Why Continuous Learning is a Project Manager’s Superpower
Our Future 50 honorees redefine what it means to lead by learning. Discover their best advice for continuous growth in today’s rapidly evolving world.
Written by Project Management Institute • 2 December 2024
Each year, PMI selects 50 exceptional project professionals that represent the next generation of leaders. See the full list of 2024 Future 50 honorees here.
One might reasonably think that a project manager with 15 certifications who is on the cusp of earning her MBA has learned most of what there is to know about project management and business. But Lam Thu Nguyên, PfMP, PgMP, PMP staffing manager of Ho Chi Minh City’s GFT Technology Vietnam, would humbly beg to differ.
“There’s so much more to know,” she says. Her quest for knowledge, she explains, is lifelong.
Lam is not alone.
One of the key traits we noticed among this year’s Future 50 honorees is their shared love of seeking education, both at work and in their leisure time. Here, they share some of their best advice for project managers who always want to level up their knowledge and skills.
Embrace being an eternal student
As professionals progress in their careers, they often want to be seen as experts, the people who others seek out to dispense advice, knowledge, and industry wisdom. There’s nothing wrong with the desire to be looked up to in this way, but it’s also important to acknowledge you still have more to learn, too.
F50 2024 honoree María Gabriela Urdaneta Ocando, PMP, who works for Costa Rica’s Datasys Group, S.A. as PMO director, points out that technology is one area where every project manager will always have opportunities for growth. “Technology changes and updates every single day,” she says. “There’s new information and new applications all the time, and your clients and their end users expect you to keep up with it all.”
Another honoree, Swati Pundir, senior project manager at EXL in Pune, India, feels similarly. Certain projects may demand that a project manager acquire new knowledge or skills in order to see it through successfully, and nowhere is this more evident than with technologies. It’s for this reason that Pundir recently completed a training on generative AI for project managers and has studied Python so that she can understand the intricate coding of projects she manages.
Technology changes and updates every single day. There’s new information and new applications all the time, and your clients and their end users expect you to keep up with it all.
María Gabriela Urdaneta Ocando, PMP
Learning about these new tools, especially in the areas of artificial intelligence and big data, gives you more resources and offers more value to clients and projects, helping you discern when to apply emerging technologies and how to update best practices.
Use teaching as an opportunity to learn
Many of this year’s honorees teach, whether in a formal classroom role, or through their participation in conferences, workshops, and PMI networking events. Still others teach as mentors in their jobs and in their communities. Lam, for example, mentors' participants in the #GrowTechTalent initiative, an annual program that engages more than 2,000 secondary school and university students, and she has been a speaker at the SheCodes Hackathon and a presenter at Project Management Day, an event organized by her employer.
While mentees and attendees would likely say she’s an excellent, effective teacher who shares her experiences and knowledge generously, Lam says she’s learning as much from these encounters as her audiences learn from her. “They share insights and case studies about the work they do, and I can often apply that to my work too,” she says. “It’s a win-win.”
[My students] share insights and case studies about the work they do, and I can often apply that to my work too.
Lam Thu Nguyên, PSM, PAL I, PMI-ACP, PMI-PBA, PMO-CP, PMP, PgMP, PfMP
Bring others along with you
The final learning-related characteristic we saw in many of this year’s honorees is how many of them want to create growth and learning opportunities for peers, and especially for people from marginalized groups.
Sometimes their efforts are formal, as is the case of Célestin Nkeramihigo, PMP the dean of faculty at Kigali, Rwanda’s Kepler University. Célestin was instrumental in the establishment of a project management bachelor’s program at Kepler University, an innovative institution focused on educating talented, economically vulnerable students, and students who are refugees or disabled. He also serves as the chair of the school’s Project Management Center of Excellence. Throughout his work, Célestin is deeply motivated to expand opportunities for learning about project management to as many Rwandans as possible.
You may face a lot of ups and downs, but if everyone goes out with a solid experience and feeling good about what they’ve done, this is what really matters.
AbdulRahman Ahli, PMP
Some honorees’ strategies for sharing their love of learning are informal, demonstrated through their support and encouragement of others. This approach is often expressed by nurturing team members—especially those in junior positions—to grow in their roles by providing them with challenges or entrusting them with responsibilities that create opportunities for learning. AbdulRahman Ahli, PMP, group director of project management at Saudi Arabia–based DP World, says that he views these educational opportunities as part of his work and the mark of a great project manager. “You may face a lot of ups and downs, but if everyone goes out with a solid experience and feeling good about what they’ve done, this is what really matters,” he says.
Meet the PMI Future 50
Bold leaders, innovative projects — lighting the way for tomorrow
Project Management Institute
Author | PMI
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