Professional development is expected from all of us working in the project management industry – it’s something that we make sure is a focus for our team here in the office too. But we also understand how hard it is to find time in the day to learn something new.
Below, we’ve pulled together 5 of our favorite low-effort, quick-to-do activities that count towards continuous professional development. You can fit each of them into a lunch break (you do take a lunch break, don’t you?).
1. Mentor a colleague
Passing on knowledge is a great way to both cement what you know and practice your coaching and mentoring skills. You can record this activity as professional development.
Let’s say you’re an expert in some features of Primavera (perhaps you went on one of our Primavera best practices courses). What are the things people always ask you for help with? Maybe there are questions you’re always asked. Put together a handout or a couple of slides for a lunch and learn session to share what you know with colleagues.
Alternatively, buddy up with someone who has less experience than you in an area and coach them through some of the more complex aspects of the tool – features you know well and shortcuts that would save them time.
In return, consider what you could learn from the rest of your team. Perhaps there’s a way to cascade knowledge informally throughout the whole department so you all get to learn something new.
Time taken: 30 mins prep, 30 mins delivery/coaching/mentoring
2. Watch video training
Many people think of professional development as attending formal training courses in a classroom or going to a conference. However, self-paced video training also counts and is a lot easier to fit into your day!
Short videos make it possible to learn something new in any pockets of time you have in the day, whether you want to have them playing while you grab something to eat or block out time in your calendar so you can be fully present.
Time taken: Video training can be paused! Fit in as much as is reasonable in your lunch break, say 30 minutes once a week.
3. Work through old course material
If you’ve taken one of our software or project management courses in the past, you’ll have a lot of course notes, handouts and exercises. Spend some time reviewing the topics you are least familiar with.
Use the class exercises as hands-on guidance for your own projects and replace any case studies with what you are working on. Put your knowledge into practice by applying what was covered in the course.
In our experience, many delegates leave the classroom environment (whether that’s a virtual classroom for our online courses or a physical classroom) and have good intentions about applying their new skills. However, real life tends to get in the way and it can be hard to find the time to build new reports and so on. In a few months, there is a risk that you’ll have forgotten what was covered and won’t be able to confidently use the skills that felt so familiar in the few days after the course.
Going back through the course materials is a good way to refresh your knowledge and keep yourself focused on implementing new ways of working.
Time taken: 1 hour.
4. Read
Yes, reading counts as professional development! We have a gigantic repository of articles on our blog, so why not search for a topic and browse through some of the content. Whether you’re looking for a primer on earned value management or a tutorial on loading estimated costs in Deltek Cobra, we have articles to keep you occupied.
Time taken: 20 minutes.
5. Doing your day job
OK, we don’t recommend doing this one in your lunch break! Once you are back from your screen break, think about how doing your day job helps you advance your career. PMI considers working as a project manager to be a recognized activity for development.
Just being involved in the project environment means you are constantly learning, about new projects, requirements, suppliers and the experiences you have.
Time taken: All day! But you won’t notice the investment as you are doing your job anyway. Project Management Professional (PMP)® holders can claim 8 professional development units (PDUs) per recertification cycle, so that’s the equivalent to 8 hours. Different certifications have different restrictions so do check with your professional body if you are intending to use your learning towards continuing your association membership.
Tracking your time
Professional development for its own sake is a worthwhile activity as it helps keep you current within the industry. That can make you better at your job and more employable. Many practitioners will want to track their development time so they can evidence it for their membership association. Most professional bodies require members to commit to ongoing learning and sometimes members will be audited to prove that they are meeting those requirements.
The best way that we have found to track your development time is simply to record it as it happens. If you try to remember what you did at the end of the month, you are likely to forget all the things you read or learned.
Start a spreadsheet or a notes page in your favorite app and make a log of what you’ve done in case you need to remind yourself or provide evidence to your manager or professional body. In most cases, you’ll need to add a few sentences about what you did and what you read or learned along with the date and how long you spent on the activity.
Now you don’t have any excuses for not focusing on developing your career as a project manager. Which one of these will you commit to putting into your calendar for next week?