I work with many professional staff whose exposure to projects has thus far been low or non-existent. They can be a marketer, a social worker, IT specialist, in HR to name but a small few.

Many of these people are given ‘substantial tasks’ and find themselves needing help and support and training. This is where I come in.

We normally have an investigation stage where I identify what exactly is required. I reviewed some of the work we did during 2011 and this is what they wanted:

• practical project management approaches
• processes that work
• demystifying project management – to a large number of people, project management seems complex with language a real barrier to entry

Interestingly, 2011 saw clients clear on what they do not want:

• certification – sorry but PRINCE2 etc. is not what they want at this stage. An additional issue is that they cannot afford it financially nor in the time away from work
• lots of complex systems and processes that will not get buy in from the stakeholders
• software solutions which take time to learn ( this maybe something that is useful further down the track)

So what I hear you say?

In a previous posting The definitive guide as to who should go on a training course – I gave an outline of who should be targeted for training. But what type of training?

• practical project management training
• simple processes that can be applied straight away
• demystification of project management

What are your views?