For championing project management standards and career paths in Ukraine

Head of PMO | Kyiv, Ukraine

Viktoriia Honcharova, head of project management office (PMO) for a Ukrainian company in Kyiv, has faced incredible challenges in her career to date, from from gender inequality to working against the backdrop of a country at war. Yet her challenges only fuel her desire to help other Ukrainians see the value in project management as a career.

“I enjoy this work [because] I love to work with people, I love to build teams, to connect people with each other, to work as a very effective coordinator,” she says.

When she pursued her Project Management Professional (PMP)^® certification, she began to see “big potential” of the field. “I saw a path on how to contribute to this profession. So now that's my main motivation—to enhance, to educate, and to contribute to Ukrainian project management,” she says.

She appreciates PMI standards not only for their ethical approach, but also because they are written by practitioners for practitioners. These standards have helped Viktoriia shift the view of project managers in the development teams she leads. Before, she said, people involved in projects “perceived the project manager as some unimportant person who just resends letters from the client to the team without any additional actions.” However, since the PMI Ukrainian Chapter’s advocacy of standards, she’s seen a change in perception. “They understand that a project manager is an integral part of the team, a specialist who can contribute to team success.”

Viktoriia has also helped contribute to a perceptual change rooted in gender inequality in her field. In 2013, when she began working as a woman in a technical area, she experienced bias. “So, as I became more experienced, self-confident and educated, the less bias I experienced,” she says. “I also convinced my peers that gender doesn’t matter, even if you are a woman in tech.”

A collaboration-minded person, Viktoriia says, “I always believe that one plus one equals three.” And while she believes in the importance of project managers, she doesn't believe that one manager can be on the top of all trends and technologies and then dictate innovation. “Every innovation is a collaborative work,” Viktoriia continues. “My main goal is establishing a safe and inspiring working environment where everyone can express their ideas, their thoughts, and can be heard to find some better solutions.”

It is “the human side of projects” that she tries to hold onto in everything she does. She reminds project managers to hold the importance of strong relationships and connections in mind. She considers herself lucky to work with “great people” with broad interests who inspire her every day.

One of Viktoriia’s passion projects is pushing for having the PMI standards translated into Ukrainian, since many Ukrainians do not speak much, or any, English. She’s personally at work translating the project management guide, PMBOK® Guide (7th Edition), into Ukrainian. This helps to get her through the tough days of living in a country at war, where it is not unusual for missiles to strike nearby or for power and Wi-Fi to be spotty.

Though she feels purposeful in her work, war makes the future uncertain for her in many ways. She and her husband have had to put plans to buy a home and start a family on hold, with no way of knowing what the next five years of their lives will look like. She turns to calming hobbies like crocheting and gardening to mitigate the stress.

Despite her challenges, Viktoriia is dogged in her work, following her favorite bit of advice: