Pav ... my first two months

So my first (ever) blog and I’m not sure what to talk about first in what has been a very good 2 months at the company. First of all I think it’s important that I describe what exactly goes on in the project management scheme, which for those who have seen our website already talks about being in charge of delivering complex IT projects to budget, on time and to the customer’s satisfaction. For this graduate scheme it also states how you’ll undertake roles from support to junior project manager in the two years that you’re on the scheme and eventually start an unsupported project management role, and from what I’ve experienced so far this is pretty much true.

Project Managers don’t really get stuck in with the technical side of projects, though having an understanding of the technical side always helps, but is in no way a prerequisite. The role of a Project Manager (PM) begins when they are assigned a project from the Programme Management Office (PMO). At this stage they usually receive a document called a Work Request Form (WRF) which is partly filled out by the customer and details what they wish to be done from CSC. The PM will then need to undertake some general scoping, speaking to the PM on the customer side (yes, there can be more than one or even two PM’s on a single project!) and maybe our own resources such as developers, architects and anyone else who will be able to shed any light on the project. From the information they gather, which can sometimes be a under tight deadlines, they need to produce their quote for how much the work will cost, which resources (people) they will use and how long it will take. Scoping, pricing and setting an actual delivery date at this stage is probably the most important thing to get right in your project as it’s what your customer will judge you against once the project is over. Once the PM fills out the rest of the WRF it is checked over by the relevant departments at CSC and then sent to the customer for them to raise a Purchase Order (PO) or a query/price challenge. Hopefully at this stage not much goes wrong and you get your PO, though the routes to getting a PO can vary with projects and clients. This is then the stage where whichever resources you wanted to use i.e. developers, architects, engineers etc come in and begin their work. If you’re lucky, you won’t really need much involvement at this stage as everything will go as everyone expected and there’s no nasty surprises...this doesn’t really happen  In the world of project management, the bigger your projects get, the more complications and obstacles you’re likely to face, and it’s at this point that your skills are really tested and the “fun” of project management really begins!

So that’s a general idea of what happens at the start of a project, in my next blog I’ll try and give a brief overview of what happens during a project, but enough of the lecture in project management, what have I been up to I hear no one ask. After 7 weeks at CSC I was finally assigned my own little project worth around £20k, which as a first project is actually more than I would have expected. The project involves updating some Application Interfaces (APIs) so two separate pieces of software can talk to each other and share data. Currently I’m in the stage of waiting to receive a PO from the customer as the WRF was issued to them this very morning. My tasks up to get me up to this stage involved all the things I had written above, however scoping was made even harder due to the fact that a lot of those I wanted to speak to were away on leave, so I had to really dig out some people on the customers side just to get the information I wanted! That is in essence one important part of project management, you need to be a self starter who’s ready to find out what they need even if the routes to finding it aren’t as straight forward as you’d like them to be. I’ve also had an interesting time finding resources to work on this project, with one of my developers working from home.....in Brazil! Upon talking to his manager in Sao Paulo I was also told that this coming Friday (2nd November) is a national holiday in Brazil where people will be visiting their parents who have passed away...You never really know what you’re going to learn when you come in to work.

Away from the project management side I’m also soon to be involved in some rather exciting volunteering activities. I’ll be at Imperial this Thursday (1st November) representing CSC as a “Recruiter in Residence”, where I’ll be looking over any CVs or job applications and answering any general questions students may have about CSC, searching for jobs, life and relationships (OK maybe not the last two). I’m also due to meet with someone from The Gaming Zone, a brilliant charity that provides free, open-access facilities and support for children and young people throughout the borough of Rushmoor. This meeting is part of the “CSC Mentoring in the Community Programme”, so although at this stage I have no idea exactly the work I’ll be doing, I’m very much looking forward to getting stuck in and involved!

And that’s all for now really :-) Hope you enjoyed the blog and learned something useful about the life of a graduate project manager at CSC. If you any questions or comments then drop them into the box below and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can, good bye!