Project Management Interview with Britton Swingle

This is Caitlin Hensley.

And for my project management investigation, I chose to interview

Britain Swingle.

I chose Britain because of her diverse professional background.

Her current job title is Product design and an industrialization

engineer at Michelin North America and the original equipment design

group. She has also held roles as an aeronautical engineer

for the U.

S. Customs and border protection as well as a systems

engineer at johnson's based Center in Houston texas for Nasa.

In addition, she is currently a volunteer and manages projects

for a foster care nonprofit group in Washington, D.

C. When asked to describe her role within an organization,

Britain said that all of the roles that she has

held holds some aspect of design which requires creativity as

well as a respect for the physical world and boundaries.

Another portion of her role is project management, she said

they often referred to it as cradle to grave design,

where a concept is born brought to life and then

phased out when its usefulness is superseded by or a

superior or more advanced product.

She said that the cradle to grave concept was used

when introducing new types of technology on the international space

station. An idea would be born out of necessity and

then thoroughly tested on the ground.

After a proof of concept was accepted, they were responsible

for translating it into a project with a manageable timeline

for implementation.

What does a typical project look like for Britain's go?

She says that currently a project for her would involve

the design and industrialization of attire for the launch of

a new vehicle to market the tire will have a

specific timeline with measurable benchmarks.

Along the way, the main design team consists of three

people but many more are involved in the project passing

specific benchmarks of bringing the concept to life.

Let's move on to tools and strategies.

Burton had quite a bit to say about her personal

approach to project management.

She first said that it is important to thoroughly document

your project.

She said that she liked clearly defining each benchmark and

ensuring that everyone on the team understood the responsibilities and

overall goals.

She also prefers to have a system that holds each

to meme bricks responsible.

The system, she says needs to be visible to everyone

as well Britain also had some really good strategies for

keeping a project on track.

She first says that regular communication is essential.

Successful projects involve team members having formal and informal conversations

with each other.

She said that she prefers for all team members to

be in close physical proximity to each other, but this

is not always possible, especially in the time of Covid.

She also says that visible representation of the project benchmarks

are also helpful for daily reminders of upcoming deadlines for

project management tools.

Brennan says good project management software is helpful.

It needs to be easy to use and provide information

that the team members actually care about.

Michelin uses planes wear.

Now let's move on to developing project management skills and

expertise. When I asked Britain how she has successfully developed

skills in managing projects, Britain said that she has built

her skills by observing other successful project managers and has

learned the following project managers know their team, they know

their members strengths and assigned tasks accordingly.

She also says that connections and good report matter.

It took her a few years to understand the importance

of building rapport with others.

Team members are more likely to accomplish tasks on time

when they have relationships with other contributors to the project,

keeping in mind that everyone should be treated with respect

pays dividends down the road, she says, she also adds

that people come and go within a workplace, but you

never know when you're going to work with someone in

the future Britain in addition, has taken classes on project

management to learn the hard skills in order to grow

her skill set in project management, Britain says that patients

is one of the key skills in learning for project

management. She says that some things are not in our

control, It's very tempting to complete a project as soon

as possible, but this was not always physically achievable for

her when working for the johnson Space Center, she said

that launch dates would be moved and rescheduled dozens of

times, depending on whether, she said, we always had to

be ready to go, but also ready to wait.

Another key lesson Britain mentioned was that team members do

not always pull their weight.

She said that she likes to set high expectations because

she knows that people are capable of it, but that

doesn't always mean.

She says that people will be driven to rise to

the occasion.

She said that people will disappoint and sometimes new methods

of motivation will need to be pursued.

She also says that it is important for project managers

to be willing to confront people and problems and that

is important to to do this without involving emotion and

to simply stick to pure facts is best when asked

what advice that Britain has for managing a project, Britain

says that she is currently trying to translate her project

management skills in the engineering field to the world of

public policy.

She says that while data is still involved, the final

product is very different.

The concepts of project management can be applied to something

as small as running a household to the large scale

of passing a new national policy.

She would advise project managers to not take things personally

and to focus on the final goal.

She says that everyone approaches a problem from different directions,

but the project manager is responsible for creating a common

vision and creating a cohesive team.

She said I would also like to mention that what

happens at the end of a project is just as

valuable as the beginning phases.

She says it is important to take time to reflect

on what worked and what didn't.

There are always lessons learned and those should be documented

and implemented for the next project.

Let's move on to my final reflection, something I found

really interesting in talking with Britain was that project management

concepts are universal, whether you're using them at Nasa Michelin

or she's now using them in a nonprofit to work

on public policy for foster care.

I also liked what she said about clear communication.

I've always very interesting what she said that formal and

informal conversations are essential.

I never really thought about the informal aspects and I

also never thought about how important extensive documentation is within

a project and I hope to use this in the

future when I do idea as well.

In interviewing Britain, I'm walking away with two important concepts

that are really going to um change my project management

beliefs for the future as an instructional designer.

one that I found really interesting was reflection.

She says that the end game of a project is

just as important as the beginning and that you should

learn from what went well and what didn't within a

project and I will certainly use this when I go

on to be an instructional designer.

Once graduating.

Another thing that I really found profound was that Britain

said that is important for project managers to confront people

and problems and I am definitely going to use her

advice in that, she said, you shouldn't use a motion

but just stick to facts.

Um, and I think that this is a really strong

characteristic within project management that I hope to use within

the workplace as well.

Thank you everyone for viewing my project.

I hope you enjoyed it and learned a lot about

Britain as much as I did.

Project Management Interview with Britton Swingle

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