Update Your Resume, Mama
You're already a project manager...
This is the start of a new series we’ll be exploring on Project Management and how to take what you’re already doing and use simple strategies to help with work and home.
Reframing 3 Common Problems
When I was preparing for my position evaluating systems and processes at a new company, I quickly realized my to do list was actually a series of large projects.
A few things became clear very quickly:
We needed better communication between management and staff, and then staff and clients.
We had a lot of great ideas and no one in charge of them (except the owner who was taking on too much.)
I needed as much help in managing everything as I could get.
Although I’m bringing some great skills to the table, (like three years of being a business owner myself and having previously worked jobs that showed me a lot about working in difficult environments) I still immediately knew my experience meant nothing without research.
As I started diving into the world of this new company and learning about carrying out projects at a management level, it hit me:
Motherhood has taught me how to practice this already.
Think about these top three problems for the company again and ask yourself if they apply to your home as well.
You need improved communication between family members, first mom and dad then parents with kids.
Everyone has an opinion about what they want. Sometimes this means one parent is getting overwhelmed because they’re being put in charge as unofficial-Knowledge-Keeper.
You’re in charge and expected to handle everything. Roles can feel inconsistent when you ask other people to be responsible for things.
Do these sound familiar? What did I miss?
Project Management Is Relevant
Imagine you’re back in the early days of motherhood for a moment. You’ve been through the most challenging event of your life and you’re exhausted.
Despite the weeks of preparation, the books you may have consumed prior to the birth…you now find yourself in a world where you are constantly researching and adapting. Somehow, the world expects you to know exactly what you are doing but one day’s research might completely change your parenting strategy for the next.
Whether you’re going to work to bring in income or working full-time at home, project management skills are needed to get things done.
I was absolutely astonished that none of my resources about project management were being discussed in the context of motherhood because all the typical dilemmas a corporate project manager deals with are deeply relatable to my life at home.
Women are expected to get things handled: efficiently and hopefully without tantrums. Look around our world and see how often we follow women. (Don’t we teach children to ask the mothers around them if they need help?) I think women bring a great contribution to make workplaces more empathetic but this results in women stretched too thin if they’re left without the tools to use in the process.
We’re going to spend the next few newsletters looking at how we can take these “work-life” concepts and bring them home.
In fact, this is the first step of project management: we need to define the need!
Project: a series of tasks that need to be completed to achieve a specific goal.
So, friends, what projects at home, work, or otherwise are you working on right now? Leave it in the comments and we’ll look at our basic concepts next time.
