Project Management Institute

With development of new technologies, methodologies, and the increasing scale of implementations, the role of the Project Manager becomes more crucial in determining the success of a target outcome within budget.

Many people have been doing projects for years without actually realizing it.  Large organizations have institutionalized project management offices (PMOs).  Others have project management officers because of the nature of their industry (i.e. construction, software development, engineering consultants, etc.).  But what about your run of the mill operating company or service company?  Do they have project managers?  Of course they do!  And, every manager who is responsible for a project should endeavour to skill up and apply current methodologies or frameworks to ensure that the execution of the project he or she is handling is done so in the best possible way.

So, what do you do if your company doesn't have these structured organizational layers and you happen to be in charge of a project?  Where do you get information and knowledge about how to better handle or manage the people, resources, other stake holders, budget, all while making sure that timetables are on track and communication flows are efficient.  It's a lot for one person to handle, so you have to be systematic about it.

I found the Project Management Institute. 

PMI is a wonderful place to start putting structure in your knowledge base in how to handle projects.  It's open for membership to anyone who is interested in project management.  The excellent thing about this organization is it sets for a standard or framework with the aim of professionalizing the role of the project manager and project management itself.  With membership comes access to reference material published by the PMI.  It becomes a forum where project managers can interact with each other to learn from the experiences of others.  You also gain access to join a local chapter where you can meet and share thoughts with project managers in your area.  This is increasingly important as projects get larger in scope and budget.