Professional development can sometimes change not only what we know, but how we understand our own role within an organization. Tetiana Litvin from CF “Support Agro” shares how her certification experience gave her a more structured perspective on project planning, confirmed the importance of standardized approaches, and encouraged her to recognize her growing role in management processes.

Tetiana’s Story

“Thank you very much for this opportunity! It was a valuable experience—both for gaining a fresh perspective on our current activities and for taking a more structured approach to planning future projects. Still, we were more focused on standard business processes; we began working on projects in the traditional sense as a response to the challenges brought on by the war—previously, we had only been involved in this area through grant support for building new agribusiness models.
Many things have become clearer—standardizing approaches does make sense, and once you understand that, it’s easier to deal with certain inconvenient “bureaucratic hurdles” 🙂
For me personally, this confirms that I’ve long since outgrown the role of simply being an accountant or financial specialist and, by default, play a significant role in management processes. This certificate will now prevent me from turning away from the reality that “you’re important, you manage processes, you have influence,” rather than just “I care and have my own opinion.”
And on a more personal note—I remembered how much I love learning, proving to myself first and foremost that I can do it. Unfortunately, I didn’t get an A, as I used to :)—but with a schedule that lacks full weekends and vacations and irregular working hours, this is pretty good. Now I want to learn something else; I know that with the right motivation, anything is possible!
Also, I’d like to mention that I was on my own throughout this process. Just having colleagues encourage me by saying it might be interesting doesn’t really work—to be honest, everyone is overwhelmed and doesn’t have any “extra brain cells” to spare. But the first girls from the second meeting—Iryna from Laska called me—and if we can get a few people from the organization involved, it’ll be more of a team effort and will be more practical than me trying to get my message across now, acting as a megaphone and hiding behind a prestigious certificate 🙂 “ 

Thank you, Tetiana, for sharing your experience so openly with the PM4NGOs community. Your story is a reminder that professional learning can strengthen both technical practice and our understanding of the roles we already play within our organizations.