5 minutes with… Devon Knowles

Devon is a Project Manager who has worked in the project space for over 9 years. She started her career on a degree apprenticeship in England but she now lives a bit of a different life by the beach in New Zealand.

She has used her project skills and experience across varied industries and believes that a personal approach to her work has been the key to her success - a friendly, chatty northerner at heart! She started young in an industry surrounded by those older than her with more experience, but always saw that as a positive - what’s wrong with being the odd one out when it can help you grow?

Why did you choose a career in delivery or project management?

As I'm sure others have said, I kind of fell into it! It’s not really a career you hear about as a child, or one that you aim for and follow from a young age - I just wasn't the kid in school who always wanted to be a doctor or dentist unfortunately!

I was an 18 year old studying business when university was going up to ￡9k a year, and it didn’t feel right going for the sake of it. I looked for other options and an apprenticeship was the best route. There weren’t many out there at the time in the corporate world, but I found a 5 year apprenticeship where you could complete a honours degree whilst working and earning, and it seemed a no brainer to kick start my future. It started as Project Control and developed into Project Management, bringing me 5 years of experience straight in the deep end and I look back knowing that it was one of the best decisions I ever made, I would encourage anyone to follow a similar route.

9 years down the line, I've worked internationally, on big budget projects and across various industries like engineering, IT, food production and now health - my beginnings gave me transferable skills and made me very adaptable!

What advice would you give someone starting out in the industry?

Learn the fundamentals but be accepting that you won’t know everything straight away. You may be the lead as the project manager but remember you are usually working with experts who will be more than happy to share their knowledge - you are a team and working collaboratively will only improve your results.

At the beginning of my career, I had huge imposter syndrome and was terrified of asking for help, but that got me nowhere until I was confident in my own ability.

If you told me 9 years ago that I would have worked on hospital construction projects, military jets and kiwi fruit (quite the contrast), I would not have believed you - grab every opportunity!

Have you ever worked on a particularly difficult project? Why was it rubbish/tough/hard?

Yes, a few! There have definitely been projects where the difficulties have come from all angles… unmotivated employees, management not having clear objectives, processes not being in place, and it can seem like there is no way out.

But luckily, it shows you what to avoid, and what doesn’t work. It quickly taught me that communication on these difficult projects (to both the team and the customer) needs to be a priority to get it back on track, this can easily be lost when everyone is in ‘fixing’ mode.

I could look back at these projects and see them negatively, but it usually made the team pull together and I've met some of the most determined and diligent people I've ever worked with. Sometimes, the tough times are when you learn the most and realise what you can handle, ready for the next hurdle!

What do you think are the most important skills for a delivery or project manager to have?

Having the right education and qualifications is definitely important to know how to manage a project, but I also think that soft skills are looked past a lot and I believe they are of great importance. For example communication, problem solving, empathy, adaptability - huge skills for a project manager!

Also, It’s such a cliche but I genuinely believe that being a good ‘people person’ is vital. A lot of the time, you are managing and influencing people who you don’t have authority over but you require something from them for the project to succeed or even to just keep it moving.

Being a person with a hostile, demanding approach wouldn't get you anything other than a bad reputation.

That being said you do need the hard skills too - from that side of things i’d say that budgeting, planning and technical skills for your industry are immensely useful, but all things you can usually be taught/trained in.

What do you think are the biggest challenges facing delivery and project managers today?

It can feel as though there is constant change and updates to delivery practices which is usually great as we’re finding innovative ways to deliver better, however that doesn't mean that it’s not hard to keep up with. I don’t necessarily mean that just for an individual, a whole team needs to be on the same page if big changes come into play and that can be difficult to implement. Change can be great, we just need to be ready and willing, we’ve got to get everyone on board.

Essentially growth comes in any occupation and as project managers, if we make the effort to develop ourselves, it can only improve the work that we and our teams do. I recently completed an Agile training course which taught me a completely different approach to what I'm used to, but it really feels like the future of projects. It’s tough to keep up, but worth it.

I work in the contracting space so I can be going from one company to another working off different methodologies. It can initially feel challenging, but the fundamentals are always the same and it gives me a great deal of experience, you’ve got to be challenged to keep improving!

What projects would you have loved to have been involved in?

This is probably a question when the answer is usually a project that had a big impact and got people talking, but for me I'd love to have been involved in projects that really spark my interests. I’ve always been an avid concert and festival goer (less so that I now live 3 hours from Auckland!).

I used to attend them and think “I wonder what goes into creating this, I wish I could get involved!”. I always loved how they were the places where people were at their happiest, screaming their favourite songs, dancing and making memories. To me that’s really special and it’s creating a space for people to let go and forget the day to day struggles of life. Cool right?! How could I not want to be part of creating that! I did manage to have a day’s work experience behind Bon Jovi’s tour (it was as cool as it sounds) but being a project manager behind the biggest festivals and tours would be a dream for me… and I guarantee it wouldn't be easy!

This post is part of the?#fiveminuteswith?series of articles from people in the?#deliverymanagement?and?#projectmanagement?space.

You see a list of?all other posts on this article.