PMI Affiliate Programme – Kickoff

Imagine you’re a product manager for a financial technology company. You’ve been tasked with leading a team of developers, user experience researchers, and business analysts to launch a new reporting application. This is a major project, one that aligns with organizational goals to expand into new markets and grow revenue significantly.

You’ve been given six-months to deliver on the bet that’s been made on you and your team. Oh, and you don’t have any project management experience.

Where do you start?

Every day, millions of employees are asked to manage projects — big or small — without any prior project management knowledge, experience, or certifications. And the harsh reality is that most employers don’t recalibrate their expectations based on these facts; our “accidental” project managers are expected to deliver projects on time, within budget, and in alignment with organizational goals — just like a formal project manager with years of experience and expertise.

When asked to manage a project for the first time, you may begin to feel pressure — that there’s no time to waste, that you’ll just have to learn through trial and error, that you should just get started. But what does getting started really mean? What’s your first step, and how do you know it’s the right one?

Historically speaking, these have been difficult questions to answer — in large part because inexperienced and accidental project managers have suffered from a) an absence of quality resources to help them manage a project and b) the ability to learn the foundation project manager skillset quickly, without compromising the time to actually do the work. And when an entire team relies on its fearless project manager for direction, these shortcomings affect more than the project manager, him or herself.

Enter Kickoff, a free digital learning tool that helps accidental or informal project managers kick off successful projects—from start to finish—in just 45 minutes. No crazy jargon to hold you back, no boring lectures to put you to sleep, and certainly no unnecessary material you’d find in a capstone seminar.

Specifically, Kickoff offers:

• Simple, interactive activities to compliment and reinforce the bite-sized content
• Downloadable templates to help you start planning and get work done immediately
• Definitions of key terms that you’ll most certainly come across throughout your project
• Appropriate questions to ask at any stage of your project and to the right stakeholder(s)

When you complete Kickoff, you’ll be equipped with the knowledge required to launch a successful project, in addition to a playbook that’s always there for you to reference along the way.   

So if you’re reading this, you have the chops to make your project a slam dunk; that’s why you were entrusted to manage a project in the first place. Allow Kickoff to help compliment your existing technical skillset and make you and your team members more capable of crushing your objectives.

To access Kickoff, follow this link to register and create a PMI account for free first if you do not currently have it. Kickoff is a mobile-responsive application, meaning it’s built to work seamlessly on your laptop, phone, and tablet browsers—what have you.

Remember, you can’t complete a project you don’t start. It only takes 45 minutes to take your project from zero to hero.

Read more about the PMI Affiliate programme here.

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