Nine o’clock in the morning is rarely ever a good time to be late. Worse still, being late as a project manager (PM) to a project for a valued client of the Data School. So you can imagine my reaction when I got to Cambridge station this morning to the sight of ‘CANCELLED’ on the display for my trains to City Thameslink.

9:01. There I was, in the Blue room, a hot sweaty mess. I had greeted the client, settled in and another disaster had struck: my favourite red pen had been leaking all over my hands and notebook without me noticing. Red ink had coloured the tips of my fingers and the right side of my neck. But somehow, after all of that, I managed to feign a semblance of professionalism. This was mainly because of the grace afforded to me by our client.

All self-depreciative reality aside, I have looked forward to this week with a mixture of child-like-anticipation and worry. On the one-hand, project management is a soft-skill I have experience in wielding in pre-DS roles. On the other hand, I have had nothing quite so intense as managing a group of 7 very diverse people over a project that must be delivered within a week. The timescales I have worked with have been markedly longer in comparison. However, given the simplicity of the task i.e. simplifying a data processing and creating simple dashboard with a pre-set standardized design, I was sure we would deliver something good for the client.

My first order of business, after setting everyone on their respective tasks, was to keep the team well-fed. Of course it isn’t necessary for a PM to keep their team well-fed, or even fed at all, but I couldn’t resist the temptation to keep the team sweet. The project so far had been marked with minor inconveniences and food. I believe we are off to a good start.