How to switch from QA to Project Management

[athangappa]

Hi,

Now I work as a QA in an IT company and I want to switch to PM in future. What steps should be taken ?

Currently I am into CAPM and reading some forums.

1.What is the path to reach my destination project coordinator -> Junior PM / Assistant PM-> PM ? will this work?
2. How long it would take to reach my goal ??
4. Tools I need to learn ?
3. Do I need a MBA degree?

My current EXP : 2+ Years as QA analyst.
Education :1. Bachelors of Engineering in Electronics.
2. Masters of Engineering in Networking .
And I have good knowledge about Finance and securities and hold other certifications in Networks.

I can unequivocally state that I have Good Organizational,communication and managerial skills. ( My boss calls me as a small boss ) and I have a good time management skills I stick to the ETA 90% .

Note: Though I do QA, I don't think I do QA stuffs exactly ! I do work very independently with other departments as a specific work is assigned to me. I don't hold meeting now but I follow up , ask ETAs on specific Task on other departments , take part in lot of meetings, work with higher officials of other departments since my work client sensitive.

Please advise whether my work related to my dream job.


Any advise is really appreciated.



Thanks.

 

[chiro]

Hey athangappa and welcome to the forums.

This is going to depend on the nature of your work, not just the fact that it's IT.

Getting certificates and so on is nice, but again it's going to depend on the nature of your work, and also the organizational structure that is in place currently.

The thing you obviously need is a start on your first project, but often you will need some decent amount of experience working on projects as a contributor and not as a manager (not saying managers don't 'contribute' but they don't in the sense of doing the grunt work).

I would imagine that it would be better to do a role like programming for software development, or at least have experience with multiple jobs within the project life-cycle and then try and work your way up from there to get into a management role and then a higher level management role.

There are PM's that don't have domain experience certainly and don't come directly from lower grunt-work backgrounds, but it's going depend on who you work for and what the thoughts are for management: some places like people who start from the bottom and get to a role through actual real experience through each stage, and some are happy to get managers who are 'professional managers' as opposed to the other scenario.

If you can talk about who you work for, the industry, and the culture and values with regard to how managers are selected (as well as for the organization in general), the readers will be able to give more specific advice.

 

[athangappa]

Thanks for the reply .

QA definitely contribute more on the project and the project life cycle than a developer.