March/April 2008 | Home

Transitioning from Technical Communicator to Project Manager

by Laura Dahlinger and Josette Schaber

Laura has been PMP certified for eight years in Columbus, Ohio.

Josette is also PMP certified and has worked as a technical communicator for ten years, also in Columbus, Ohio.

Technical communicators and project managers have similar communication skills: They must manage information and people, and they must communicate clearly and effectively. You can say that becoming certified as a project manager is a natural progression of a technical communicator's talents.

It can be tricky to make the transition, as organizations typically require specific experience. Companies frequently do not realize that they need people who have both skill sets. Project managers organize any type of project from initial conception to completion, whereas technical communicators mainly manage documentation projects from conception to completion. However, you can become qualified as a Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM) or as a Project Management Professional (PMP), use the certification to display your flexibility as an employee, and expand your career capabilities.

Certification Requirements

Requirement	CAPM	PMP
Education	High school diploma or Associate's degree	Bachelor's degree, Associate's degree, or high school diploma
Experience	1,500 hours of work experience on a project team OR At least 23 hours of project management education	Bachelor's degree: 4,500 hours of project management experience within 36 months OR Associate's degree or high school diploma: 7,500 hours of project management experience within 60 months
Project Management		At least 35 hours of project management education

If you have less than five years' experience as a technical communicator, consider the CAPM certification. The requirements are less stringent, and it is a good way to show an employer your flexibility. If you have more experience, consider the PMP certification. The requirements are stricter, but the certification holds more prestige. When applying, you can list only project management experience from the previous eight years.

Project Management
Institute

You may want to consider becoming a member of the Project Management Institute (PMI). As a member, you save on the cost of the test; you receive industry-related publications; and you have access to the online library of articles, white papers, and other project management-related information.
For more information, visit the PMI website:

http://www.pmi.org/Pages/default.aspx

CAPM Certification

Although CAPM certification requires less experience and education than PMP certification, the requirements can still be daunting. Whether you choose the work experience option or the education option, you should take a certification class to help you prepare for the test and compare your experience with other certificate applicants.

The application for the CAPM exam has one part for project work experience and one part for project management education. Be sure to submit the correct part; otherwise, your application is considered incomplete and will be rejected.

PMP Certification

PMP certification is more difficult due to the quantity of information required. If you kept track of your project hours, you will have no problem preparing your application. If you did not keep track, start now! It is good information not only for applications (such as these certifications) but also for your resume.

Application Overview

PMI bases certification on nine knowledge areas and five main stages of a project. The nine knowledge areas are integration, scope, time, cost, quality, human resources, communications, risk, and procurement.

The five main stages of a project are initializing, planning, executing, monitoring/controlling, and closing. The following table summarizes these stages:

Stage	Description
Initializing	Generally, this stage is the initial discovery phase of the project. You begin planning the project, from how the people, products, and phases integrate to what the customer needs. You investigate the risks and rewards of the project in order to decide if the project is feasible.
Planning	You plan how long the document will take to create, consider such issues as software and subject matter expert (SME) availability, and plan the actual structure of your project. Ask for assistance to mitigate the risk that the document will not be completed on time or with the resources available.
Executing	You may still be waiting for answers (for example, about software integration of a help file), but as long as the answers do not derail the project, you can begin the actual writing. You will log most of your hours during this stage.
Monitoring/ Controlling	You verify that the documentation is proceeding as expected. Are you receiving answers from your SMEs in a timely manner? Are software issues being resolved? Are you writing about items that are not in the scope of the project (for example, documenting marketing uses for a product while writing the help file)?
Closing	You deliver the file or document and record lessons learned. Perhaps you should have spoken to the manager of Development during the planning stage instead of waiting for execution. Or you may have discovered a major flaw in the help authoring tool that forced you to use Web help instead of compressed help. This stage takes about the same percentage of project time as the initializing stage.

For certifications, you do not have to gain project management experience as the "direct" project manager; you can qualify by "leading and directing project tasks." You must enter hours for specific tasks that PMI includes on the form, such as "Define the scope of the project based on the organization's need to meet the customer project expectations."

For more information on becoming a PMP, see the PMP requirements on the PMI website:

http://www.pmi.org/CareerDevelopment/Pages/Obtaining-Credential.aspx

Laura Dahlinger is a technical communicator/project manager at the Ohio Department of Transportation for Quick Solutions, Inc. in Columbus, Ohio. Laura earned her PMP certification and has been a technical communicator/project manager for eight years.

Josette Schaber is a technical communicator working for Astute Solutions in Columbus, Ohio. Josette enjoys working in HTML and has helped create several websites for use in small business ventures. She's been a technical communicator for over ten years and a member of STC. Josette also has her PMP certification.

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