Diversifying Skills through Project Management

It seems now more than ever, especially within the tech industry, diverse employee skill sets are becoming more and more valued. When working in a technologically-based profession, the more programs you can use, the more jargon you understand, and the more you can relate to other areas of your field, the better off you’ll be.

At the Digital Corps, students work on five creative teams, each with its own set of skills. Some of these teams consistently work closely together — designers create animations for video projects, and developers are constantly collaborating with the User Experience team to ensure the usability of the products they code. While many teams must understand the roles of others, the Junior Project Managers, or JPMs, have a somewhat taller order on their hands.

JPMs are student employees who act as liaisons between students working on projects and the student’s team leads. JPMs keep track of tasks, schedule and lead meetings, and communicate directly with clients to help make every project run as smoothly as possible. But, when managing projects with students from other teams, they can sometimes run into trouble. For some, it’s all about having an experience where the benefits outweigh the challenges.

Looking Ahead

Viveka Melo, a specialist on the User Experience Team, chose to become a JPM as a way to prepare for her future career. She is hoping to become a User Experience Director, where she would be responsible for overseeing an entire User Experience Team. Viveka wanted to gain experience early on with leadership roles, managing a team, and having responsibilities other than what she does as part of the User Experience Team at the Corps. Viveka understands that she likely won’t be a director right out of college, but any skills she can learn before that time comes are valuable to her.

“To at least get the foundation of the skills now is really helpful to me because…then I will be able to recall this and build upon it for when I want to apply to become a director.”

Seth Campbell is a Development Team Specialist who also became a JPM to broaden his horizons and learn something new. For him, managing a team was at first a completely new kind of responsibility, but he decided to become a JPM in hopes of changing this.

“It’s a unique experience to kind of diversify my skills. It’s something I wouldn’t typically do…so it’s a good learning experience.”

Lessons Learned

When it came to managing multifaceted projects, Viveka and Seth both realized that they had a lot to learn. Faced with leading other teams’ members and ensuring that the project stayed on track, Viveka and Seth both had a long way to go.

Viveka’s first project as a JPM was to create a video for a Ball State immersive learning program, and although she was familiar with the filming process, she soon found that she was in the dark about production and editing. She says, “I knew we went on shoots, and I knew they edited things, but I didn’t know about coloring and sound.” Viveka’s unfamiliarity with these editing processes made it difficult for her to keep all of the Video Team members on the project busy. “It was kind of my fault because I didn’t know what to assign them. It was like, ‘okay, we have the footage now, so make the video!’ and there were steps that I wasn’t really aware of,” Viveka said.

Seth had a similar experience working with writers — the Communication Team — on his project.. He recounts that he expected writing to be just that: writing, and very little else. He had to learn quite a bit about all the other pieces involved, from research to revision. “There’s a whole phase before [writing]: do some research, see what needs to be on the document, see who our audience is so we know how to write the document, and what language we use, and all this stuff that I never would have thought of,” Seth said.

Personal and Professional Growth

While they faced challenges along the way, Viveka and Seth also spoke about the benefits this role provides.. Viveka shared how being a JPM improves her overall experience in the office.

“It has allowed me to better understand the many processes and interactions that happen at the Corps, whether that be with the staff or inner-team communication,” said Viveka.

Seth, on the other hand, grew personally from being a JPM. Seth benefitted in the way he works on his personal projects by challenging himself as a project manager.

“I’m a lot more organized now, not only personally, but working on other projects for class. I’m applying skills that I’m learning [as a JPM] to those projects as well,” Seth said.

Words to the Wise

Though project management has its perks, it can be a long and winding road to finding these benefits among the challenges. Still, Seth believes it is a worthwhile experience that should not be taken for granted.

“When you’re training, you might trip and fall and not understand everything perfectly. The harder you work at doing your job right, the faster you will understand the skills necessary to do the job,” said Seth. “It’ll get easier and easier as you go.”