Confessions of a Project Coordinator!

Umm, what do I tell you about myself? A hardcore feminist, a strong advocate of equality on all levels & aspects of life & a will to lead pretty much drives me and sums up my personality! For my professional life, I am Sakshi Maini, the project coordinator at Code Brew Labs. Mostly I like to consider my job a life skill, which it pretty much is!

I mean you can use a project plan for pretty much anything, from moving house to planning an event, you need coordination and planning for everything in life, MOSTLY!

Personally I was always a planner, managing things came pretty early to me. Be it caring for my mom post-surgery, taking care of the house while juggling my studies or sailing through the tough times, I think I can accredit my managing skills to such events in my life, which more than anything taught me many practical lessons which come in pretty handy in my line of work.

So at Code Brew, I mostly look into coordinating project schedules, resources, equipment and information along with liaising with clients to identify and define project requirements, scope and objectives. I also ensure that clients’ needs are met as the project evolves. Now, all of this and my past experiences have taught me some valuable lessons. Jotting down a few for you guys to take a look.

Lessons Learnt while managing different projects:

1. Understanding Stakeholders Is of Paramount Importance

Something I have realised over the years is that the majority of the projects fail because the project managers are not able to clearly understand the requirements of their stakeholders or project managers make decisions without truly understanding stakeholders’ goals and needs. Needless to say, this has an adverse impact on the project as well as a manager’s relationship with stakeholders. Your foremost goal needs to be the business requirements of your stakeholders. Unless you bring value to stakeholders, you are unlikely to satisfy the client. 

2. Continuous Communication is essentials

“Communication is key” may be the oldest phrase in the book, but it does hold true. Even at the highest level, a slight mistake in communication can be the difference between project success and project failure. As a project manager, you must have sharp situational awareness and communicate with your team and clients clearly and effectively. If there’s a lack of open communication in your team, it will be difficult for you to identify the root cause of an issue, when things go wrong.

3. Fight for Project Deadlines

You must keep in mind that not all projects go smoothly. Each time you make changes to a client’s project, it disrupts the overall workflow, making it harder to meet the project deadline. You may encounter various problems that can impede the progress of your project and lead to failure. This is why project managers must fight for the viability of their projects. Although a client’s requirements are of the utmost priority, speak up if they are introduced too late.

NOTE: You MUST carefully monitor and defend your project goals, timelines, and teams as much as you can.

4. Don’t Rely on Tools for Critical Work

Project managers are often juggling various responsibilities simultaneously. As a result, some project managers rely on different project management tools to make their lives a bit easier. Using the latest project management tools is a great way to save time and complete projects successfully. For example, Use Slack to communicate with your team members to ensure you don’t miss out on anything important. That being said, you cannot simply set up the software and forget about, it needs updates and it definitely cannot be replaced by a human mind. So keep an eye out!