After more than a decade  as a research psychologist, trainer and educator working with addictions & HIV I moved into the digital world by accident. After designing and launching a web application to solve a problem in the health service with the founder of www.sanddollarconsulting.co.uk to our surprise it grew into a national and then an international programme, revolutionising how health care staff were assessed across the UK and beyond.

As project then programme manager, over the years I found myself managing a team of highly skilled developers and testers, managing commercial arrangements and product development for over 30 customers supporting a user base of several hundred thousand doctors, pharmacists, dentists, nurses, midwives and undergraduate students who relied on our website 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. I embraced new concepts and practices such as cloud, agile, continuous deployment, single-sign on, account management, product backlogs, first line support, responsive web design and website downtime.

I saw first hand how digital services can impact day to day practice and how the adoption of new technologies can be beset by problems as a result of poor management. Conversely, adopting basic principles of good change management was shown time and time again to make the digital transition relatively painless.

Working on the Scottish Parliament's Digital Parliament Programme allowed me to bring my experience of large-scale change into a much smaller but equally high profile organisation, making the ambitious transition to digital for many of their services and activities. Converting traditional meeting rooms and offices into high-tech spaces for video-conferences or online meetings with standing desks, electronic whiteboards and flexible, open project meeting spaces was a fascinating project to be involved with. Designing mobile apps for politicians to use while on the move gave an insight into the practical constraints of trying to join together political life and app development to reach a common goal. The challenges of legacy data sources, architecture and rapidly changing technologies had to be overcome to allow the Scottish Parliament to publish Open Data, which they now do efficiently and effectively.

These are just some of the experiences that have shaped my passion for digital.
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Image by edmondlafoto from Pixabay

A bit like an insurance comparison website or an interrogative receptionist at the Doctors’ surgery; sometimes you can’t get something done without a Project Manager (PM), even if you’d rather not. For a whole host of reasons, some projects will be allocated a PM. Often these are complex, technical, or have a fixed time frame and are bound to stray over budget, time, scope or all the above.

Sometimes the organisation assumes a PM is needed on any project, bringing structure, organisation or a bridge between the deeply technical people and those who cling to their Filofax and desk calendar but who’s money or blessing are required to get the thing done. Sometimes just having a person with dedicated time to knit everything together in a way that allows everyone to see where they fit and why the work is being done without the distractions of a competing day job can be a good way to make sure the work gets done as easily as possible.

What about the octopus?

“When not in pursuit of prey the octopus hides itself in a hole between rocks and covers itself with stones and shells. Like its victims it seems to be active chiefly at night and to remain in its nest during the day.”  (contributors, 1911)

Just like the Doctor’s receptionist or the comparison site, although they all do a similar job, PMs come in a host of different guises. Some will suit you and your organisation better than others. I think the good ones can be quite adaptable.

Over the years I have learned an important lesson about myself; I like change. And because I like change, I can adapt. I can adapt myself and I can adapt what I know to fit my circumstances. I think over time I’ve become quite adept at adapting. Enough alliteration.

Like the octopus, the PM spends much of their time making themselves invisible, getting others to do things without obvious coercion, finding out what has and hasn’t been done and smoothing the way if problems or barriers are identified. I’ve worked with PMs who like to be front and centre, making sure everyone knows about all the work they are doing and how difficult everyone is making their job. They tend to stick closely to processes and paperwork, using these to structure their time and justify why someone should stop what they are doing and finish the project task immediately. For some organisations and some projects that’s absolutely what’s needed. I’ve seen it in some of the large financial organisations I’ve worked alongside and noticed it’s a good fit for some. But I’ve noticed these people tend to move around companies a bit more than others, and they find it difficult to adapt to some organisational cultures.

Octopus employ a range of strategies to avoid predators including deimatic (bluffing) behaviour such as changing their appearance to distract or deter, and some even shedding limbs. The best PMs I’ve worked with are understated but they get things done by some secret recipe of stealth, tenacity and obsessive attention to detail wrapped up in a very personable, unflappable and confident exterior.

Image by Vladimir Mineev from Pixabay