People & project management

Company: Various

Work stream: Management

Skills: Project management, team development, objectives & funding, planning & resource

Introduction

Across the course of my career I have undertaken various levels of both project and people management. A brief summary of this experience with case studies is provided below.

People management

I have managed teams of up to three permanent staff and 15 volunteers. Since joining NatWest, I have been responsible for contractors embedded within project streams and currently manage three permanent staff. As part of my personal development, I completed a specialised NatWest training course "Determined to Lead". This course helps managers to get the highest quality of work through team support and development.

Collaborating with stakeholders and driving forward initiatives has been extremely important throughout my career. In the charity sector I often led initiatives in cross-organisational project work, this can create areas of strain which had to be carefully managed and maintained. Similarly, driving a new work stream (see Service Design case study) across a large corporation such as NatWest also requires careful narrative and engagement with key stakeholders who have their own agenda requirements.

Project management case study:

Bristol Conservation & Science Foundation (Bristol Zoo)

Sector: Charity

Skills: Project management, team development, objectives & funding

As Communication Officer for the Bristol Conservation and Science Foundation (BCSF), sister organisation to Bristol Zoo, I was responsible for road mapping and managing a variety of environmental and education projects to achieve objectives and key results (OKRs) as outlined in funding conditions.

A key project was the South West White-Clawed Crayfish Partnership Project. This was initially a £250k project funded over three years. Following successful completion it received a further two years of funding as "Crayfish in Crisis".

I was responsible for developing a SMART multi-disciplinary communication/marketing strategy for the project, outlining road mapping, resourcing and adhering to budget. The project consisted of a number of stakeholders across charity, public and private sectors and I was responsible for managing this relationship, particularly in regards to all published materials ensuring key messaging was clear to the audience while maintaining a careful balance of organisational involvement.

Following a successful completion of the initial project I was responsible for reporting on the delivery achievements of the communication strategy. I built the achievements of phase one into a second funding application in collaboration with other team members and key stakeholders. This application was successful and ensured a further two years of delivery.

Strategy & process case study:

NatWest Group

Sector: Commercial banking

Skills: Project management, Agile methodology, business case screening and resourcing

As a Lead Product Designer, I strive to inspire and support my immediate team and direct reports with all aspects of customer centric design. An important, yet challenging, aspect of this is effective education of colleagues on the value of design across NatWest Group.

I am expected to contribute to process and strategic development within the Commercial & Institute Digital Design team. A key highlight has been the introduction, development and expansion of a new Service Design work stream (see Service Design case study).

As a large commercial company, my team are responsible for working bank-wide across other teams to bring support and a customer-first focus to existing and new work streams. I am involved in our incoming demand screening process which identifies whether proposed project work has a clear business case and is suitable for our team roadmap.

When embedded in a project, we typically work product/development cycles with an Agile methodology (usually Scrum). I am responsible for estimating design (UI / UX) resourcing requirements, acting as an subject matter expert in these areas as well as delivering assets or reviews as required. All project work will either result in, or be working towards OKRs and will have a stakeholders which need to be liaised with throughout the project duration.