Why Did I Become a Marine Project Manager?

Juergen Groth is a member of the ProjectManagers.Org community. He shares his story on why he became a Marine Project Manager in the following interview:

Why did you become a Marine Project Manager?

Project Management is very exciting and a perspective challenge and I won’t miss it anymore.

What work were you doing previously?

Previously I was a Marine Project Manager for the Offshore-industry.

What are you doing now?

Currently I am doing Project documentation control.

When was the moment you decided to make the change?

A long time ago I have been pushed in to this profession and I am glad about it, therefore lately I have been certified.

Are you happy with the change?

Yes, very happy, because it is the best change I ever did in my life.

What do you miss and what don’t you miss?

I miss more project work hahahaha and I don’t miss my previous knowledge and experience, because I know now what is real knowledge.

How did you go about making this career move?

You know, I am in the shipbuilding- and repair-industry for some (35 years) and there the knowledge of Project Management is essential.

What didn’t go well? What ‘wrong turns’ did you take?

Everything was going very well and fortunately I didn’t took wrong turns in my life, because I love my work every day, even in bad moments.

How did you handle your finances to make your change possible?

When you are working, you don’t have any problems and financial hassles and the changes filling up your professional life.

What was the most difficult thing about changing?

When you change role into any management position, the people working for you expect you to lead, know your job and be confident about what you’re doing.  This is hard when you’re new in the job, because you’re bound to be feeling your way into the role and make mistakes. You have to somehow get through this and go again next time better armed than last.

What were other difficulties and how did you overcome them? What help did you get?

Difficult, what Difficult? I never found difficulties about changing. If you don’t change, you end up as a person who is working, but not loving his work.

What have you learnt in the process?

As a Marine Project Manager you have to build a good team with different tasks as risk, estimation, scheduling and others, because you are not GOD who knows everything.

What do you wish you’d done differently?

When I look back into my life, I am positive on what and whow I have done my career. The only I could think off is that I never have had my own family, because I was very busy.

What would you advise others to do in the same situation?

It is very difficult to tell other persons what to do better in his  or her life, but I can tell you as Marine  Project Manager, that every Building, Vessel, industrial compound etc. is a project, low-or high-priced and these are only numbers we are talking about and don’t be too positive or negative, be real, come up with professionalism and you never will go wrong.

Learn as much as you can, because you never stop learning in life. I have learnt in ProjectManagers.Org and I am very concerned about others who think they can do this special task and later on be surprised that they fail as about 75% are failing still in this special field of Project Management.

All the best of knowledge and experience to everybody, willing to take on this task and come up with excellent results.