Last week, we completed our first client project and it was thankfully a mock one!
Our client was Tom Nook, the CEO and founder of Nook Inc. If you’re familiar with Animal Crossing, you may also be familiar with the tanuki businessman. At the kick-off meeting, he had a lot of questions and after the meeting, he shared a lot of data - 31 files (!) to start. I was understandably stressed, but as the week progressed, we asked follow-up questions, visualized data, and surfaced insights in our group of four. Finally, we designed and presented our dashboard three days after the kick-off meeting.
Throughout the week, I learned a lot:
1. I know more than I think I know. It is difficult for me to believe at times, but the encouragement of colleagues certainly helps when I am doubting myself.
2. I was not the project manager (PM) for this mock client project, but I know what kind of project manager I would like to be:
• I like daily stand-up meetings, or check-in meetings, to see progress, as well as offer feedback and assistance.
• In a similar vein, I appreciate structure from the get-go. For example, I am fond of project timelines. I also enjoy using Google Workspace (in particular, Google Sheets) to keep notes and maintain lists within the team.
• I sometimes want to be told that everything will be okay. In addition to organization, I hope to offer my team words of affirmation.
This was a short week of much worry. I do not know how I will fare in the actual client projects soon, but I am curious to see how I will manage as a PM. A colleague suggested I will be a great PM and I believe I can do it well for my team.