Resilience and adaptability are key to success in dealing with the complexity of today’s business environment. Simone Gall, a seasoned project manager at Datacom, exemplifies these qualities through her dynamic career and her approach to managing change within her team.
Previously as a programme manager, Simone oversaw a team responsible for onboarding new customers into Datacom’s managed operations. Her role evolved into General Manager of security solution delivery, where she formed a new team within the Cyber Defence Operation Centre (CDOC).
Simone's transition into the CDOC marked a significant learning curve about the intricacies of cybersecurity tooling and products. The team she formed included project managers and technical experts focused on managing new and existing customers who wanted additional cyber security services.
When Datacom made changes to make it more customer-focused, Simone's team was shifted under a new director. This move redefined her role. It expanded from cybersecurity to encompass all of networking while also focusing exclusively on project managers to ensure they were supported to deliver projects efficiently and effectively.
Although she no longer manages purely technical staff, Simone emphasises the importance of both the technical and project management aspects of her team's work. She believes that project managers, even though they may have come from a non-technical background, can acquire technical knowledge and with time and training, a level of expertise that adds significant value by anticipating issues and risks to project delivery.
“My role is partly to ensure that the project people are technical specialists as well. Our people are not only certified in project management, but cybersecurity and network tooling and products. Some have been doing this for 20 years, so they know everything about delivery of a cyber or network project. There's this additional layer of technology understanding.
“I've had conversations where people have said to me, ‘A project manager is a project manager’, but the difference is that if you haven't delivered a project in this field, you don’t understand the risks.”
Understanding risk means knowing what’s coming up, what the issues will be and how to plan for them, says Simone. “For example, there may be possible issues with access to a site where we need to install a device. A generic project manager would get all the tasks listed for what needs to happen and assume it would just happen.
"We have PMs [project managers] who can anticipate what will happen and only need the engineer to review their plan. They can plan with certainty, be on calls with customers, have real conversations talking the same technology. They're not needing an interpreter or technical person sitting next to them and that saves the customer a huge amount of time and money.”
A major challenge Simone faced was managing the change process. She had to build trust and align her team with new organisational goals. She acknowledges that change is difficult but necessary for growth and success. “It has been about aligning everyone, making sure we’re all on the same page and that the team understands that I can't do this without them. Each person makes the team, and I always want to support my team to succeed.
“There's always going to be change. Let's expect it and focus on what we can control, what we need to do and doing an excellent job. I want my team to be sought after because we're the only people that do both networking and security.”
One of the most rewarding aspects of the job is seeing team members achieve their goals and she is proud of providing opportunities for growth and development and helping her team members succeed in their careers.
