'How This Sr Product Manager's Unyielding Standards Transformed a Challenging Project in Peru'

So, so over time like this, um, So to be honest with you, they, they, you know, that, that, obviously I've used that example already, so to try and draw on another example, um, even in the first place when I went out to Dubai, uh, when I, when I actually first got the job in Dubai, um, at that point I, I worked basically a part-time job, um, I, I was doing an internship, but it was, it wasn't paid, and then I was doing a part-time job as well, and it was with the kind of, with that part-time cash and, You know, whatever little saving I had that I went out to Dubai, so it was. Again, it was going out completely into ambiguity, into something that isn't certain. People around me are like, it doesn't make sense. How are you just going to step out like that? It, it makes absolutely no sense and. And again, that that worked out in the way that it did, so. So yeah, that that I I I think that's a good example for me.

Yep. So the, the project I did in Peru, uh, the, with the NGO, this, I kind of assumed the position of, um, project manager. It was a project engineer, but also project manager, because the other two engineers were basically very technical engineers as well. So, it was only right that I kind of take that position. The idea here was that this project is complete within 3 weeks because we had scheduled by the 4th week to already be at the village, uh, where we were installing the turbine. So it was essentially my responsibility to get that going. Now, here's what happened. One of the engineers, he's actually an aerospace engineer with his master's, so he's very top-notch, really technical engineer, um, was insisting that we, we also take an, um an omometer, it's a wind meter basically, because we're going so far out, it only makes sense to take this with us because if we can leave that there, we can collect data. Um, for the future groups that might be coming in, so it was basically like, um, something that was really, really important or could be important, um. Because of what we can collect from it. So he was, he was, he was working on, on that, basically, he was trying to get it to work, for some reason it wasn't working, for whatever reason. So, for me, um, kind of as a project manager in the group, or the person kind of moving the tasks, moving things forward, um, allocating tasks to some degree, um, and also making sure we're always on schedule. The way I then tackled the final week running up to the, up to the, um, up to us going out, because us going out, it was happening anyway. But the point is we need to make sure we were there with the turbine fully ready to be installed, and that last week I realized that actually if we don't get organized and we don't put things together, we don't put pen to paper properly, um, and we kind of just start working on these ad hoc projects on the side, we probably won't get to where we need to be. So, through that what I began to do is I began to organize very, Kind of hard hitting, um, like very strong, uh, meetings at the start of the day and at the end of the day where we began to review. So the first week was kind of just the flow, second week also to some degree, but to the latter half of the second week and the, and the third week, we began to take these morning and evening sessions very seriously. So what, what projects, what, what tasks are lay ahead of us, and then at the end of the day, what did we get done. It wasn't just uh us 3, we also had the uh some local engineers as well involved, some industrial engineer, um, And, and also the shop floor operator who was, who was helping us as well. So we would sit together uh and try and basically, I, I'd try and look at the tasks ahead, see what we have left, what we're going to work through, and um at the end of the day to see what was completed, basically. Eventually, so if you want, if you're interested to know what happened with the ometer, eventually he actually managed to do this on the final night. So we basically decided that that's not a priority. The priority was to get the turbine up and going. Um, so just based on prioritization, we did leave that, leave that out, and we dedicated only like the last, the last portion of the day on it. Um, he, he even started working on it, working on it at home, to be honest with you, but. Finally, on the final night before we left, we managed to um to get that complete, uh and we we managed to take that with us as well, so, so yeah.

No, uh, so I think we did, like we, we all did and for sure. I think it's more that people, you know, with work you, you begin to forget yourself. You're kind of like, or you, you know, you get, you, you become strung up on, but wait, I need to finish this thing. I need to, so they, they don't anticipate actually how much time we really have, like if when you really kind of quantify in hours what we're working with, how much we have left. And then putting it onto a board and saying look this is actually how many hours we have left to work with, like how much time do you think it's going to take to actually work on this if we get it from where it is now to, to ending, and then he'll say OK, this many hours, OK well look, that's not gonna happen because this is how many hours we're working with, and then through that kind of contextualization that I was able to put, um, We were able to see it a bit more easily, and then that way we were able to push it in the way that we wanted.

Yeah, so it was, so I, I used the I used the board, of course, um, and I, I worked, well, we, I actually sat with him as well, I said to him, look, like how many hours do we need to get this complete? What, what's less, what's left to complete? So it was kind of like a, a list, like a snag list of what's necessary, what needs to be done for that particular product. Because technically speaking, the 3 weeks we had should have been enough anyway, without that kind of hiccup. So once that was addressed and how much time that would take and what our priorities are, what other parts of the project need to be complete, uh, I was able to basically. Basically show them what our priority is, how much time we have left to work with, um. Con contextualize it, illustrate it, visualize it as well, um, and, and get that kind of buy-in from them. I, I mean, eventually it wasn't very difficult once they saw like what we were working with, because each person works on an individual part of a product, so they don't actually see how much is left, what's left. And so also that was, that was the way that I was able to bridge everyone together to say like this is what's coming together, this is where we are.