My journey into defence isn’t \nwhat you would call typical, nor was it a straightforward and planned \njourney. If a year ago you had told me I would be project manager within\n a Portfolio Management Office (PMO) helping to develop processes, \nmethodologies and analysis that would guide information system services \ntechnology from idea to reality, while also being part of a team of \nthree to research, design and build a comprehensive and agile knowledge \nmanagement system for thousands to use, I would have been surprised to \nsay the least.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Author: Michael Luke Digital Project Manager<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n I started my career in retail during my university studies. After \nfinishing my degree I moved to an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) \/ \nAccountancy company that specialised in Sage software. During my time \nworking on Sage I worked as an Account Manager and Business Analyst. I \nworked directly with the company owner and lead Sales Director which \nprovided me with the breadth of experience and responsibility that came \nvery early in my career. After a couple of other roles blending project \nmanagement, business development and customer engagement I took a \ndecision to develop my project management skills and work for a small, \nspecialist and dynamic project management consultancy called i3Works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So what attracted me to i3Works and the defence sector? Simply put, I\n was looking for a new challenge – particularly in a more professional \nworking environment that valued growth and success while challenging the\n individual on a day-to-day basis. After originally looking to work \nwithin a larger company, the draw of a smaller company with a more open \nand supportive working culture that rewarded personal responsibility, \nprofessional development, drive and determination was the key reason for\n me accepting the role. I also relished the opportunity to have a direct\n impact on the future direction and growth of the company, including the\n opportunity to work alongside the company Directors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although my time at i3Works has just begun, I have already been \nthrown into the deep end on multiple occasions. The highlight of my time\n at i3Works to date has been working to build a Knowledge Management \nSystem for the Ministry Of Defence (MOD) PMO to use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n i3Works have done a lot of work studying lessons learned systems and \nmethodologies and the Army has a solution that is demonstrably one of \nthe best in class, aimed at harvesting, packaging and making the lessons\n learned from military operations accessible. I had the opportunity to \nvisit the team and understand the rationale for their solution, the \nbenefits that it delivers for them and some of their challenges. It was \ntruly fascinating and provided a number of important insights and \nnuances that I wouldn\u2019t otherwise have obtained. For example, the team \nleader explained that you can have two identical situations, with \nidentical, plans, resources, etc etc, and yet wildly different outcomes \ncan occur, from one being successful to the other being a failure \u2013 but \nwhy does this happen? And when it does happen how are the lessons \nlearned transferred from one person to the next? From this discussion \nalongside our own research, it was evident that knowledge management \nsystem (KMS) requires four key aspects:<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s evident that recent developments in technology and data \nmanagement have the potential to transform how knowledge is managed \nacross government. Not just in terms of accessing intellectual property \nbut also learning lessons from others. Having seen a number of lessons \nlearned systems that are box ticking solutions rather than a means of \nembedding lessons, it\u2019s clear that the quest is not an easy one. But \nworking in a small company means that we can work with agility and reach\n out to specialists in the industry and form a team tailored for the \napplication. It\u2019s a great opportunity to apply myself, develop some new \nskills and really make a difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My journey into the Defence sector has been both interesting and \nunpredictable, testing me at every turn. From starting out as a Business\n Analyst, to helping dig trenches as a hands-on Project Manager, I \nbelieve that my journey has taught me many valuable skills, helping me \nto think around the challenge and act with ingenuity and efficiency – \nbut more importantly it\u2019s been a fun chapter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My journey into defence isn’t what you would call typical, nor was it a straightforward and planned journey. If a year ago you had told me I would be project manager within a Portfolio Management Office (PMO) helping to develop processes, methodologies and analysis that would guide information system services technology from idea to reality, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":162,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":205,"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109\/revisions\/205"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}