently the Principal Consultant and Managing Partner of DCOptima Consulting, Jakarta, Indonesia. He has been involved project management development in Indonesia for almost two decades as consultant and advisor for the Project Management Office (PMO)

Chalid was PMI® Jakarta Chapter's Board of Advisory and President of PMI® Jakarta Chapter. He was also an active member of IAMPI (Ikatan Ahli Manajemen Proyek Indonesia).

Indra Pramudiana, PMP

Indra is currently the DCOLearning (http://learning.dcoptima.co.id) Advisor and Partner of DCOptima Consulting, Jakarta, Indonesia.

Indra has more than ten years of experience working as a consultant as well as an operation or a project manager in learning and education development projects at various organization, both in the informal and formal learning/education sectors in Indonesia. And for the last seven years, he has also been involved in project management capacity development area.

For More information about the Author & DCOptima Consulting, please go to http://www.dcoptima.com