A day in the life of a remote Project Manager
I´m often asked what I actually do all day so I thought I would share some insight on what it´s like to be a Project Manager working from home.
I work full time as a project manager and consultant as well as running the Cactus Club (a training community for future project managers). I run my own business and currently have a contract with a large consulting firm to support one of their clients through a period of change.
I´m helping a large manufacturing company to re-organise their IT function. They have IT departments in nearly 40 countries and they all use different systems and do things differently. It´s not a very efficient way to run a global business so we´re currently gathering information about what everyone does in these teams, what systems they use and what their users need (the people who work in the factories).
My day today so far...
8.30am Check emails for any new issues. Our colleagues in Russia have already been working for a couple of hours and they are sending out a communication for their employees about the new organization structure. I just need to check it and reply with a couple of questions about a vacancy in the structure chart.
9.00am A call with my team to find out how they are and what they have planned for the day. One is currently working from a Greek island, another in India, I´m in Spain and we have a couple in the UK. Despite our different locations we are a close bunch and the chat is mainly about what´s happening outside of work. It´s good to catch up with all of them.
10.00am I have a call with other leaders in the program team and the "risks & issues" guy from the central project office. I update him on a couple of new risks and an issue that has emerged since last week. Time for a quick coffee break and dog walk before my next call.
11.00am The project communications team are looking for some input on a new video for the IT community to kick-start 2022. We talk about what these colleagues have already seen and heard about the project and what they will want to know next year. We have a chat about different video formats, eg live snippets from different IT directors around the world, and some new graphics that the graphic designer has been working on.
12 noon One of the IT directors has asked for a status update on country progress. I pull together a "percentage complete" graph that shows how far each country is through the process of completing the transition into the new global team.
I finish by highlighting in red a couple of countries that have fallen behind and add a summary at the bottom telling him what they issues are. He likes the format and asks me to complete one every week.
The day is going well so far, but you never know what is just around the corner when you´re working on a project!
Is working as a project manager what you expected?
Best regards from Spain,
Lesley
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