7 Tips to Find the Right Project Management Training
If you want to advance your career in project management, you have to invest time in personal and methodical development. The best managers have one thing in common: They are constantly learning new skills.
Here are 7 tips how you can find the right project management training and achieve your career goals.
1. Clear goals
First, get clear about your goals: Which skills do you want to develop? Which career goals or personal goals do you want the course to help with? Do you want to prepare for a job change or do you want to better be able to handle a current project? The clearer you are on what you want to get out of the learning experience, the easier it will be to find the right project management training.
2. Qualification
There is a myriad of training providers out there. Of course, you will find some black sheep among them. Some trainers are more concerned with their account balance than the learning success of their students. Make sure, your potential trainer has a solid professional qualification and practical project experience, best in a field similar to your own. Certifications of trainers and training providers can also help to assess the quality of offered pm training.
3. Cost
If you find a pm training provider offering a course significantly cheaper than his competitors, be careful. Unless it is a special one-time offer, skilled trainers and well structured courses come at a price. Of course, exclusive training fees are no guarantee for quality. Just take the time to look at the details.
4. Reviews
A good starting point to find out if the investment in a specific project management training is worthwhile, is talking to former students. Has anybody from your department or company attended a pm course you are interested in? Ask them for their opinion. If there is no chance to get first hand experience in your company, go online and search for reviews. You should keep in mind that online reviews might not always be true and you don’t want to base your decision solely on them but after some research you often get a good overall impression and recognize patterns which might help to make up your own mind.
5. Website
A website is a company's digital flagship. Many spelling mistakes, incomplete seminar descriptions and an outdated design do not say anything good about the professionalism of a provider. A professional training provider makes sure that the overall website impression is as professional and helpful as the training itself.
6. Quality of Information and Customer Support
Take a close look at the training schedules. If you can’t find them online, don’t hesitate to contact the training provider. The team will usually be happy to help. Some trainings have fancy titles but do not deliver what you might expect. Do you look for a very practically oriented course? Do you want to gain a first overview or do you need in-depth training on a specific topic? Take the time to get beyond your first impression. If you get certification after more comprehensive training, you want to check the reputation in your field of work before signing up.
7. Intuition
If you are still unsure after some research, listen to your intuition. Delay the decision for a few days. Let the facts sink in and your intuition form. Our gut feeling is often better in making complex decisions, at least if we did the necessary information gathering in advance.
Trainers and coaches – our recommendations
Great project management trainers, it turns out, value great pm software. Among Merlin Project users are several project management coaches and trainers who do a fantastic job and offer high quality training. They have years of practical experience in project business and their training for individuals and groups is not off the shelf but tailored to each client’s needs. They have solid theoretical knowledge and are often certified to multiple standards. And what’s important: They take their clients’ learning results as measure for success.
If you are looking for a shortcut to find the right project management training provider for your goal, consider our list of recommended trainers and coaches. Maybe you’ll find exactly what you’ve been looking for.
Scott Greenholt – Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Scott Greenholt's goal is simply to get stuff done and deliver value to his client. He translates between the business and IT. Over twenty years leading project teams bringing effective process and fluid communication. Specializing in managing projects with distributed teams enabling people to come together to get the job done.
Ashul Agrasyn – Los Angeles, CA, United States
Ashul Agrasyn has been in private consulting for over 15 years. During that time he has been in senior positions within industries such as Defense, Systems Integrators, Entertainment & Higher Education. His work experience includes corporations such as, IBM Global Services, Northrop Grumman, and Time Warner AOL. This broad array of experience makes him uniquely positioned to see what most others can not. In addition, he brings an extensive cultural perspective to the table, having travelled extensively and lived in Africa & Asia. He currently resides in Southern California.
Philippe Lauper – Neuchâtel, Suisse
Philippe Lauper supports companies in all stages of the project lifecycle. His coachings and trainings are held in English, French or German. Clients can choose from three different customizable services focussing on the definition and planning, the choice of the right methods and control instruments and a documentation and method application check-up.
Dave Prior – New York, NY, United States
Over the past 20 years Dave Prior has coached and led in IT Project Management projects, taught traditional project management, agile project management, PMP Certification, PMI-ACP Certification, Certified Scrum Master and Certified Scrum Professional classes. He is the former Chair of PMI’s IT & Telecom SIG and served on the steering committee for PMI’s Agile Community of Practice.
Falk Schmidt – Frankfurt, Germany
Falk Schmidt has more than 20 years of experience in project business, 10 in international projects. Today, he works as a consultant and innovation coach mainly in digitalization and technology projects with international teams. As a turn around coach, he has routine in steering projects out of difficult waters. Falk Schmidt offers individual and group coaching as well as trainings.
John Shoemaker – Gig Harbor, WA, United States
John Shoemaker has trained project managers in North America, Europe and the Middle East for more than 25 years. He offers basic and advanced pm seminars which covers all important topics to successfully complete a project. All trainings are held on-site or online. The training schedule can be modified to your needs.
Gareth Watson – London, United Kingdom
Gareth Watson is founder and director of LgoKnowledge Ltd. who specialises in helping businesses manage themselves using Apple solutions. He provides Merlin help, training and customisation. Gareth is also the creators of the MerlinDayliteLink. His project management experience includes being a PRINCE2 Practitioner and SCRUM Master.
