There might be innumerable challenges an IT / Telecom Project
Coordinator has to take on. But, the most interesting one most of the
times is to play the expert role of a referee in an apparently never
ending fight between ‘ The Procurement ’ and ‘The Vendors’. Well, I
said 'most of the times' because, the other times the coordinator
himself or herself has to get into the fight, playing the better hand,
switching sides with every 11th hour change call from the management.
That's way more interesting, isn't it !!? The focus however, remains in
guiding the fight in favor of the project all those times. And the
worst case scenario occurs when the management (more specifically the
procurement or the one with authority of approval ) is not likely to
comprehend the technological risks or advantages. Then the coordinator
must either be a fresher or a fool not to be prepared to face a sudden
termination. I don't mean to make a fresher project coordinator's life
any harder with this post. I just want you guys (coordinators) to have a
look at these guidelines that I have pointed out from my personal
experience ( Those young coordinators, dozing off looking at the size of
this article , jump to the conclusion) :
1. Give it everything you have got.
And by everything, I do mean all the goodies you have earned so far.
Your dedication, concentration, ethical strength, potential organizing
ability, analytic approach, challenge accepting attitude etc..bring 'em
all on. A project is a tremendous opportunity to quench your thirst for
knowledge, skills, excellence and for proving yourself. Don't avoid
responsibilities. Keep taking on one after another as long as you are
carrying out those properly according to their priorities. But, don't
let any of those unattended or 'not addressed' in your day roundup.
Facing responsibilities with a positive approach takes you more close to
the project. It allows you to learn more and to grow more and more
expertise in the necessary sides of the project. Once you start
dedicating yourself to the project, you'll see all your talents, style,
views, your passion, compassion, your way of getting things done, are
all falling in place in a perfect blend with your confidence. Just like
the way Argentines, Brazilians or Germans deliver their own style, their
own culture in the soccer field and come out 'Champions'. And trust
me!!, that's exactly the way an exceptional performer, a change maker, a
true professional is made out of you.
2. Grab all the learning opportunities with both hands. Specially,
the technical briefing and training sessions provided by the technology
vendors in the project. It makes you feel better that you are gaining
excellence all the time. There might be a few in-house and external
training and briefing sessions on technological details, international
& local market insights and comparative analysis. If you miss any
one of those for your extensive workload, make sure you get all the
resources and an immediate briefing on that session sitting with a
colleague who didn't miss it.
4. Be smart in your job. Start
it with punctuality. Always get to work in time. You need to take this
thing very seriously. Because, HR (Human Resource) is a back office
department that is most likely to be more interested in tracking your
sign in time every morning than keeping records of your staying at work
at night after the office hours. Be it to receive a shipment of
equipment at the site or to attend an important meeting with the vendors
or even to finish a work that had to be started after office hours, you
gotta be on time next morning. Even if you see your weekends and
holidays have just disappeared because of this project, don't let your
fatigue disrupt your office timing. Schedule all your appointments,
apply and preserve your energy accordingly. Just never let this
department raise any objection against you. This may also include
attending departmental training sessions and exams and passing them with
satisfactory marks. It doesn't matter if you had to attend vendors and
do some critical analysis of the project just before, just after or even
in the middle of your exam.
Fun !!! , isn't it !!!?
......
Exactly it is..!! 'Fun at work at its best' or should I say 'Fun in'
or 'Fun from' work !!?.... Coin it as you like but, that should be a
sign of your staying equal to the task and never giving up till the
end.
Because, once the project is up and you are back to your
regular duties, it's not guaranteed that your records will be treated as
a project time special case. Besides, at any moment there can be a
change in the HR department. Change can occur as far as in the entire
management.
" There are managements and business owners who do draw such dramatic changes when setting-up projects are over. "
In
that case, under a new management, you'll see the possibility of you
being treated by your HR records, not by your project involvements,
increases staggeringly. Hence, stay clean in HR's book.
Track your
contributions and fruitful self development along with effective
project progress in a daily basis. Maintaining coordinator's own
tracking and observation of the project progress all the way, is a very
useful practice. Keep a careful watch on technological risks and
advantages of all the systems being designed and implemented by the
vendors as per SLA ( Service Level Agreement ). It's crucial. Remember,
this may not be instructed from the management. But, it is undoubtedly a
very useful practice to maintain your personal tracking and evaluation
of the project. This could simply be a few lines about the project on
your personal diary every night. By the Rahmat of Allah, it offloads
your head, lightens your heart and cuts down your struggle on the bed to
fall asleep.
Start your day with the first ray of the sun. Do your household chores yourself. Establish your command on your day proceedings.
If
this sounds pointless to you, then let me remind you that as the
project coordinator you are dealing with loads of challenges every day
at the project site. To name a few:
- Dealing with various
vendors, their offers of solutions, their rates, providing the precise
vendors' comparison sheet to the procurement and bringing out the
optimal service from them.
- Ensuring a flawless installation of
various systems by the selected vendors as per SLA and not letting them
to raise any objection or complain or lack of cooperation from your
side.
- As a regular employee complying to all your HR requirements, code of conducts, rules and instructions.
- Never
letting any vendor or anybody involved in the project to do anything
with the project that might oppose the instructions of the Telecom
Regulatory Authority.
- In case of any disaster, finding out the
quick and optimal recovery. ( In such cases, a crosscheck of the root
cause and of the proposed remedial plans is necessary. Because, it is
not guaranteed that all the vendors will provide the honest feedback all
the time. )
- Informing the management about all the proceedings and the overall phase of the project time to time.
From
this, I hope you are getting an idea that adopting a smart lifestyle
helps you to cope up well with all these challenges staying one step
ahead. A laid-back life style on the other hand, is not really helping
you to perform in an well organized manner when you are a telecom
project coordinator. Because, this casual lifestyle causes casual
approach to your work as well. Need I say that's really alarming !!?
" The point here is that no pressure, no bargaining vendor, no disaster whatsoever should ever be allowed to outsmart you."
5. Never hesitate to communicate.
Specially, with other engineers, detecting any flaw or just to resolve a
confusion. For example, there might be a separate department or another
guy taking care of the power system installations for the entire
project. This system more or less consists the AVR (Automatic Voltage
Regulator), power generator, transmission lines, PDF (Power Distribution
Frame) , grounding system, backup UPS, battery bank setup, power lines
to the precision air-conditioning system etc. You need to stay always
in close ties with that department or with that person(s) to ensure the
installation of a safe power supply. Because, the last thing you need is
an unexpected voltage spike or an upsurge damaging your core business
equipment. Talk to all the vendors about it and seek a special attention
of the management before commissioning the entire power distribution
and backup system. Remember, the procurement or anybody with high level
authority may approve comparatively chipper equipment for the power
supply system. But, when such a disaster strikes, it obviously affects
the entire project and everybody in every department.
Another
example could be the case of getting the equipment safely to the project
site. If the core technology vendor is supplying the core equipment
from overseas, you need to make sure that doesn't get stuck anywhere
because of custom clearance or for any other reason. This can very well
cause mishandling and damage to those. It's not at all surprising to
find the packed equipment submerged under trapped rain water opening the
big wooden boxes. That's because, the business owner or the procurement
left those boxes stuck in the port yard for months. Tell you what !!
opening those boxes it could very well appear as if, those Next
Generation Network (NGN) equipments for your telecom project have turned
into decorations of possibly some third generation aquariums!!
" In such cases the best way to absorb the shock is by making a guess that a rare gold fish collection must be on the way. "
Drawing
continuous feedback from the vendors, the coordinator should take
initiatives talking to the management to avoid undue and unexpected
delays in equipment acquisition. He or she should make the management
alert about such possible
disasters.
" The more you communicate, the more you learn and eliminate chances of severe blunders in the project."
6. Keep calm if a misunderstanding or a conflict arises with your colleagues that you think totally uncalled for.
Don't just start running to the management with a bucket full of
complains right away. You certainly don't want your management or HR to
mark you a whinny baby, do you !!? Remember, all your colleagues may not
be engaged to the project the way you are but the project itself may
have equally important impact on all of 'em. The management may have
chosen you from all your colleagues to play the role of the project
coordinator because, at-least once they relied more on you than on any
other to carry out this particular responsibility. So, some really
baseless 'feelings of complex' like frustration, insecurity,
inferiority are very much possible to occur temporarily among your
colleagues.
" This sort of theatrical entertainments (
if you are sensible enough to deal with it) are almost inevitable when
HR recruits a bunch of too less experienced executives or fresh
graduates for a highly intensive international telecom business setup
project and makes a mess of the ranks. "
Now, you
are the one to not let the management down. Play a mature role. Prevent
those temporary complex feelings turning into permanent clashes. Sit
with them, talk to them, talk to the management if needed. If they are
available, try sharing your coordination responsibilities with them
drawing an watchful eye of the management. Utilize their skills and
talents, make them feel actively more involved in the venture. Just make
a sincere and effective effort to resolve these conflicts. Don't say
that you don't have time to fill up alarming gaps with your colleagues
when you are always available to the vendors. That's an integral part of
a project coordinator's job.
Here, I'd also like to talk about
similar brazened confrontation that you face particularly in the regular
project phase reporting and analysis session or at the periodical
meeting of all the coordinators taking care of different sides of the
projects. Now, see if my words matches with what you experience in such
situations.
"This is just bullshit !!!"," What've you done !!!?,
"Don't you have the bloody sense how your action is affecting the whole
project !!?" "Just how did you get that bloody audacity of not
consulting with us before taking that bloody action !!?" "Did you by any
chance forgot to windup your mechanical brain that morning !!?
"................................. Your fellow coordinators and your
Project Manager / CEO/ CTO/COO are just tearing you apart with harsh
criticisms finding a blunder ( doesn't matter how small and recoverable
it is) that you've just conceded...!!!?............ Keep calm
!!........... Don't be too shocked or too surprised that either gets you
start mumbling or makes you loose it completely and start shouting
back. Despite all your dedication, calculation, precaution and
hard-work, blunders do pop up almost out of no where in such intense
projects. That doesn't mean you are failing to keep up with the
pressure. With a calm but strong and clear voice, admit that it could
have been done in a better way avoiding that blunder and apologize for
it and In Shaa Allah, you are through.... That's the way you are
supposed to tackle that 'not friendly' situation, take lessons from
it(deal with it and get used to it) and when your turn arrives, you can
show how smartly, graciously and effectively an active hard-worker can
be corrected / helped with constructive criticism. After all, there is a
very common saying "Attitude is everything." Stick it on your desk in
small fonts and have a look at it before walking to the meeting room.
7. Keep a careful eye on the regulatory affairs. In
case of a telecommunication project where there are some regulations
regarding the specific business license and 'Go Live' timelines fixed by
a 'Telecom Regulatory Authority of the Land', you just cannot afford to
exceed the timeline or go beyond their instructions by any means.
Because, doing that you might have to face huge amount of penalty,
enlistment as a defaulter in a highly competitive market and even the
cancellation of license. Hence, having a 'Regulatory Compliance Check'
of every new action that deems necessary is an unavoidable obligation
(As good as it is having a periodical analysis of the phase and pace of
the project considering the possibilities of disasters and their
recovery time) .
8. Maintain your integrity all the way. There
might be one or more cross-roads on your way. There, you may be
provoked to be benefited sacrificing your honesty or integrity. You
know, by compromising your professional commitment, cutting loose on
your dedication, making some undue favors to any party to get benefited
risking the project etc. But remember, this is your career and how you
deal with your project will define it.
( And a bonus 9th point ! ) Be ready for surprises. Don't get carried away , don't get too excited and please don't be shocked.....
"
It's
very natural for a 'coordinator for the first time' to be unmindful
about the time (if and when it arrives) to take the horse ride out of
the merry-go-round "..... So, don't let any surprise take your feet
off the ground or just leave you totally disgruntled. Neither is good
for your career. Well, there is nothing more to explain on this point,
is there !!?
Now, if you are still awake or at-least haven't yet started snoring, let me draw a
conclusion summarizing what I actually wanted to say.
There
are basically four official (man-made) factors playing key roles behind
the success or the failure of the project coordinator in such a Telecom
business setup project:
- Management
- Procurement
- HR
- and the Coordinator himself or herself.
Now,
as a coordinator you don't have any hand on the first three factors.
But, the last one means that alongside techy skills and enthusiasm you
need ,dedication, smartness, wisdom, tolerance, patience, the right
attitude and above all or more correctly summing it up all you need
character.
"
Coordinator-ship of an intense telecom business
setup project itself is a gifted chance for you to prove that character
or to test it for yourself or to build it or may be just to cut off the
rough edges (Finding out and getting rid of the 'not helping' traits of
your character)."
In the end, everything is an achievement
for you In Shaa Allah, by the grace of Allah if you have given it your
everything smartly and wisely. -
Engr. Mainuddin Ahmed
