Here at Velopi, our trainers are – how shall I put this? – of a mature vintage. We need to have people who have been out on the front lines of project management and have the scars to prove it. We believe that the only way to teach an applied discipline, like project management, is to employ trainers who have been there and can bring these courses to life using their personal experience.

On this page:

• Early Exposure to Project Management
• Leveraging the Power of Lists
• The Four Training Interventions for Career Support
• Practical Application and Tailored Solutions

Early Exposure to Project Management

For your typical Project Manager, aiming for the Project Management Professional (PMP)® accreditation, our trainers are usually around the same age, so this is not a problem. However, a useful way for anyone who is starting out in their career to get ahead is by gaining an appreciation of project management from day one. This is particularly true if you find yourself hired on as the junior member of a project team. If you understand the concerns of the Project Manager and can provide the sort of information s/he needs, you will be seen as an effective team player and opportunities can arise from this perception.

So we need to speak to these people. We need to convince 20-somethings that they should attend our one-day Introduction to Project Management or our two-day Project Management Essentials courses. So we need to speak their language as it were. The Twitter generation is unlikely to sit down and read a carefully argued piece on the merits of project management at a young age. We will need effective elevator pitches that encapsulate our arguments into sound bites.

Leveraging the Power of Lists

Another technique we have become aware of (essentially by being part of LinkedIn) is the amazing number of lists that are part of the Millennials’ lives. Every day, we learn about “Five Ways to be an Effective Leader”, “Seven Secrets to Closing that Sale” or “The Three Step Plan to Team Formation”. It seems that if it can be listed, it can be sold.

The Four Training Interventions for Career Support

So, should Velopi plug the “Five Steps to Project Management Success” and list out the five process groups? (Remember initiating, planning, executing, monitoring/controlling and closing?) Alternatively, we could advertise the “Ten Secrets of Project Management” and recite the ten knowledge areas that form the basis of our PMP® Exam Preparation courses.

That might work but the text under each list item would have to span many pages – remember that the Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) runs to 616 pages. The Millennial audience will want all this distilled into one or two paragraphs. So this approach is not going to get us far. In fact, it is a good thing that it would not work – who would attend a course if all the learning outcomes could be distilled into a paragraph or two?

No, a better idea is to list out how we can support your career through all stages of project management. So put your hands together please for “The Four Training Interventions that Will Support your Project Management Career”:

1. Introduction to Project Management (one and two-day courses)
2. Entry-level Project Management Qualifications (CAPM® or QQI level 6)
3. Professional Project Management Accreditation (PMP)®
4. Professional Program Management Accreditation (PgMP)®

Practical Application and Tailored Solutions

If this list appeals to you, please visit our courses page or contact us directly. We will provide practical guidance at every stage of your career and all the lists you can handle – we have lists of project management processes, input, outputs and the tools and techniques that get it all done. But we will not simply leave it at raw lists. Our seasoned instructors will show – by means of engaging exercises – how to apply these tools and techniques and translate inputs into outputs and to arrive at a successful project conclusion.

If you are an organization with several interested people on your books, we can run these courses in-house.