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Hi everyone, here is Ricardo Vargas and welcome to the 5 Minutes Podcast, the first one of 2025. And first, I want to wish all of you a fantastic and wonderful year, and I want to share with you five things that I would put as a priority for me as a project manager to learn and to develop this year. First, before I start talking about them, I want just to highlight I'm not talking about keeping your mental and physical health in this. It does not mean that this is not important. This is, by the way, critical, but this is not related to project management. So I want to give you five tips that I would do if I were you this year to improve. I would say my employability improves my ability to deliver results inside my company and my organization and also to leverage and deliver better projects. And the first one is continuous education and what I would do this year? I would challenge myself to get a powerful certification or a course. For example, if I'm not yet a PMP, I would put a PMP on my wish list and why it's not first. Of course, this podcast is not sponsored by PMI, and I'm talking on my behalf because even if you use Agile or if you use other methodologies, it's very popular, the PMP credential, and it gives you an edge. Do you know what I tell people when I'm doing a recruitment? It's your CV moves from one pile to another.
I'm not saying that you will get the job because of that, but it changes my perception. So if I need to decide between someone using, let's suppose, two CVS that are absolutely identical, and one has the PMP and the other one does not, there is a chance that the PMP will move forward, and I'm being brutally honest. I don't know if all of you will agree, but I'm talking on my behalf here. But if you already have the PMP like myself, what I would do, I would look for a super nice education, a course, a five-day course, a two-week course. That first, my strong preference would be a course that I can attend physically, not online, not remote and it would be my preference to do this at a top university if I could afford. Of course, I know that I'm talking to some of you, and these are very challenging because it requires money, it requires time, it requires travel. But if you are not able to go in person to a super nice course on leadership or to a super nice course on negotiations, or to a super nice course on soft skills or even AI, I would do the same online. And when I'm talking online, there is no excuse. You go on Coursera, you go on edX, and you will probably pay $20 or something like that to get a course in.
Some of them are brilliant. I just finished one on operations management from UPenn and it was a fantastic course, a super nice course about operations, about production, because I was trying to remember some of the concepts I study at the university, so you must invest in this at least one and do it nicely and do not do it for the certificate, okay? Do it to learn and to improve and to improve your vocabulary, to improve your knowledge. The second thing I would do, it's an event. I would do whatever I could to go to a top in-person event. And I'm not talking about going to an in-person event just for learning because, of course, you can learn online, but it's for networking, for networking. And for example, if you can, for example, I go every year to the PMI summit, to the PMI Global Conference. That happens every year. And it will happen this year in Phoenix, Arizona. If you can afford, if you can make this happen, go if you want. Also, you are in Europe. There are many events from the International Project Management Association that are amazing that you can go to; for example, if you live in the US or if you live in Brazil and you want to go to an event, the only advice I can give in a very humble way, it's do not go to an event.
And I would say in your region, in your local place, of course you can go. But in terms of the second tip, go to a place where you do not know anybody. Go to a place to improve your networking. Go to a place to introduce yourself to new people. Because for example, if I go to an event where I know everybody. The potential of networking is pretty much zero because I know all of them. What I want is to know different people and to meet different people, to introduce myself to different groups. And by doing that, you are improving your network. And not only, you know, staying among the people you already know because these will not expand. I would say your network and your reach in terms of Project Management, and I do that a lot. Of course, I participate. I'm saying at least one. I do many of them, but for me, the opportunity to participate in a top event is amazing. And if you can afford to travel, then go to a very different place than you are used to. Okay, if you are in the US, try to find a conference in Asia immediately and go there because it will improve even if you tell me. But look, Ricardo, I work here. This is my life.
Yes, this is your life today. But for you to be a good project manager, you need to have a much more holistic way. The third tip is I and I'm not saying this just because I'm a big fan and I'm doing a lot of work on AI. It's because it's unacceptable at this time that you have no literacy in AI. You need to put in time. You need to invest time in learning AI. I'm not saying that you need to be the best person in AI in the whole universe, but you need to be proficient in AI. You need to be. I know that some people now think that AI will be irrelevant for project managers. Okay, I respect all possible views, but in my case, I think the cost-benefit is dramatic for you because I think everybody is moving towards implementing AI and AI agents, and you cannot be outside of this because if you are outside, you will be at risk. Number four, I would do a project, and I would develop a project completely. Let me repeat completely out of my universe of action. It means if I am an IT person and I work with software development and I know how to do development projects, I would challenge myself to use the project management concepts to renew my home, to make a trip, or to, you know, build a new shed in the garden of my house.
But anything that has absolutely no relationship with what you do today, if you are an engineer, okay, try to. Instead of looking for a project that is related to engineering, try to do a project that is related to AI or try to do a project that is related to charity. For example, if you follow a religion, go to your church or mosque and try to help. Try to use project management skills in different areas. One of the biggest assets I have in my professional life is the ability and the opportunity I had to be exposed to so many different types of projects inside the UN as venture capitalists, you know, inside my own company, in industrial projects, in construction, and these give me a much broader understanding of what project management is about. And you need to invest in this. It can be on your personal side. It can be on your family's side. It can be in other areas of your company. But you need to go to a different universe. Remember what I said recently when I said that I go to The Burning Man every year, and this is a project for me that is absolutely outside my universe. And I do that intentionally because, for me, it gives me a different perspective of what I should do and what I should expect when I'm doing these types of projects.
And last but not least, number five soft skills. But soft skills. I'm not saying communication, and I'm not saying motivation. Of course. Please. I'm not saying these are irrelevant, but I would invest in soft skills related to negotiation, crisis problems, and conflicts. Why? Because in my humble view, I have a feeling that we may face more turbulent times ahead than what we expect and our ability to manage crisis, to manage power, to manage conflict, to manage problems will become very valuable for our companies and for our career is to work completely outside of normal conditions. It's to crisis management, trouble, projects, problems, conflict negotiations, and all sorts of challenges you may face in developing these soft skills. Because these soft skills I will not be able to fulfill today and these will be in a super high value. And I know you may say, but Ricardo, how do I do that? You can do this formally. You can do a course, you can buy a book and read a book, but also you can do this in practice. You can practice this. You can see, okay, which kind of technique can I use to manage this specific conflict. So, you try to put into practice what you are learning. And you can also do this in groups. For example, you can take a group of project managers in your organization and say oh look, let's meet every other week to discuss soft skills and to share examples, to share best practices on how to handle conflict, how to handle complex negotiations, how to handle problems, how to solve problems, how to have a holistic mindset to solve complex human problems.
And this will become very valuable. And even if you want, you can use simulations like people training, for example, in a Toastmasters to do public speaking. You can simulate negotiations, you can simulate problems, you can simulate conflicts, and you can see what is the best approach. And by doing that, I would say you train your muscles to be more able to cope and to succeed in this more complex environment. So, these five things would be my five priorities in terms of personal growth and professional growth for 2025 if I were you. And to be honest, I'm doing all five in my personal life. Even knowing that I've been working on this for almost 30 years, I still see that there is a massive room for me to learn new things. So think about that. I hope you enjoyed this podcast. I wish you a fantastic year, and count on me every week with this podcast and other information and videos to help us, all of us, in this journey. Okay, see you next week with another 5 Minutes Podcast.
