8 Project Management Ideas To Build Your Portfolio

Project managers monitor and measure the progress of projects from the inception of an idea to the final product creation or result and handle all aspects of project management, including planning, budgeting, implementation, tracking, and reporting. You can gain qualifications and capabilities through overseeing your projects while studying business or preparing for a project management position. Building a portfolio of your project management work can interest employers and help you stand out as a candidate. In this article, we explore the skills of project management and eight project management ideas to help you in a project management career.

Skills for project management

If you want to become a project manager, consider honing or gaining these five skills:

• Problem-solving and strategic planning: Strategic planning is essential in building budgets, researching markets, and creating implementation plans. Even with comprehensive project management plans and risk assessment, you often make important decisions as a project manager, especially when changes or issues arise.

• Leadership: A project manager motivates and encourages a team through every stage of a project. You coach and review work, give guidance, and hold full project responsibility as a project manager.

• Communication: Effective communication, both verbal and written, is essential for a project manager. From sharing details of a project plan to setting goals and motivating your team, solid communication skills (including nonverbal communication) can help project managers succeed in their roles.

• Competencies: You can show you have the right qualifications, capabilities, and competencies as a project manager through your expertise and experience with software management tools, research skills, project management portfolio, and your continued interest in self-education by staying up to date with advancements in technology and developments in your particular field or industry.

• Team and time management: A project manager skilled in prioritization can effectively execute time management, both in the short and long term of a project and its stages. The size of your team may change for each project and can range from small to large, so skills of effective team management are helpful.

8 project management ideas for a portfolio

Project management ideas are most helpful when you can reference them in employment interviews and they showcase elements of project management, including proposal, cost estimation, planning, team and schedule management, communication, risk variance, and more. Also, consider having a variety of industries or fields represented in your portfolio to stand apart from other candidates. For example, include a technology project, a nonprofit project, and a physical labor project within your portfolio.

If you want to build your portfolio as a project manager, consider these eight ideas for project management to use:

1. Organize a fundraiser

Consider organizing a fundraiser for a school, nonprofit or other organization and create a project management plan. Define what the goal and purpose of your fundraiser are, how much money you want to raise, how many people you hope to attract, and more. In your plan, outline the supplies needed, the number of volunteers required, and a comprehensive budget for all expenses. Keep a list of tasks completed, underway, and still to do to help meet deadlines and goals.

Implement your fundraiser and monitor how well it performs to make any changes, particularly if it is an online giving event. Evaluate the fundraiser afterward to assess how the plan and the result compare and what key knowledge you can glean for future projects.

2. Do a home renovation project

Home renovation projects are significant project management opportunities, whether a small renovation or a large home extension or addition. With a home renovation, you also serve as a liaison with local authorities, like code enforcement, town clerks, or utility companies. You collaborate with design teams, suppliers, architects, general contractors, and other professionals. Your duties as a project manager on a home renovation often include:

• Creating blueprints

• Getting permit applications

• Hiring subcontractors

• Pricing and sourcing materials

• Organizing a budget

• Handling cash flow

• Setting a schedule

• Delegating tasks

• Managing checklists of work completed

• Issuing payments

3. Innovate an everyday process improvement

With this project management idea, you can consider finding best practices or process improvements for everyday tasks like a grocery store checkout or a check-in process for an airline, for example. You can start with consumer and market research to better understand the challenges, likes, and dislikes of current processes and uses and ask leading questions to learn what consumers would like to see. For example, you might ask about self-checkout options or airport self-serve check-in kiosks and what improvements would make a person more likely to use them.

With the consumer research and information you gain, brainstorm solutions and create a project management plan for the top idea. For example, perhaps an idea is adding an interactive, talking help button on a kiosk screen to guide a customer through the process. Create budgets for the costs, expenses, and projected savings the innovation has, like if it reduces staffing needs and labor costs since fewer employees need to assist customers because of the technology.

4. Consolidate a business office

Perhaps a local or regional business needs to merge two offices into one—a project manager helps oversee the entire process, from start to finish. You create a plan to move into a single facility and handle all aspects of communication, preparation, team delegation, and change management. Your responsibilities as a project manager might include:

• Creating a schedule with important milestones throughout the project

• Analyzing the pros and cons of leasing versus buying office space

• Addressing IT concerns, like redundancy or upgrades to technology

• Making a budget and including cost projections, like hiring movers or buying new furniture

• Forming a comprehensive change management plan

• Establishing a communications plan for employees

• Assessing the risk of work disruption and its impact

• Having alternative options for unexpected situations or complications

5. Develop a website

This project management idea offers you a wide range of options because you can create a website for any industry, need or business. If you are interested in information technology or web design, you can gain practical experience in the field that also can impress employers. Developing a website involves team management, as you work with developers, designers, company liaisons, and other professionals. You create timelines that allow you to view and test website functionality, with contingency plans for any unforeseen circumstances.

6. Innovate construction technology

Consider innovating a tool, technology, or process for the construction industry. Whether private or public, construction is a growing field and there are constant innovations helping workers do their jobs safely, effectively, and expeditiously. Perhaps you brainstorm an electronic wristband, smart safety glasses or clothing, certain sensors or other technology innovations that help those who work in construction and commercial property development. It can be an improvement in transportation, building maintenance, safety awareness or material moving.

7. Create a work remote plan

Institute a work remote plan for a business or company as a project management plan for your portfolio. Be sure to build a mix of employee management and collaboration solutions, thoughtfully balanced with business priorities and goals and team preferences. You might incorporate these elements into your project management plan:

• Pricing and sourcing collaboration software, employee monitoring software and resource management software

• Estimating cost projections for setting up home offices

• Drafting cost savings from reduced or absent office space expenses

• Interviewing leadership to learn management style and desired outcomes

• Surveying employees to learn team desires, preferences and concerns

• Creating communications and change management plans for employees

• Setting dates and milestones

• Monitoring task completion lists

• Writing a report to recap the project’s level of success

8. Build a deck

Using a deck build for a project management portfolio piece allows you to showcase your decision-making and problem-solving skills, particularly because a deck can have many variables. For example:

• Size and shape

• Location, like floor level or second story

• Design needs, like going around a pool or tree

• Material types, like wood or composite

• Regulations, like the need for railings or steps

• Style elements, like colors, layout and embellishments

• Preferences, like multiple sets of stairs

• Maintenance requirements, like power washing, staining or sealing

• Additional elements, like an overhang or pergola for climbing vines or sunshade installation

A deck build project involves budgets, cash flow, permits, materials, labor, planning and deadlines, which make for a successful project management example.

I hope you find this article helpful.