Almost a year ago, Nana found The Eddie System through an ad and joined when the community was still a handful of people. He was not a beginner. He had already worked as a project manager. But all of that experience came from one organization, and he was not confident it would travel.
“I realized that I’ve only been exposed to project management in a single organization, and I wasn’t very confident that I could easily translate these skills to any other organization when I’m called upon.”
He was studying for his PMP at the same time. The concepts were landing. The practice was not. This is the gap most people in project management are actually stuck in, and it is not the one they think they have.
The Gap Was Not Knowledge. It Was Reps.
Ask most people what is missing from their PM career and they will say a certification, or a title, or a manager willing to give them a shot. Nana named something more specific: he had never taken a project from start to finish and defended the decisions he made along the way.
“It was more on having more practice as a project manager. Not having enough practice and also structure. Being able to take a project, organize it properly, communicate with stakeholders, do the right deliverables, being able to confidently explain why I was making certain decisions.”
He had seen execution. He had never seen closure. Most of the projects he inherited were already running when he joined them.
It Took Him Three Weeks to Book His First Call
Inside the Live PMO, members schedule a live session and present their project to a group. Nana took three weeks to book his first one.
“Is this really real? How is it going to be? These are people I don’t know. The motivation wasn’t there.”
What moved him was a line from the training about getting 1% better. He booked the call. He presented. He was nervous the entire time and worried about filler words and whether he was making sense in front of people who sounded more confident than he felt.
Then something useful happened. He asked for feedback. That request changed how every session in the Live PMO runs now, because feedback on delivery became a standard part of the call rather than a bonus.
What Presenting Teaches That Watching Does Not
Nana named three things he got from presenting and defending a project that no video could have given him:
- Structure. Walking a stakeholder through an objective, the key metrics, and the plan in an order they can follow.
- Thinking on his feet. Realizing mid-presentation that he had missed a point, and connecting two sections on the spot to cover it.
- Communicating across backgrounds. Presenting to people from banking, from IT, from domains that see risk completely differently.
Those skills went straight into his day job. His manager told him the thing he appreciated most was how prepared Nana came to meetings.
The Project He Ran in a Simulation, Then Ran at Work
One of the simulations Nana worked through was built around a NOC. He had never worked in one and did not know what the term meant when he started.
Not long after, he took a NOC role.
“Can you imagine that the job I’m currently working in, it’s a NOC role. I didn’t know what NOC was. So I picked some of the ideas and the learning from how the whole NOC process in our project worked.”
That is what portfolio-worthy project work is supposed to do. It gives you vocabulary, context, and decisions you have actually made, so the language in a job description stops being intimidating.
“That kind of initial intimidation, what are they talking about, is actually gone. Because I know what it is. I have used it, I’ve done it, I’ve presented it.”
The Challenge He Lost, and Why It Stuck
Nana ran the ServiceNow implementation project in audit mode against more than 15 other members, competing for a $500 prize. He started strong and climbed the leaderboard. Then one stakeholder expressed dissatisfaction with the direction, and Nana made an ad hoc call that broke from the plan his team had documented in the charter.
He dropped from third place to near the bottom.
“I used emotions to make that decision. Not only was there pain, but I learned through the pain, because now I know that you cannot just make decisions on the fly based on ego or emotions. Every decision impacts the overall project.”
That is the entire point of the newer simulation platform. Every decision you make changes the conditions for the next day. A bad call on day 21 shows up in your budget, your metrics, and your standing, and you have to manage the consequence rather than restart.
“The 2.0 is very dynamic, it’s very interactive, and it’s very real to what happens in a project space.”
If you are trying to work out where you actually stand right now, start here: How to become a project manager.
He Did the Work at Night, With Two Kids Under Three
This is the part that usually gets edited out of a testimonial. Nana has two children, aged one and two, and a full-time job.
“There’s a phase where they are banging on the door and calling your attention when you want to get things done. But I found that time period when the house is quiet, which is usually at night. I go to work, I come back, I’m very tired, but I push myself. When it’s 9 to 11 and they’re asleep, I’m going to be on my laptop watching the videos, putting in the work.”
“I don’t believe in excuses. Everybody doesn’t have time. You have to make time for it.”
Who He Thinks This Is For
Nana split it into two groups. People who have accumulated credentials, PMP included, and need exposure to real projects across different domains. And complete beginners who need the step by step: what a project is, what documents to use at each stage, what to bring to stakeholders.
He was blunt about who it is not for.
“This platform is for serious people. If you really want to see a change, you have to put in the work.”
His Advice
Asked what he would tell someone sitting where he was a year ago, Nana did not hedge.
“Stop watching multiple YouTube videos which have different approaches and different ideas. Stop reading unending messages on ChatGPT. Join a community and have a more structured way of pursuing your project management career, and get a community that will support you and give you feedback from very experienced people to sharpen your skills. That will save you a lot of time rather than trying to figure so many things out on your own.”
Related Reading
- What Hiring Managers See When You ‘Know’ Project Management But Have No Experience
- I Built a Live PMO for People With No PM Experience (Here’s How It Actually Works)
- Stop Waiting for PM Experience: Build It in 30 Days
- The Real Reason Entry-Level PM Jobs “Require Experience”
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