Exit Memo: Project Specialist

We asked members of the Apolitical Community to write-up a prospective “exit memo” for their role to increase visibility of the different kinds of work being done across government.

Job Title: Project Specialist

How would you describe your job to a friend?

My job is all about helping delivery teams to come together and deliver successful change into the business. This begins by helping to define, and document, the project's aims and benefits. Working with the teams, I plan the tasks and resources required to deliver the work, agreeing milestones for delivery.

Most of my job happens when the work starts. This means tracking progress against plan and helping the team to identify, and remove, blockers. When changes are ready, I help the business to transition the change into business-as-usual operations.

Depending on the size of the project this can be months, or even years. When everything is delivered, I manage the project close-down activities, then I'm ready for the next project

What are your daily/weekly/monthly responsibilities?

Working with the project team to understand progress and resolve any blockers. Keeping an eye on progress of tasks against our plans and milestones. Intervene when necessary to bring tasks back on track or replan to avoid delays in hitting milestones.

Deal with issues as they arise aiming to minimise their impact on the project. Identify and manage any risks that may impact the project in the future.

Communicate with stakeholders and in the project to keep them informed of progress, risks and issues.

Keep documentation up to date and provide good governance for the project.

What does your successor need to know to succeed?

Good project management requires an understanding, and ideally experience, of project delivery frameworks and processes. For example, PRINCE II, PRINCE Agile and Managing Successful Projects.

Typical things you need to know to manage projects are:

• How to start a project, providing a vision statement, aims, goals, requirements, and a business case
• Knowledge on planning project tasks and managing project budgets
• How to identify, and manage, risks and issues
• Ability to communicate well, both verbally and in written communications as you will be engaging with a wide range of stakeholders throughout the project.
• Ability to lead project teams, along with skills in collaborating with others, and negotiation to deliver project tasks on time.
• It is useful to have some analytical skills as project managers will be required to understand project tasks and the dependencies between them in order to build an effective plan and identify where there could be delivery risks or issues.
• Linked to analysis skills is the ability to problem solve. Each project has its own set of unique challenges that will need to be overcome during delivery.
• Finally, resilience and being able to deal with ambiguity are traits that many project managers have.

What are some current projects you're working on?

Projects that I am currently working on are related to producing trade statistics publications and research into improving trade statistics. Each of these projects has different challenges. Publishing trade statistics is much like a traditional development project where we are taking raw trade data and developing datasets using statistical coding techniques. Although challenging, this work is predictable which makes it easier to plan.

Research projects are more complex to plan as it is less predictable as a discovery can lead you in a different direction than originally planned. However, that's what makes them so interesting.

**Want to increase visibility for your work, and help colleagues learn about your role? Inform the Apolitical community and **submit your own exit memo here.