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For much of my career I was an “accidental” project manager. I showed a knack for successfully implementing assignment under the pressure of firm deadlines, high expectations, and major consequences for failure. I naturally decomposed projects into smaller, actionable work, and coordinated people and resources well. My approach using limited project management knowledge shipped initiatives worth tens of millions of dollars and built my confidence as a project manager.

Then I joined a $2.1 Billion state IT program and saw elite PMs from a couple of the Big Four consulting firms at work alongside top engineers. That is when I realized that there are levels to this, and I was still playing college ball. Instead of retreating into my shell in embarrassment, I decided to go pro. That decision started my PMP journey.

After tons of studying and a new role working with the Executive leadership in my organization, I obtained my PMP in late 2020. Unfortunately, most formal projects were paused and few new ones were being greenlit due to the pandemic-era safety measures taken. So, there I was, eager to use my newly obtained PM skills, but no projects to apply them to. I began to question whether seeking my PMP was the right decision. No project on deck forced a now obvious and simple realization. The PMBOK is a system made of parts and those parts are portable.

Transferrable Skills from Project Management Training

K. Ryan Jenkins (LTC, USAR), Global GovCon Executive and Chairman of Braemar Management LLC said in a recent PMI webinar,

“There is no downside of getting your PMP because it is an investment in yourself.”

The PMP and CAPM teach portable skills that can travel across roles, environments, and organizations. The value is in the principles, components, and mindset you apply to any assignment.

People Skills

Communication in any project or assignment oftentimes comprise anywhere between 75% to 90% of a Project Manager’s time. With this in mind set clear expectations, ask better questions, and deal with conflicts between stakeholders. Building trust, seeking consensus, and using persuasion and negotiation to achieve objectives are in-demand skills in any setting.

Decision-Making Skills

The PMBOK helps sharpen judgement by teaching you frameworks for prioritizing work, identifying constraints, and applying analytical methods to reach decisions in group settings. The PMBOK encourages critical thinking as well as proactively engaging in effective time and task management thereby setting the table for good decision-making. These are key thinking skills which is why they will always remain useful even outside formal projects.

Leadership and Strategy Skills

Being a project manager is inherently a leadership role. The guide helps position you as a leader who aligns people, process, and tools toward an objective. Training builds leadership presence and judgment to better guide and motivate stakeholders even without formal authority. It also trains you to look at things from an integration or “big picture” lens. Project managers consider the entire system to ensure that they are in strategic alignment with their organization’s objectives. That mindset is portable to any initiative, large or small.

In short, your project management training does not just teach you concepts, it rewires how you work. Certifications like the PMP and CAPM sharpen how you plan your communications, make decisions, and lead teams so you can create value wherever you are.

Build and Apply Micro-Systems from Components

I love systems because they pull ideas and work out of your head and into a structure, allowing you attention to stay on what actually matters. A component is a single project management building block. A micro-system is what you get when you combine two or more components together into a small, visible way of working that guides how your complete tasks.

When you start, keep is light at first. Select one, lightweight micro-systems at first and run it for a week. Review it, tweak it as needed, and only add detail or stitch more components if there’s a need for it.

Stakeholder engagement and communications

Make the work legible. Start with a one-page Stakeholder Register using a simple template:

Name | Role | Main Expectation | Needs | Influence | Interest | Notes

Pair it with a lightweight Communications Plan:

Audience | Purpose of Communication | Message | Cadence | Owner | Delivery Method

Make both easily accessible to the team. This micro-system reduces surprises, speeds approvals, and keeps expectations explicit instead of implied.

Work intake and flow with simple Kanban and WIP limits

Stand up a basic board with To Do, Doing, Done, plus a clear Blocked category. Set a small work in progress (WIP) limit to protect focus and quality. Review the board at the same time each week to remove identify bottlenecks and remove any friction points.

Roles and agreements with RACI

When work crosses teams, clarify who is Responsible, who is Accountable, who must be Consulted, and who needs to be Informed. Publish the RACI where people can self-serve answers.

For personal assignments, I use a simple RACI the same way I would on a team project to create a micro-system of clarity. I list who is Responsible for specific pieces of the work, note that I am usually Accountable for the final outcome, name any people to Consult for input or review, and capture who I need to Inform. I do not have to publish it anywhere since it is primarily meant for my use, but I am willing to share if others find value from it.

Assess and close loops with short retros

I am a big proponent of retrospectives (retros for short) because we get enormous value by reflecting on the work we have done. End each week with a 5 to 10-minute retro. Do it with the group, but you can also do solo retros for individual assignments. Reflect on what worked, what failed, and what you will change next time. Carry forward one improvement to implement.

How to pick what to improve:

• The biggest delay you hit this week
• The most frequent redo or rework
• The stakeholder who seemed most confused
• The decision that lingered the longest
• The risk with the highest consequence if it goes wrong

Use automation and AI assistance to enhance your micro-systems

Use tools to keep your micro-systems moving without adding more manual effort. Treat AI as a helper that supports the structure you carefully built. For example:

• Use Copilot during meetings to capture notes, decisions, and action items, then drop those actions straight into your kanban board or task list.
• Use Power Automate to send recurring reminders for status checks, approvals, or key dates tied to your Communications Plan.
• Use ChatGPT or your preferred LLM to turn your Stakeholder Register into short summaries you can reuse in emails, briefings, or slide notes.

Keep it practical. Every automation should connect to a named decision owner and a clear next action, so there is always a human accountable for what happens next. Don’t forget to always follow your employer’s AI policies.

Learn by teaching

After I earned my PMP in late 2020, formal projects were scarce. The next real test came when I led the relaunch of a PMO serving a workforce of nearly 14,000. It was a complete, bottom up rebuild. For the first time, I could use my full PMP toolkit. The work demanded integration. I had to connect strategy, intake, planning, delivery, and reporting into one coherent way of working, not just manage a single project in isolation.

It was a chance to build something impactful and think at a truly strategic level. I leaned on everything I had studied: governance, stakeholder engagement, risk, communications, scope, schedule, and more. My job was to pull these pieces together so leaders could see the whole picture and project teams could generate the most value for the organization.

Teaching was what sharpened my command of the subject matter. I trained teams on project management including Agile, specifically, Scrum. I walked through how the parts fit together, not just how to fill out templates. Psychologists call this the protégé effect. Preparing to teach and then teaching a topic deepens understanding, improves recall, and exposes gaps you might otherwise miss. The more I explained integration, stakeholder engagement, scope management, and risk mitigation, the clearer my own playbook became.

The same pattern applies to micro-systems and components. When you translate a small piece of the PMBOK into a practical micro-system and show someone else how to use it, you are not only helping them. You are also refining how you think, decide, and deliver.

Put your skills to work – anywhere!

Oftentimes, we must work with the hand we are dealt, not the one we wish we would have gotten. So, instead of waiting for the perfect project or assignment, take the work in front of you, break it into components, and assemble lightweight micro-systems you can run where you already work. Over time, those small, repeatable systems and processes become second nature to your own personal way of working. In the end, that is how an “accidental” project manager becomes and intentional project leader.