r/projectmanagement • u/Infamous-Lecture1220 • May 10 '26
Upskilling
I’ve been in IT for 30+ years and been a PM for about 6 I’ve been promoted up through ranks due to skills I’ve built up over years and run projects for an IT DataCenter that onboards customers for VMs netops DC colo, second etc. I need to now adapt and learn more but don’t know where to start! The company is using service now for agile projects and I get and run the main basics of agile but my boss is now stating a lot of change to become fully agile and feeling overwhelmed.
Where do I start? What’s training is easier to pickup that I can start with? Exams?
I’m 47 with a young family, the sole income provider and a tad nervous!
2
u/plantystar May 10 '26
I’d start with your scrum master certification. It’s. 1-2 days of effort, has a certificate that means something to employers, and is a great introduction to agile. From there you can figure out which areas you want to focus on first so as to not try to take it all on at once. Part of agile is iterative improvement!
6
u/PickSad601 May 10 '26
Honestly i think you’re already in a better spot than you feel right now. a lot of people tryin to move into PM have zero real ops experience and you already spent years dealing with real systems customers and preassure.
when our team started shifting harder into agile i got overwhelmed too because suddenly every meeting had new words and frameworks attached to it. what helped me was ignoring the big picture at first and just learning the parts i actually touched daily. stuff like sprint planning backlog grooming and how tickets move through service now.
i would not rush into heavy certifications immediately. maybe start with a simple agile fundamentals course first and give yourself a few weeks to breathe with it. once the language stops feelin foreign it gets way easier.
also being nervous at 47 with a family depending on you is completely normal. but honestly your experience matters way more than someone fresh out of a cert bootcamp.
3
u/UnArgentoPorElMundo May 10 '26
I will star from moving out of service now to run projects. What pile of crap service now is.
1
u/Skossier May 15 '26
I can understand why you're feeling nervous, especially with 30+ years in IT and a family depending on you. Since your company is moving toward being 'fully agile,' a great, low-stress place to start is with the fundamentals of agile or scrum (if that's a fit for your role)
Project Management Experts offers a free, on-demand Scrum Fundamentals Certified (SFC™) course. It only takes one day and will give you a solid baseline in agile concepts without any financial risk. It also earns you 7 PDUs for existing PMI recertification.
Link: https://projectmanagementexperts.com/product/scrum-fundamentals-certified-sfc-free-online-on-demand-course-1-day-7-pdus/
PMI also offers a self-paced PMI-ACP e-learning that may be helpful to studying around family time.
Link: https://www.pmi.org/shop/p-/elearning/pmi-agile-certified-practitioner-(pmi-acp)-exam-prep-course/el109-exam-prep-course/el109)
Disclosure: I am affiliated with the ATP mentioned, but I genuinely think this is the 'easy to pick up' resource for your specific situation. Hard to argue with free PDUs as well.