The Project Manager Who Could

 This week has been pretty fun! I stared my new job after enjoying a 5 day weekend.  Taking some time to unwind and clean out my office and get myself ready for this new career adventure was awesome!  Don't get me wrong, I did take a few hours out of my day to go see Maverick...which was also AWESOME! I have started a new position as an IT Agile Project Manager with a company named TrueBlue.   This week is a bit weird as my new boss is on Vacation until June 12th...which happens to be the same day that I leave on vacation with my family.  But, I was introed to the team already, got all my access set up and have been given the task to write out my IDP and get my training done ASAP. I get great vibes thus far...fingers crossed this is a great experience. 

1. evaluate the success of your internship. Overall I think my internship was a success.  It took a bit of a turn with the fact that I left my position and started the next journey of my career in the middle of it.  However, overall while I was working on my projects that I was reporting in my weekly updates I was working at a high level.  I closed out 2 of the 3 projects that I originally reported on.  2. reflect on what was most effective and what was most challenging. The most challenging part of my internship was changing jobs.  Handing off projects is something that I don't enjoy as you are trying to explain 6 months of work and understanding in about 30 minutes and no matter how well you think you did something always gets missed.

What is the one thing you would strive to improve upon? Being a project manager one of the most important things you can do is learn the art of not only doing the things that take less than 2 minutes immediately so they don't get lost but prioritizing what work needs to be done first, and the ability to constantly re-evaluate on the spot to ensure nothing is getting lost. There are days that I am great at doing the things that take less than 2 minutes immediately but I am not constant with it.  I want to challenge my self to be on the higher level of this one because where I find myself dropping balls all the time is for those items that I could have just taken care of but I didn't.   Also, prioritizing is huge with project management so you don't get behind on projects.  Learning the business needs and why some actions are more important than others is something that I am always working on.   

Write a journal entry that addresses these points: two weeks ago, your journal prompt laid out a professional networking strategy with some immediate tasks; discuss what progress have you made on them. Over the past few weeks I have actually worked hard to expand my professional networking.  I think that I have done a pretty good job at it considering through my networking I was able to meet with an IT corporate  recruiter and within a week I was offered the position with a new company that I am moving in to starting next week. It wasn't easy. I put myself out there on LinkedIn stating that I was looking for a new opportunity and was open to conversations.  Sadly, when you are having moments like those you are going to have to be open, transparent and honest about yourself and your situation to get anyone invested in helping you reach the next level of your goals. But in the end, it was worth it.  I will continue to put myself out there ad have those conversations that might open d

 This week was bitter sweet.  I only worked until Wednesday as it was my last day with my current company.  I will be starting with a new company as an IT Agile Project Manager on 05/31. I opted to begin looking for a new position as my current position allowed no room for growth, pay increase or much of a work life balance.  I was finding it hard to accomplish anything other than working.  I am very excited about the next steps for my future. I spend the time I was working this week setting my fellow project manager who will be taking over my position feel that they were in a place of success.  It's never easy to jump in to somonelses shoes and take of their project so I wanted to make sure there was little to no waves as I stepped out of my role and handed it over to them. My next post next week will be about the on-boarding process with my new company.

 I'm not 100% sure what to write about his week as there were no instructions...so I'll just add a picture of that!