Babcocks Job Interview
Hi there, I am George Barton; I studied Marine and Composites Technology at Plymouth University and I am here to apply for the Graduate Project Manager vacancy here at Babcocks Marine.
What makes a good project manager?
I believe the best approach for a project manager is to listen and adapt to each situation as well as employee individually as to acquire the best possible results from each possible situation this is what I carry forward throughout my project management style whether it is for a small £100 project or a huge £100 Billion project.
Good project managers have to be passionate about their chosen field to be able to have a greater reason to want to see the project succeed aside from purely monetary reasons, a passionate project manager will go above and beyond to ensure a task is done correctly resulting in a project that is well thought and carried out.
I have worked in and around the marine industry since I was 12 in an environment that has led me from an apprentice on projects to a manager of some of the projects myself; this has given me the insight to spot others’ abilities and therefore the ability to assign them to best task to utilise their abilities effectively and efficiently. I believe this, in turn, is useful for a project manager to increase productivity and therefore decrease costs of a project. (Baker, 2011)
The best project managers have great organizational skills, therefore, find it easy to plan and order the list of tasks for a certain project correctly; this allows them to effectively set out who needs to do each part of a task to get it done as quickly and to the highest standard possible.
Good project managers have to be diverse and have communicational skills that are second to none; this is to allow them to direct their team in the exact direction they require to solve a problem as efficiently as possible with the minimal amount of mishap. Project managers have to be diverse to be able to have a full grasp of any project they are given; managers that don’t diversify to each task risk losing focus of the final product and therefore will struggle as soon as a problem arises.
A good project manager has the foresight to predict and assess the outcomes of any given situation to be able to use them to their favour or to combat them, preventing them from occurring in the first place. Good project managers gain this insight by having knowledge about the machinery and the project they are managing as well as the team that they are in charge of; any knowledge of their team from their personal life to their work ethic can help with the planning and management of a team on the project.
Great project managers know what incentivizes each and every member of their team, therefore, empowering them to be able to achieve the maximum productivity from each member increasing the likelihood of the projects success criteria being met or exceeded within the timeframe provided.
What criteria would I use for measuring the success of a particular project on completion?
The best way I find measure the success of any project is in three specific areas; the main of these is the tangible success of the overall product. This is the overall quality of product / how fit for purpose the product is as well as what percentage of the design brief criteria have been met; this is a level of success that can always be increased by additional work to the project even after its finish date if there are areas that did not meet specifications or areas that can exceed the quality required which can lead to a greater accepted success for the project adding additional value to the product.
If I were to be running a project at Babcocks Marine I would set reach goals at the beginning of the project to ensure that any spare time for the employees can be used effectively, this, in turn, would increase the potential for greater success as well as making it easy to see the level of success from the completed project by the number of extra goals achieved.
Measuring the teams progress and control of the project throughout its timeline is almost as important as the tangible success throughout the project as it monitors how each team or individual performed with each area of the project enabling management to adapt to the employees they have which is what I would do if given a team to lead in your company enabling us as a team to perform at a greater standard while becoming more efficient as time goes on.
Success of each individual can be effectively measured by setting out a list of functions that need to be accomplished by specific points in time and concluding at the end of the project how many areas each person succeeded and failed on; this allows a project manager to see an employee’s strongest and weakest points to know to what extent each individual succeeded or failed due to the work they produced.
The last system to measure success that I would implement is the measure of inter-employee relationships; this is the connection between the members of the team I have been given as to understand whether employees are working well together and if certain individuals worked better with others or held the project up. This not only helps with future projects with greater knowledge of my employees but it also shows if the project could have been sped up or been done to a greater standard in places even if it passed all the design brief criteria. (Gilbertson, 2015) To be able to measure the success of inter-employee relationships I would analyse what work got completed by each group as well as the quality of the work and the time taken this would show to what extent different groups succeeded or failed; this data would enable me to gain a greater understanding as to whether a team needs adjusting or just needs to be watched more closely in future projects.
For Babcocks Marine I understand why there is such importance behind the high quality of each and every product as the machines produced here can be involved in intense battle situations or constant and heavy loads for an extended period of time; this leaves little time for repair and wears the product at a greater rate than most other machines meaning that there is little space for error and why guaranteed success is very important at Babcocks Marine.
Why would I be the suitable choice for potentially running multi-million-pound projects?
I am suitable to be trusted as a manager for large projects because of my ability to keep re-evaluating priorities for each task on a project, decreasing risk of failure by ensuring each piece of new information is taken into account before continuing; this system is important as it prevents any project spiralling out of control due to every little issue being solved instead of glossing over it and hoping it doesn’t prevent the project from completing. This is what I believe to be especially important to this job as most of your clients are high paying customers that require a high standard of product and will not accept it if there are any defects and delays in the final output.
I would make a good Graduate Project Manager as I function well working under or alongside others without having my confidence knocked which may help me succeed at Babcocks Marine where I am aware that I could be frequently collaborating with other navies from New Zealand, Australia, and Canada. (Babcocks Marine, 2018)
I am the suitable choice for you today as my communication is clear and direct ensuring all under my command get a concise and understandable direction enabling them to understand the task they have been given and increasing greatly the chance of the task being done correctly the first time without need for correction unlike many other candidates that may see today.
Working so intensively in the marine industry has only grown my passion for all things amphibious leading me to pick the degree I did; this passion is why I believe that I am the correct choice for this job as I have a greater level of dedication to immersing myself into any project at Babcocks Marine, and truly enjoy the line of work I have set myself upon.
Another reason that I am the right person to manage multi-million-pound projects is that I understand the monetary values associated with time taken as well as wastage of materials; which aides me to know where to cut costs or where to tighten up on efficiency to be able to increase the chances of a project as big as repairing a Type 23 Frigate stays within or even under budget.
The main reason why I am the candidate to potentially run multi-million-pound projects is due to my ambition and ability to spot potential faults and oversights in the design of a project; before the flaw gets put forward into mainline production and therefore, potentially damaging a products final credibility and going on to cost the company money. This makes me the candidate for you; you don’t want a venture that has been ongoing for years and costing the company millions of pounds to have its success hindered by a small mistake made by an under sufficient manager. Select me and let me promise to work through the management of any project I am given meticulously to ensure that nobody could have done it better; keeping all faults to a minimum and the product’s quality as a priority.