One of the drawbacks of doing a distance learning MBA is that you don’t meet your fellow students very often. But one of my modules – project management – is run online. We still get the huge binder full of meaty reading, but we work in virtual teams on a project. As with other study teams, Warwick like to mix us up so that each team has a range of nationalities and professions to draw on. The virtual team working was one of the reasons that drew me to this module, and I’m really looking forward to it.

Although I’ve worked on lots of projects over my career, I wouldn’t describe myself as a project manager. Maybe it’s seemed too…well, unglamorous. All those Gantt charts. Project sponsors. And the general feeling that the PRINCE2 projects I’ve been involved with have been the most haphazardly run. But since starting this module, I’ve definitely reconsidered, on a shallow and on a deeper level.

On a shallow level, well of course projects make the world go round – but that doesn’t tell us very much. On the more interesting level, this discipline definitely offers me something different (which is why I’m doing this MBA in the first place). People who work in communications and in branding are always looking to find the sharpest, simplest statement. Those people who have worked with me the closest say that I’m forever trying to boil things down to their central point.

That doesn’t get you very far in project management. As the weeks and months go by, I’m going to have to embrace complexity. Exhilarating and a little bit scary.

And a big shout out to the exotically titled (for now) PM 2010  Group 9.