Lately, an old friend from secondary school reached out with a text message.
We hadn’t spoken properly for something like twenty years. Different countries, different lives. Somewhere along the way, we had simply lost contact.
After exchanging a few messages, we arranged a call. Beforehand, I wondered how we were going to cover everything that had happened during those two decades. Careers, families, responsibilities and all the experiences that gradually turn young people with plans for the future into adults with quite a bit of life behind them.
Where would we even begin?
As it turned out, the conversation was surprisingly easy. Despite all those years, it felt almost as though we’d spoken only yesterday.
There was plenty to catch up on, and there still is. You can’t cover twenty years in a single conversation. But the connection was still there, built on shared experiences and good memories.
It was a really good call.
I’m glad he reached out. Hopefully, we’ll stay in touch more regularly and perhaps even meet face to face during his next visit back home.
That would be great.
The conversation also left me thinking about my own journey.
More than twenty years have passed since I first found myself doing what we now commonly call project management. And I started wondering what happened to that younger version of me. The one who was so eager to learn, develop and become a proper Project Manager.
Where did all that hunger go?
Or perhaps a better question is whether it’s still there, just in a different form.
The beginning of the journey
My first job title wasn’t Project Manager.
It was Orders Coordination Specialist.
Back then, at least in my environment, we weren’t quite so generous with the Project Manager title. Today, it sometimes seems that almost everyone is managing a project, even when the initiative itself wouldn’t necessarily qualify as a project under a formal definition.
But regardless of the title, many of the activities were already there. Coordinating work, following up on commitments, managing dependencies, communicating with different people and trying to make things happen.
Perhaps that’s how many PM careers begin. Not with a conscious decision to enter the profession, but by gradually taking responsibility for work that needs to be organised and delivered.
I didn’t know it at the time, but I was already taking my first steps into project management.
The profession itself was still something I was discovering. And I was fascinated by it.
I remember my employer sending us on an organised project management training course. It consisted of several modules, each usually lasting three days.
The trainers were senior American Project Managers, some already retired, who brought years of practical experience. They had plenty of stories to tell, including lessons that couldn’t be found in a textbook.
The course followed PMI’s A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, commonly known as the PMBOK Guide.
Scope, schedule, cost, quality, risk and the other knowledge areas that formed the foundations of the discipline.
For someone starting out, it was an entirely new world.
What I remember particularly well is the bus journey home with a colleague after one of the final training modules.
We were discussing what we’d learned, and somewhere during that conversation, the idea of taking the PMP examination came up. Perhaps one day we could become PMP-certified ourselves.
At that point, it felt like a distant ambition. Something for experienced Project Managers. People who really knew their profession.
We weren’t quite there yet.
But the idea stayed with us.
Several years later, after gaining more knowledge, practical experience and confidence, we both took the examination.
And we both passed.
Looking back, I sometimes wonder whether that conversation on the bus was one of those small moments that quietly influence the direction of a career.
Hungry for knowledge
Those early years were full of curiosity.
I wanted to understand project management properly. Not simply follow procedures or produce documentation, but understand what makes projects work.
And why they so often don’t.
PMI’s PMBOK Guide provided much of my early foundation. I spent a lot of time learning its knowledge areas, processes, terminology and the logic behind them.
There was also PRINCE2, bringing another perspective on project organisation, governance, roles and responsibilities.
I was trying to understand how these approaches fitted together and, more importantly, how they could be applied in real project environments.
Beyond formal training, there were books, professional publications, websites, online communities and podcasts. I spent hours looking for useful materials, trying to learn from people who had already travelled further along the road.
Not because anyone required it.
I simply wanted to know more.
That’s how I discovered Andy Kaufman’s People and Projects Podcast, Cornelius Fichtner’s PMP PrepCast and The Project Management Podcast, Josh Nankivel’s pmStudent and Ron Holohan’s PM411 podcast.
Those were important sources of knowledge and inspiration. Through them, I could listen to experienced practitioners discussing leadership, delivery, difficult stakeholders, project failures and the realities of the profession.
It was a window into a much larger world of project management.
A world I wanted to become part of.
Project Management with a capital P and a capital M.
And yes, I was hungry.
Hungry for knowledge, experience and opportunities to test what I’d learned. And perhaps, if I’m being fair to my younger self, for some professional recognition too.
The PMP examination became one of those personal milestones.
At the time, there were only two authorised examination locations in my country. I had to travel more than 300 kilometres to take the exam.
I remember the journey, the strict examination procedures, the four-hour exam and learning that I’d passed before setting off for home.
Quite an adventure.
And the journey home felt rather different from the journey there.
Not because a certificate suddenly transformed me into a great Project Manager. It didn’t.
But because something that had once seemed far beyond my reach had become possible.
That mattered.
A licence to learn
I still value professional certifications.
They provide structure, common language and a foundation of knowledge. They can also give us confidence when we’re beginning our careers.
But after more than twenty years in project environments, I see them somewhat differently.
A certification is a bit like a driving licence.
It demonstrates that you’ve acquired and tested certain knowledge and skills. But the licence itself doesn’t make you an experienced driver.
That comes later, through unfamiliar roads, difficult conditions, unexpected situations and the occasional wrong turn.
Project management isn’t much different.
You can study stakeholder management without ever having to rebuild trust after a difficult decision. You can understand risk management principles without having faced a serious threat to delivery. And you can prepare a perfectly reasonable project schedule without knowing what happens when several departments have conflicting priorities and nobody wants to compromise.
The knowledge matters. But it needs to be used. Otherwise, even well-learned theory gradually fades.
Practical experience without continued learning has its own limitations too. It can turn into repeating familiar approaches, even when circumstances have changed.
Perhaps the real value comes from keeping both connected. Learning from theory, testing it in practice and returning to the theory with a better understanding of what the words actually mean.
Looking back, I value the learning behind my certificates more than the certificates themselves.
And I still value the people who encouraged that learning.
Recently, I reached out to Andy Kaufman through LinkedIn. After all those years, I wanted to tell him something.
That his podcast had reached a young Project Manager many years ago, in another part of the world, and had influenced his professional development.
I was that young PM.
It felt good to finally say thank you.
I suspect people who share their knowledge don’t always realise how far their work can travel, or what it might mean to someone they’ve never met.
I certainly hadn’t forgotten.
Becoming a proper PM
I remember my first international project discovery workshop.
Travelling to another country to meet the project team, learning about an unfamiliar business environment and helping shape the early direction of an initiative.
The team was based in the Netherlands. For me, it was one of those moments when project management started to feel like a profession with possibilities far beyond the environment in which I’d begun.
I felt like a real PM consultant.
Part of the professional world I’d previously known mostly through training materials, books and podcasts.
There was excitement in discovering new environments, organisations, business processes, technologies and ways of working.
Different cultures. Different people. Different challenges.
And that’s still one of the things I appreciate about project management.
The opportunity to keep learning.
A new project can take you into a business area you barely knew existed. You meet specialists who understand things you don’t, ask questions and gradually connect the pieces.
And, if things go well, you help a group of people turn an idea into something real.
International assignments brought another dimension.
I remember friends and family sometimes commenting on how great my job must be because I had opportunities to travel to different countries.
And they had a point.
Travelling for work can be exciting. You get to visit places you might otherwise never see and meet people from different cultures.
Although the reality of business travel is sometimes less glamorous than it sounds.
Airports, taxis, hotels and offices.
Then the same journey in reverse.
Occasionally, if the schedule allows, you might even get to see something of the city you’re visiting.
Still, I wouldn’t dismiss those experiences. They were valuable, both professionally and personally.
But the same temporary nature of projects that makes the profession interesting also creates some of its difficulties.
Corporate nomads
I’ve come to think of Project Managers as corporate nomads.
We move from one project to another, one team to another, one group of stakeholders to another. Even after many years in the same organisation, we may find ourselves regularly starting again with people we barely know.
In some ways, each new project feels like changing jobs.
You need to understand the environment, establish relationships, learn how decisions are made and work out who really influences what happens.
The company name on your employment contract may remain unchanged, but much of your working world is new.
Sometimes that’s refreshing.
There are projects we’re quite happy to finish. Not necessarily because delivery was unsuccessful, but because the environment was difficult, the pressure excessive or the relationships challenging.
Completing the handover and moving on can bring relief.
But there are also projects we don’t want to leave.
Projects where people work well together, where there’s trust, mutual respect and a shared sense of purpose. Where the team becomes something more than a collection of people assigned to deliver a temporary initiative.
Sometimes colleagues become friends. And when those projects end, leaving isn’t easy.
You’ve spent months, sometimes years, building relationships, overcoming difficulties and working towards something together. You know the people. You understand their strengths, their humour and the small things that make the team work.
Then the project closes.
People return to their departments or move to other assignments. You hand over what you’ve delivered, say goodbye and prepare for the next project.
And sometimes you wish you could stay.
Perhaps even join the operational team and continue working with those people.
Instead, you move into the unknown.
A new project, a new team and new relationships to build. And no guarantee that the next environment will be anything like the one you’ve just left.
That’s the strange contradiction of being a corporate nomad.
The better the team, the harder it can be to move on.
Even belonging to a central PMO doesn’t entirely change that.
A PMO may provide an organisational home, shared standards and a community of Project Managers. But the day-to-day reality of the PM role is often quite independent.
Our closest working relationships are usually with our project teams and stakeholders, not necessarily with other PMs in the PMO.
In that sense, we’re often lone wolves operating under the same organisational umbrella.
The PMO is there in the background, while our professional lives are largely shaped by the projects we’re assigned to.
Over time, you learn to build relationships quickly. You also learn that many of those relationships will change when the assignment ends.
There’s another aspect to this constant movement.
Organisations have surprisingly short memories.
You may have delivered several difficult projects successfully, helped teams through challenging situations and solved problems that nobody else wanted to touch.
But when the next project begins, much of that history can quickly fade into the background.
A new Project Executive, a new team and a new set of expectations.
And sometimes it feels as though you’re only as good as your last project.
Or even your latest status report.
Corporate rotations make this more complicated.
You may have spent years building relationships with senior stakeholders, earning their trust and establishing a professional reputation.
Then the organisation changes.
A senior manager moves to another role or leaves the company. A new executive arrives, bringing different expectations and little knowledge of the history.
The credibility you’ve worked hard to establish doesn’t necessarily transfer with the organisational chart.
You may need to start building it again.
Of course, professional credibility needs to be maintained. Past achievements shouldn’t give anyone permanent immunity from accountability.
But there is something exhausting about repeatedly having to establish your value in environments that don’t always remember what you’ve already contributed.
And after enough projects, that starts to matter.
Sometimes you find yourself wondering whether the next project will be another interesting journey, or simply another difficult environment to work through.
And occasionally, whether this might be your last dance.
Alone in the middle
Project management is a people profession.
We talk about teamwork, collaboration and stakeholder engagement.
Yet the PM role can be surprisingly lonely.
On one side, there’s the project team, with people responsible for analysis, design, development, testing, implementation and all the other work required to deliver.
On the other, there’s the Project Board, representing the interests and expectations of the business, users and suppliers.
And somewhere in between sits the Project Manager.
When reporting to the Project Board, the PM is often the person standing there alone.
Presenting the situation, explaining the problems, answering difficult questions and taking the pressure.
Then comes the journey back to the project team.
Communicating decisions, clarifying priorities and explaining what needs to happen next.
Sometimes we’re expected to act as though we’re simply carrying messages between two organisational worlds.
But I don’t think that’s what good project management should be.
For me, the PM role has always been, to a large extent, a service.
A service to the project, its stakeholders and especially the people responsible for delivery.
We’re there to help create the conditions in which the team can do its work. To bring clarity where there’s confusion, help secure decisions, make dependencies and risks visible, and remove obstacles where we can.
And to protect the team from unnecessary organisational noise.
That last part matters.
There is a difference between communicating an uncomfortable decision and simply passing down the tension from a challenging Project Board meeting.
The team needs to understand the decision, the reasoning behind it and what it means for delivery. It doesn’t necessarily need to experience every uncomfortable exchange that happened in the boardroom.
I sometimes think of the PM as a kind of regulator between these two environments.
Pressure, expectations and emotions arrive from different directions. The PM needs to process them and decide what should be passed on, in what form and with what intensity.
Too little pressure, and the team may not recognise the urgency or seriousness of the situation. Too much, and people may become distracted, defensive or overwhelmed.
Neither helps delivery.
The challenge is to communicate enough of the tension to create the right response, without allowing unnecessary emotion to interfere with the work.
A little like a firearm suppressor. The force behind the message remains, but some of the unnecessary noise is removed.
Of course, people aren’t mechanical systems, and project management isn’t about controlling every reaction.
But I think the principle matters.
A PM shouldn’t simply transfer pressure unchanged from one group to another. We need to understand it, interpret it and turn it into something constructive.
Clear direction, appropriate urgency, practical actions and a workable way forward.
This isn’t about hiding facts or shielding people from legitimate accountability. Sometimes difficult truths need to be communicated directly.
And sometimes the Project Board needs to hear uncomfortable things from the delivery team too.
The regulation works in both directions.
The difficulty is that the PM often absorbs some of the tension in the process.
And it doesn’t simply disappear.
Some of it stays with us.
That raises another question.
Who helps the PM deal with the pressure that doesn’t get passed on?
The weight of experience
I remember a manager who once described his morning routine.
He would look in the mirror and ask himself whether there was still a Project Manager looking back.
Whether he still wanted to do the job.
At the time, I smiled at the idea. It seemed a rather unusual way to start the working day.
Today, I understand it much better.
Project management can be rewarding. But it can also be draining.
The difficult projects, competing expectations, constant changes, decisions nobody wants to make and organisational problems that seem to return under different names.
And the responsibility to keep things moving even when many of the factors affecting delivery sit well beyond your control.
After enough years, you accumulate quite a few PM flight hours.
Some involve smooth journeys. Others involve turbulence.
And even when you land safely, it doesn’t mean the flight was easy.
Experience gives us perspective, but it also comes with baggage.
Memories of difficult situations, decisions that didn’t work, projects that took more energy than they should have and moments when we wondered whether we could have done something differently.
Experience also changes how we approach the next challenge.
We may recognise a familiar pattern earlier, understand which issue really matters or know which stakeholder needs to be involved.
Instead of trying to move the entire mountain, we may know which stone needs to move first.
And who can help move it.
That doesn’t mean experience automatically makes us better. A less experienced PM may bring energy, fresh thinking and approaches we wouldn’t immediately consider.
But there is particular value in learning where to apply effort.
Sometimes the most effective intervention is a well-timed conversation, a carefully framed question or a decision secured before the issue grows.
And sometimes it’s knowing when not to interfere.
The visible effort may be smaller, while the impact is much greater.
Not simply knowing more, but knowing when, where and with whom to act.
Unfortunately, organisations don’t always recognise that kind of contribution.
We celebrate resilience, admire PMs who can handle pressure and praise people who go the extra mile.
But there’s a point at which exceptional effort becomes an organisational expectation.
The PM who always finds a way.
The PM who compensates for missing resources.
The PM who keeps pushing when decisions are delayed and priorities remain unclear.
And if the project eventually succeeds, the organisation may remember the result without fully recognising what it cost to achieve it.
That’s not a sustainable delivery model.
Professional hunger is valuable.
But it shouldn’t become an unlimited resource for organisations to consume.
And we shouldn’t treat our own capacity as unlimited either.
We all need a way to recover from the pressure of our work.
For some, that may mean spending time with family. For others, sport, hobbies, travelling, reading or simply having some quiet time away from work.
It doesn’t really matter what your personal recipe is.
What matters is making space for it.
Not only when you’ve reached the point of exhaustion, but as a regular part of your life.
A difficult meeting shouldn’t automatically become the subject of the entire evening at home. But the pressure we carry doesn’t always disappear when we close the laptop.
It can follow us home, affect our relationships and gradually reduce the energy we have for everything outside work.
And if we keep ignoring those signals, burnout may eventually come knocking.
That’s a visitor I’d rather not invite.
Protecting time to recharge isn’t a sign of weaker professional commitment.
It’s part of making a long career sustainable.
Sometimes the right professional decision isn’t to push harder.
It’s to challenge the conditions under which we’re being asked to deliver.
And sometimes it’s simply to recognise that we need to recover before taking on the next challenge.
The PM behind the confidence
There’s another side to the profession that I’ve come to recognise.
We spend a lot of time trying to appear confident.
Stakeholders expect answers. Teams expect direction. The Project Executive expects reassurance that someone understands the situation.
And often, that someone is the Project Manager.
But what happens when we don’t have the answers?
When we’re entering an unfamiliar business area, the technology is new or the people around us have far more specialist knowledge than we do?
I remember the feeling of stepping into environments where everyone seemed to know more than I did.
Perhaps they did, at least about their particular area.
And there were moments when I wondered whether I really belonged there. Whether I was sufficiently experienced or the right person to lead the project.
Imposter syndrome is an interesting thing.
It doesn’t necessarily disappear when you gain another certification or successfully deliver another project.
Sometimes it simply finds a new reason to appear.
A bigger assignment, a more senior stakeholder, a different technology or a new organisation.
And suddenly, you’re questioning yourself again.
Of course, a PM doesn’t need to know everything. That’s why we work with specialists.
But understanding that intellectually and feeling comfortable with it are two different things.
I think one of the more useful things we learn as PMs is how to operate in environments where other people know far more than we do about their particular areas.
In technology projects, for example, we may need to understand enough about integrations, architecture or infrastructure to recognise dependencies and ask useful questions.
Not to become the technical expert.
But to understand what the technical discussion means for the project.
And this isn’t limited to IT.
The same applies when working with finance, operations, legal teams, procurement or unfamiliar business processes.
Every specialist area has its own language, assumptions and ways of looking at problems.
The PM needs to understand enough to connect those perspectives and help people make decisions.
Sometimes that means asking someone to explain something in simpler terms. Sometimes it means admitting that we don’t yet understand.
And sometimes it means recognising that a discussion has moved too far into specialist detail and helping everyone return to the project decision that needs to be made.
The confidence comes not from knowing everything, but from understanding our role.
We’re there to connect people, clarify implications, facilitate decisions and help the project move forward.
I think part of professional maturity is becoming more comfortable with that.
Not as an excuse for avoiding responsibility, but as a way of exercising it properly.
Confidence doesn’t always mean having an immediate answer.
Sometimes it means being willing to ask the right question.
The backseat PM
Over the years, I’ve found myself in an interesting position.
Sometimes a PM colleague comes to me with a problem.
A difficult stakeholder, an uncomfortable project situation or a decision they aren’t sure how to approach.
We talk, usually informally. Sometimes it’s a short conversation during the working day. Sometimes a longer discussion.
I listen, ask a few questions and share how I see the situation.
And occasionally, something interesting happens.
The colleague suddenly sees a way forward.
Perhaps a different way of approaching the stakeholder, a simpler solution or just a clearer understanding of what the real problem is.
I call this being a backseat PM.
Not someone taking over the steering wheel.
Not a shadow Project Manager trying to manage somebody else’s project.
Simply another pair of eyes.
Someone sitting outside the immediate pressure of the situation.
I don’t think the person offering that perspective necessarily needs to be more senior or more experienced.
Sometimes distance is the most valuable thing they bring.
When you’re deeply involved in a difficult project, it’s easy to become trapped in its history. You remember every disagreement, missed commitment and frustrating meeting.
And those experiences influence how you see the next problem.
Someone outside that environment doesn’t carry the same weight.
They can ask a simple question, challenge an assumption or point towards an option you’ve stopped considering.
Sometimes that’s enough.
There’s an interesting parallel with professional supervision in psychology and other helping professions.
Not in the sense that Project Managers need therapy or that a colleague should become their counsellor.
But in the idea of having a trusted person outside the immediate situation with whom you can reflect on difficult professional experiences.
Someone who isn’t there to judge your performance or take responsibility for your decisions.
Someone who helps you examine the situation from another angle.
I think PMs can benefit from something similar.
We spend so much time facilitating conversations for other people that we sometimes forget the value of having a conversation focused on our own professional challenges.
I also suspect that some colleagues I’ve supported over the years may not even have recognised those conversations as advice.
Perhaps they walked away thinking they’d worked out the solution themselves.
And that’s perfectly fine.
The point was never to receive credit.
It was to help someone move forward.
In fact, that’s probably how it should work.
The PM remains responsible for their project. The decisions remain theirs.
The backseat PM simply helps create a little space to think.
This is different from formal knowledge-sharing sessions, which can be valuable in their own right.
A group session allows PMs to exchange experiences, discuss methods and learn from one another.
But a backseat PM conversation is usually more personal and situational.
It’s about one PM, one particular problem and another person who can offer a fresh perspective without becoming involved in the delivery.
I’ve found that these one-to-one conversations can sometimes be more useful than a large brainstorming session.
Not because group discussions are bad.
But because a focused conversation with someone you trust can be more effective than collecting twenty suggestions from people who only partly understand the problem.
And sometimes, the most valuable outcome isn’t a solution suggested by the other person.
It’s the opportunity to think aloud until you recognise the solution yourself.
Perhaps we underestimate how useful that can be.
Does hunger have a personality type?
I’ve sometimes wondered whether the profession has a preferred image of what a successful Project Manager should look like.
Confident, outgoing, assertive, energetic and comfortable challenging senior stakeholders. Always ready for the next difficult assignment.
Perhaps even a little aggressive.
There are various ways of describing personality differences. One familiar, although simplified, classification uses types A, B, C and D.
Type A is commonly associated with competitiveness, urgency and a strong drive to achieve. Type B is generally described as more relaxed and patient. Type C is often linked with careful, detail-oriented behaviour and a tendency to avoid conflict, while Type D is associated with a tendency towards negative emotions and social inhibition.
These labels come from different research traditions and shouldn’t be treated as one established personality model. They certainly don’t determine someone’s ability to manage projects.
But they bring me to an interesting question.
Is there such a thing as an ideal PM personality?
I don’t think so.
I’m naturally closer to the quieter end of the spectrum. I don’t particularly enjoy being the loudest person in the room, and I don’t believe every disagreement needs to become a confrontation.
Yet project management often requires us to influence people, challenge decisions and move difficult situations forward.
There are different ways of doing that.
Some PMs create momentum through visible energy, assertiveness and strong personal presence. Others influence through preparation, relationships, listening, careful questioning and well-timed interventions.
Some are highly structured, while others are particularly good at adapting their approach to the people and circumstances around them.
And many of us combine these styles depending on the situation.
I don’t believe there’s one personality type that makes someone a good Project Manager.
Different personalities bring different strengths, and the challenge is to understand our own, recognise where we need to develop and adapt our approach when the situation requires it.
Being naturally quiet doesn’t mean avoiding difficult conversations. Being assertive doesn’t automatically make someone a good leader.
What matters is how we use our strengths, work on our limitations and help the project and its people achieve the intended outcome.
A calm PM can still be determined. An introverted PM can still challenge a senior executive.
And someone who doesn’t constantly advertise their ambition may still care deeply about the quality of their work.
Hunger doesn’t always need to be loud.
Sometimes it shows through persistence, curiosity or the patience to understand a problem properly before reacting.
And sometimes through the courage to have a difficult conversation without turning it into a fight.
We should be careful not to confuse professional commitment with the performance of enthusiasm.
They aren’t the same thing.
Running the same race
Something else happens when you spend enough years in the profession.
You gradually become one of the older people in the room. It happens almost without noticing.
One day you’re the younger PM, learning from experienced colleagues and trying to establish yourself. Then new people arrive.
Younger PMs, new ideas, new energy and new ambitions. And suddenly you’re the one with twenty years of project stories.
I like working with younger colleagues.
Their curiosity can be refreshing. They sometimes question practices that I’ve come to accept and occasionally see opportunities that experience has made me overlook.
But I also sometimes wonder whether we’re all expected to keep running the same race.
The same pace, the same appetite for difficult assignments and the same willingness to take on more responsibility, more pressure and another challenging project.
Corporate life doesn’t exactly slow down as we get older.
Organisations change. People come and go. New technologies appear and new ways of working are introduced. And we’re expected to keep adapting.
Which is reasonable. Project management isn’t a profession where we can stop learning.
But after more than twenty years, I sometimes wonder what a sustainable PM career is supposed to look like.
Do we need to keep proving ourselves in the same way throughout our working lives? Does professional ambition always need to mean bigger projects, more responsibility or a more senior title?
And what about someone who simply wants to remain a good Project Manager?
Not necessarily become a Programme Director. Not necessarily move into executive management.
Just continue managing projects well, bringing experience, judgement and a steady hand to difficult delivery environments.
Is there a place for that person?
Can project management be a profession for an entire working life?
I would like to think so.
And sometimes I wonder about my own journey.
Will I still want to manage projects in another ten or fifteen years? Will I still find satisfaction in taking on a new assignment, building relationships with another team and working through another set of challenges?
I don’t know exactly what those years will bring.
But I would like to believe that the profession can remain rewarding without requiring us to keep proving ourselves in exactly the same way throughout our working lives.
I don’t think we discuss that question often enough.
We talk about developing young talent, career progression and preparing the next generation of leaders. And, of course, about achieving our performance targets.
As a colleague of mine used to joke, there are always targets to perform.
All important things.
But professional development shouldn’t stop once someone becomes experienced. And experience shouldn’t be valued only when it leads to a higher position in the hierarchy.
Sometimes its greatest value is in preventing a problem before it becomes visible.
Recognising a risk early, helping a team avoid an unnecessary conflict or knowing when to challenge an unrealistic commitment. Or understanding that a situation doesn’t need another escalation, but a sensible conversation between the right people.
Those contributions don’t always produce impressive headlines. But they can make a real difference to delivery.
And they may require less visible effort than the same situation would have demanded earlier in our careers.
That’s not a lack of hunger.
It may simply be experience at work.
Perhaps the challenge is not to compete with our younger selves or with younger colleagues. Perhaps it’s to understand what we can contribute at this stage of our careers that we couldn’t contribute before.
When the fire changes
I sometimes think about that younger version of me.
The one listening to project management podcasts, searching for learning materials, preparing for certifications and dreaming about becoming a proper PM.
Was he more hungry than I am today?
Perhaps. But hungry for what?
Back then, I wanted knowledge, experience, qualifications, interesting assignments and the opportunity to prove that I could do the job. And, probably, some recognition.
Those things mattered. Some still do.
But what I value has changed.
Today, I find satisfaction in helping my project team work through a difficult situation, seeing people understand what we’re trying to achieve and helping secure decisions that allow delivery to move forward.
In recognising a problem early enough to prevent it becoming something much bigger. And in creating an environment where my project team can do good work without unnecessary organisational interference.
I also find satisfaction in seeing people develop.
Sometimes it’s a colleague gaining confidence in an unfamiliar area. Sometimes it’s someone who doesn’t naturally seek attention beginning to speak up, take ownership or show what they’re capable of.
Not everyone is comfortable putting themselves forward. Some of the most capable people I’ve worked with have been quiet contributors who simply get on with their work.
Helping those people find their voice, develop their skills and receive recognition for what they bring to the team can be particularly rewarding.
I don’t need to be the person receiving the recognition. Sometimes it’s enough to see someone else grow.
That’s not necessarily the kind of hunger that attracts attention.
It doesn’t always come with a new title, certificate or promotion. Sometimes it doesn’t even get noticed.
But it matters.
Experience also changes how we respond to familiar challenges.
Early in our careers, we may need to explore several approaches, involve many people and put in a great deal of effort before finding a workable solution. With experience, we may recognise the underlying issue earlier.
Not because we possess some special wisdom, but because we’ve encountered similar situations before.
We may know which question to ask, which stakeholder to approach and where a small intervention can make a significant difference.
Sometimes one carefully timed conversation achieves more than a week of meetings. Sometimes the best action is to remove a single obstacle rather than reorganise the entire delivery approach. And sometimes it’s recognising that the team already knows what to do and simply needs the space to do it.
That’s one of the things I find valuable about experience.
It can make us more precise.
But it also creates a responsibility to remain open.
A familiar problem isn’t always the same problem. A new team may respond differently. A younger colleague may see an option we haven’t considered.
And an approach that worked ten years ago may no longer be appropriate.
Experience should help us recognise patterns, not lock us into them.
I don’t see this as a conflict between generations. Quite the opposite.
The energy and curiosity of younger PMs can work very well alongside the perspective and judgement of more experienced colleagues.
We have different things to contribute. And plenty to learn from one another.
Perhaps professional hunger doesn’t disappear with experience. Perhaps it becomes more selective about where to invest its energy.
Less interested in activity for its own sake.
More interested in the action that actually moves the project forward.
Passing something on
I often think about the people who helped me during my early years.
The experienced PMs who delivered those training modules, the colleagues who shared their knowledge and the people behind the books, websites and podcasts I followed.
Some knew me personally. Most didn’t. Yet they all contributed something to my professional development.
For a long time, I was primarily on the receiving end of that exchange. I was the one listening, reading, asking questions and trying to understand how more experienced people approached their work.
And I still am, in many ways. There’s always something new to learn.
But I’ve noticed another interest growing alongside that curiosity.
An interest in sharing what I’ve learned.
Not because I believe I have all the answers. Far from it. And not because twenty years of experience automatically makes someone’s opinions more valuable.
But because those years have provided opportunities to observe different organisations, project teams, delivery approaches and ways of dealing with difficult situations.
Some things worked. Others didn’t. And sometimes the most useful lessons came from situations I wouldn’t particularly want to repeat.
I’ve started to appreciate that those experiences might have value beyond the individual projects in which they occurred.
Sometimes that’s as simple as an informal conversation with another PM. Sometimes it’s helping a team recognise what’s preventing progress. Sometimes it’s questioning whether a governance arrangement is actually supporting delivery or simply creating more work.
Or helping someone connect a practical problem with a lesson learned elsewhere.
I find that increasingly rewarding.
There’s also something interesting about the way knowledge moves between people.
Those experienced trainers who visited my employer many years ago probably had no idea which parts of their programme would stay with me.
Andy Kaufman certainly couldn’t have known that a young PM listening to his podcast on the other side of the world would remember it so clearly decades later.
Yet that knowledge travelled.
It influenced decisions, shaped thinking and became part of someone else’s professional development.
And now, after all these years, I find myself more interested in contributing to that exchange from the other side.
Not necessarily through formal teaching. And certainly not by presenting myself as someone others should follow.
Sometimes sharing an experience is enough.
The other person can decide whether it’s useful. They may agree, disagree or recognise something entirely different in the story.
That’s fine.
I’ve also found that putting an observation into words can be a useful way of examining my own thinking.
Something that seems obvious in my head can become much more complicated when I try to explain it.
Why do I approach a situation in a particular way? Is it because the approach still makes sense, or simply because it has become familiar?
Sometimes writing helps me find an answer. Sometimes it leaves me with a better question.
And I think that has value too.
Knowledge sharing shouldn’t be a one-way transfer from someone who supposedly knows to someone who doesn’t. The exchange works both ways.
You can learn something from a colleague with far fewer years in the profession. You can discover a better approach in an unfamiliar project environment.
And sometimes, while trying to explain your own experience, you realise that your thinking needs another look.
Perhaps that’s part of what keeps the profession interesting.
You don’t stop being a student when you begin helping others learn.
Still hungry?
There’s a thought I’ve carried with me while reflecting on all this.
To look to the future with hope, one must be aware of one’s past.
I think there’s something important in that.
Looking back isn’t necessarily about nostalgia. It’s about understanding how we arrived where we are, what shaped us, what we’ve learned and what we still want to carry forward.
More than twenty years ago, I was hungry to become a Project Manager.
I wanted to learn everything I could, gain experience, prove myself and become part of a profession I admired.
Today, I look at project management differently.
I’ve seen its rewards and experienced some of its costs. I’ve worked with excellent people, managed difficult situations, made mistakes and learned things I couldn’t have learned from a textbook.
And I’ve accumulated enough flight hours to know that even a successful landing doesn’t always mean an easy journey.
I still believe there’s value in this profession.
In helping people work together. In bringing clarity to complicated situations. In making difficult things happen. And in supporting those who are just beginning their own journeys.
But I no longer believe professional hunger needs to look the same throughout our careers.
It doesn’t have to mean constant ambition, working harder than everyone else or accepting every difficult assignment. And it certainly shouldn’t mean allowing the profession to consume everything else in our lives.
A good Project Manager doesn’t need to be permanently enthusiastic.
Some projects give us energy. Others take more than they give back. And going through a difficult period doesn’t suddenly make someone less competent because their energy or enthusiasm is lower than it used to be.
We’re people, with different responsibilities and different stages in our careers and lives.
Professional hunger shouldn’t be measured by whether we appear equally enthusiastic every day.
Perhaps hunger changes.
From wanting to prove ourselves to wanting to make a useful contribution. From collecting knowledge to applying judgement.
From trying to move everything through effort alone to recognising exactly where our effort can make the difference. And from seeking recognition to finding satisfaction in helping others succeed.
Sometimes, perhaps, it’s also about continuing to care.
About the quality of our work, the people involved and whether what we’re doing actually helps the project.
When I think about what drives me today, I realise that much of my hunger is increasingly connected with sharing knowledge.
Not because I’ve stopped learning myself, but because I’d like to make something useful out of what I’ve learned.
Sometimes that means helping another PM see a problem differently. Sometimes it’s simply sharing an observation that might make someone else think.
I don’t know exactly what the next years of my PM journey will bring.
But perhaps that’s one direction in which I’d like to continue developing.
More than twenty years ago, I was hungry to become a Project Manager.
Today, perhaps I’m trying to understand what it means to remain one.
Not because the learning is finished.
But because the profession, and what I want from it, continues to evolve.
I still remember that manager and his morning question.
The one that once made me smile.
I understand it differently now.
So, what do you see when you look in the mirror?
Is there still a Project Manager looking back?
And what are they hungry for?
Over and out.