
Making Things Happen
Scott Berkun, a former Microsoft Program Manager shares his views about becoming a project manager.
His views are startingly similar to the views we have been posting on this website … that getting more handson experience is the best way to jumpstart your career!
Notice Scott does not start with a long list of educational requirements or certifications for aspiring project managers but with something that you have heard me talk a lot about … hands-on experience!
Scott’s Advice for Aspiring Project Managers:
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WORK ON A PROJECT.
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Go make something …

Volunteers Wanted
Michael Surkan a former Microsoft Senior Product Planner and Program Manager is looking for Volunteer Software Testers and Project Managers for an on-line customer relationship management (CRM) and business management software service project.
While at Microsoft, Michael conducted customer, industry and research to help make decisions for future versions of the Windows operating system.
Michael’s work includes using surveys, focus groups, and customer interviews as part of research strategies and synthesized all the data into conclusions and recommendations for senior managers.
In every information technology discipline, there are people who outperform
others.
You probably know some of them; computer programmers who write better
code, faster than their colleagues or data analysts who can research and
identify trends in data faster, easier and better than their colleagues or
business analysts who are ten times as productive as their colleagues!
I have been studying top performers ever since I left high school and I am
now starting a free online study group on top performers with the goal of
identifying:
i. who are top performers?
ii. how do you become a top performer?
There is a high demand by IT managers for good, competent and skilled software
developers right now.A good number of software development job postings for
leading or cutting edge software development skills are taking longer and longer
to fill.
1. The demand for experienced, skilled software developers in Java, C# .NET,
Visual Basic .NET, SQL Server, SharePoint and ASP.NET exceeds the supply of
available, skilled and competent computer programmers.
2. Software job postings are taking longer to fill. In some cases, they are not
getting filled at all. I have seen IT directors, IT managers and hiring managers
post "job wanted" advertisements for .NET programmers or C# programmers that
take months to fill.