I help project professionals get more done with less stress. Having been a project manager for over 20 years, I share tried-and-tested tips that work in the real world, every Tuesday. Join our community of over 15,000 project professionals (and accidental project managers too!).
What the Google PM Certificate will and won't do for your career
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Hello Reader, I get messages fairly regularly from people who are part-way through the Google Project Management Certificate and have started wondering whether it's actually going to lead anywhere. Which is a very reasonable thing to wonder, and I'd rather give you an honest answer than a cheerful one. The short version is that it can genuinely open doors, particularly if you're moving into project management from another field or you're in the early stages of your career and need something credible on your CV that demonstrates you've done more than just read about it. But it's not a substitute for experience, it won't get you to senior roles on its own, and what you do with it after you finish matters as much as finishing it. I did the certificate myself, and I've also been involved in hiring project managers, so I've seen it from both sides. My full write-up is here — it covers which roles it realistically positions you for, what employers actually think when they see it, and how to make yourself a stronger candidate once you have it. If you're weighing it up against other options, it's worth reading before you decide. Have a great week! Elizabeth, P.S. If you're looking at other certifications too, I've written about the PM PrepCast for PMP exam prep as well. There's a lot of noise out there, I try to cut through it! Things to read about thinking:
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Calling all Rebel Project Managers!
I help project professionals get more done with less stress. Having been a project manager for over 20 years, I share tried-and-tested tips that work in the real world, every Tuesday. Join our community of over 15,000 project professionals (and accidental project managers too!).
Hello Reader, One of the things nobody really prepares you for in project management is how isolating it can be, not in a dramatic way, just in the ordinary day-to-day sense of having problems you can't fully articulate to your team, questions you can't ask your stakeholders, and situations where the textbook answer is technically correct but completely useless in the actual context you're dealing with. Most project managers don't have a peer group. You might have colleagues, but they're busy...
Hello Reader, Most project managers don’t actually manage “their” team. We manage people who report to someone else. Welcome to matrix life! If you’ve ever tried to: Negotiate resource availability Handle conflicting priorities Run a meeting that doesn’t derail Get alignment without formal authority …you know the plan is only half the job. Most of what I seem to spend my days doing is negotiating, trying to get the right people to show up, slotting my work around other people's priorities...
Hello Reader, I've been asked more than once by project managers who are quietly worried about it: what do you do when your RAG status doesn’t tell the full story? The traffic light is green. Technically everything is on track. And yet you have this nagging feeling that something’s not quite right, a dependency that’s wobbling, a sponsor who’s gone quiet, a team that’s delivering but only just, and they're not as proactive as they used to be. RAG is a simple tool for a complicated job, and...