A Project Manager’s Tips to Pivoting Careers
Amy Lee shares her day-to-day at Nexus and transitioning into her new role as a project manager.
Day in the Life as a Project Manager
Amy: My main role is to coordinate with the various engineering disciplines to ensure the project is running on budget and on schedule. I openly facilitate communication and quality amongst the disciplines to coordinate communication between our team and client counterparts. A large part of my job is to assist in the coordination amongst the Nexus team during our internal meetings. As a project manager, the team will come to me with questions. Also, our typical external meetings are scheduled, but then as things come up, we’ll have more impromptu communication. I want to successfully get our projects completed through the management of the schedule, budget, and quality of the project.
What are the necessary skills for a project manager to be successful?
Amy: Organization is number one and the second is communication, they go hand in hand. Being able to keep track of a lot of different milestones, activities, and various projects at the same time is a necessity. To understand what holds as top priority is also an acquired skill. Contacting each technical discipline and communicating it to my counterpart, then to the client’s project manager, is necessary to determine what that means for the project.
Having the vital technical skills is an absolute must as a project manager, in order to understand what is happening from an analytical aspect in the project from a 30,000-foot view. In addition, having the experience of being involved in various projects at the different stage gates helped me understand what kind of progress needs to be made by who and by when.
What are the top three things to think about when considering a career change as a tenured professional?
Amy: I considered what my assets were, where the needs for Nexus were, what I had to offer and where it was going to take me as far as where I wanted. For example, I took time to determine what direction would align with my current career goals. With my skillset and experience, I felt like there was a real value that I could add to Nexus! I believe that was part of the reason why it was well received to transition into project management.
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