Introducing… a project manager

Syed Aman is director of the Project Management Office at Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS).

Describe a typical day in your role?

I like to connect with my team at the beginning of the day. We talk about safety, quality, productivity, human development and cost related to Project Management Office. These are our standing items discussed and monitored each day. Any project related escalations are also discussed in our huddle. Our intent is to know our priorities and challenges for that day. This also gives the opportunity for other team members to communicate, appreciate and support one another when required. The rest of the day is spent resolving daily escalations, removing obstacles, responding to project related queries, attending meetings with internal and external stakeholders.

What do you love most about your job/role?

What I love most about my role is that it involves interacting with colleagues on all different levels of the organization and across all functional areas. I love that I get to learn new things about the function/unit/department/etc. every day.

I get to assist project management enthusiasts grow professionally, and get to think and write about areas that help that process. I love helping people and seeing the results. I enjoy putting ideas together in a way that make sense, and having others learn from it.

There is a sense of family around our workplace. The work is challenging, no doubt. HHS truly values people on a personal level, which makes the hardest days just as great.

Our Project Management world is ever changing, growing and evolving – it’s a great ride!

What do you find challenging about your role?

As an external hire, my initial challenges were to really understand how the organization works, the internal processes and its stakeholders. It’s very important to have your stakeholders’ buy-in, so I had to spend some time with them to understand and agree on goals, objectives and priorities. I can now set targets for my department based on those.

Typically, balancing the elements of a complex project – time, money, scope and resources – is more challenging in the world of project management. Being a leader of this Project Management Office, my current challenge is the ability to provide appropriate oversight to Executive Leadership Team such that we can focus on correct project priorities and deploy organizational resources more effectively and efficiently.

What’s one thing people would be surprised to learn about your role?

You are always learning. No two projects are the same. Depending on your skills, you might work on a new model roll-out project one day and an Enterprise Resource Planning implementation the next. Each project has its own set of challenges, which forces you to constantly change and make adjustments to your approach. Our project management world is ever changing, growing and evolving – it’s a great ride!