Skyscrapers to Product — Why I’m Pivoting My Career
Since graduating high school I’ve been on a fast-track career trajectory towards becoming a project manager on Australia’s largest construction projects.
I’ve always loved solving problems with creative technical solutions, thinking strategically and uniting teams. These are the reasons why I joined the industry in the first place and have thrived managing some of the biggest physical projects in the country.
Although I’ve loved working in construction, only through real-world experience did I discover that my true passion lies elsewhere, specifically in the digital world of product management.
In this post I’ll talk through what led me to the decision to pivot my career and how my unique experience has prepared me for the challenges facing product managers today.
Stumbling onto product management.
I found my way to product management in 2015 while searching for different approaches to help manage the day to day challenges I was facing in my project teams.
What I found was useful techniques that helped me in strategic planning, collaboration and solving problems which I have been successfully implementing in my work for the last five years.
This success was the catalyst for me to complete a formal product management education in 2020, start my own product and ultimately leave the construction industry.
What was stopping me from pursuing a product career sooner?
A sunk cost fallacy that I’d spent 4 years at university studying engineering and 7 years at a tier 1 construction company, how could I give this up after I’ve invested so much time and energy?
This kept me put for a long time but after experiencing the pure thrill of starting my own product I knew it was time to go all in.
Before moving forward, I want to reflect on where I’ve been, what I’ve achieved and how product techniques have allowed me to excel in my work, making a direct impact on my company’s vision.
Product management in the built environment.
1 William Street (1WS): 2014–2016
Complex problems solved by an empowered team.
1WS was my first taste of large-scale project management in action.
When I joined the project I quickly learnt that all 50 team members had one thing in common.
They were inspired by our leader who seemed to have an innate ability to see the bigger picture, allowing him to sense obstacles in advance and adjust accordingly.
I was determined to learn how he united such a large team and convinced him to be my mentor.
I felt privileged that this early in my career I could work alongside such a talented leader who encouraged his team to develop our own solutions to meet the business objectives.
He knew that it was better to keep us accountable for the result rather than offering pre-determined solutions.
He had created a truly empowered team.
This flowed down the chain and opened up opportunities for me to manage areas of the project roadmap that would have traditionally been left to more experienced engineers.
Being thrown in the deep end at 1WS proved to my managers that I was capable of taking on the most complex aspects of a project and truly set me up for success.
FV Flatiron: 2016–2017
Using technology to solve problems.
My achievements at 1WS rewarded me with a promotion and a new challenge.
How could the productivity of 650 luxury apartments that were already six months behind schedule be fast-tracked?
The answer — Data!
The project needed a more efficient method to capture and communicate real-time progress data so any performance inefficiencies could be identified before they became an issue.
With over a thousand workers onsite and only a handful of project managers, historically this information had been collected manually and was a tedious process.
With a sense of empowerment to devise our own solution we experimented with a new approach on the project.
Harnessing the power of technology our team built a mobile app that allowed users to capture project progress in real time. This data was represented in dashboards that provided visibility over the entire project whilst saving our team countless hours of laborious manual data entry.
This experience highlighted technology’s power in streamlining outdated processes and allowed our team to identify project inefficiencies and make better informed decisions.
Gallery House: 2017–2019
An intersection of leadership and product skills
A new project and a new position, this time as a leader.
I had a team of young go-getters who were looking to me to pull this cross-functional team together so we could deliver the project as one cohesive unit.
I developed rapport with my team by not only providing opportunities that would stretch them but also giving direct feedback through weekly one on ones, drawing from techniques learned in the book Radical Candor.
The way I managed this project team was different as well, implementing a Kanban Trello board to give the team visibility of exactly what was in progress at any point in time so priorities could be analysed and adjusted in real-time.
Sapphire by the Gardens: 2019 — Jan 2021
A new city and a fresh approach.
In 2019 I moved from Brisbane to Melbourne and was brought onto an established project as an experienced leader. I was one of two employees in the state to have recently completed a three month intensive leadership course and was excited to showcase my new skills with the team.
With no established relationships I needed to gain the trust of my new project team and external stakeholders to create an environment that was conducive to success.
My strong interpersonal skills and intuitive ability to spot and react to threats allowed me to quickly build this trust from my new colleagues.
Due to the complexity and fast-paced nature of the project there was a mountain of critical design decisions that needed to be made and an ever growing list of upcoming problems to solve.
Here I incorporated weekly design sprints and daily stand-ups into the way we worked.
Each week we put our highest priority design ticket through a 5 day sprint. This process allowed our team to arrive at a unified decision on the workshopped solution by prototyping and gathering feedback on concepts.
The daily stand-ups were another great way to open the lines of communication within our team. After a few weeks we began to keep on top of daily activities whilst collaboratively strategising solutions to upcoming challenges.
Conclusion: Onwards and Upwards.
As you can see I’ve got a true passion for product management and have been putting it to work for the last five years which gives me a unique advantage to hit the ground running as a product manager.
Now, I’m busy applying the skills I’ve learnt in the built environment to launching my own product, read about it here.
If you’re interested in how I can help your product team succeed please get in touch!
