Project Management for Youth

Hello, I'm Kris Reynolds, managing partner of Arrowhead Consulting. I'd like to talk to you about the PM4Youth Program, a project based learning curriculum that I developed to prepare today's students for tomorrow's challenges.

PM4Youth actually started several years ago when my oldest daughter was in middle school and she came home saying -- Dad, I have to learn the state capitals. Why do I have to learn the state capitals? I could just go to Google to find those out.

And it got me thinking -- none of the people that I was consulting ever asked me to come in and help them on the state capitals. They were asking me for things like time management or leadership training or effective meeting management. And I thought those were really the skills that professionals are using now. Why don't we prepare our students for that before they actually get into the workforce? So PM4Youth was born.

PM4Youth is a 15-plus hour curriculum that teaches those types of skills, whether it's public speaking, diversity, leadership traits, personality assessments, things of that nature that's really going to help students, whether they continue on in school through high school, college, or go directly into the workforce. It's geared for middle school and high school students. However, it can be tailored for older or younger audiences.

One of the things I love about PM4Youth is it's a free program. We just got to get it into our schools. So we're asking you for help. If you know somebody at your local school, whether it's public or private or even a homeschool co op, we'd love to be able to talk to some key decision makers. We have found that if we can get in front of those decision makers and talk to them just a little bit about the program, it's an easy sell.

Even though I said "sell," it's a free program. We do want to make sure that we maintain consistency in the delivery of the program. So we do hold classes generally over the summer, where we bring anybody who wants to facilitate come in. They can learn the 16 hours of curriculum generally across one really action packed day. We give you this facilitator handbook that really calls things out, specifically step by step, for how to administer the program. You will get continuing educational professional development units.

Please check our website for the next course availability. If you ever have any need for questions, any of the Arrowhead staff will be glad to help you. They're as passionate -- I think they're as passionate as I am about this program. And we hope you are, too.

Everything we do in life is a project, whether we're a titled project manager or not. If we're building to VOK center or if we're planning Thanksgiving dinner, all of those have the same tenets and methodologies that go into project management.

I felt it was necessary to teach our students to do the same thing. They're going to be writing papers. They're going to be planning on where to go to college. They're going to go directly into the workforce and figure out how to traverse those paths. Those were projects as well. So being able to give students that material and that knowledge is very powerful.

Now, I don't want you to think that it's just project management skills that we're teaching. We do teach the life skills or the power skills. Someone called them the "soft skills," but I really like the term "power skills" that the curriculum holds. And those are things such as the public speaking, how to build a presentation, how to communicate effectively with multiple stakeholders, being able to do time management skills and avoid multitasking. All those things are jam packed into this 15 hours worth of curriculum.

If you'd like to get more information about the PM4Youth program, please visit us at our website at PM4Y.arrowheadconsulting.com. There, you're going to find blogs. You'll find a sample curriculum. You'll find some quotes from some of the students that have participated in the program. Basically, it should address any of your needs. But should you have any questions or want to follow up, you can also email us at PM4Y@arrowheadconsulting.com. We look forward to hearing from you.