Each day, everyone at Springworks comes into work with a true passion for building products and tools for the HR ecosystem. We are artists, innovators, achievers, and dreamers, with a one-track mind to fine-tune the products that we build. Through this series of posts, we showcase our team members, their roles, and what a typical day looks like for them. You can check all the posts here.
Hari Krishna joined the team of Springworks in July 2019. Prior to joining Springworks, he was the Project Coordinator at iQuanti in Bangalore.
Here at Springworks, Hari has been single-handedly managing various clients and a large team of around 25 people, which is a mix of Engineers, QAs, Junior Product Manager, and Customer support, providing them with his constant support.
Let’s dive into it right away and take a peek into the life of a Project Manager at SpringWorks.
What is your job as a Project Manager?
I am majorly responsible for the creation, organization, execution, and successful completion of specific client projects.
This includes managing relevant employees, setting deadlines, communicating with company executives about the state of the project, ensuring projects stay on track and on budget, and adjusting if necessary to meet new requirements.
Project management gives you access to lots of different areas of the business.
This is one of my top reasons for loving the job: instead of only ever seeing the workings inside one department, project work is multidisciplinary and cross-functional. Hence you get to know how the rest of the company works.
What’s your favorite part of your work?
“ Talking to people, getting the workaround, and helping clients. “
There’s so much communicating required in a project management role. I really enjoy this part of the job because it gets me out interacting with people.
Plus, it’s important if you want to understand where your stakeholders are coming from.
It’s satisfying to put things right. The process of problem-solving is enjoyable too: the research, analysis, synthesis, and then the power of being able to make an awesome recommendation.
Since you work directly with the clients, was there any time when you went above and beyond for them?
Yes. Most of the time, namely the CCPA Audit. I took complete responsibility for the new data protection and privacy act and ensured that we are compliant.
What are the challenges you face being a Project Manager and how do you go about solving them?
When you’re leading a large team, the major challenges are falling out of sync and communication, but here at Springworks, each team member is self-organized, supports each other, and avoids lagging.
Also, I make sure to help all members catch up with the other members of the team. Therefore, Synchronisation is the key to a successful project.
Walk us through a day in the life of Hari!
- Get up with a morning tea/coffee.
- Check Slack and work emails.
- Get on the Client calls starting at 10.30 am.
- Check my to-dos and Backlogs from a day before.
- Team stand-ups at 1 PM.
- Talk to the development & QA team to make sure things are going fine.
- Work on upcoming projects and map them out.
- No one comes between my Kindle and me during breaks 🙂
- Get on calls with clients from 9 pm to 12 pm.
- Dinner.
- Chill for a while and sleep.
What is the Springworks team like?
Springworks has been able to come up with amazing products that everybody loves, and that wasn’t possible without a great team. I am amazed to see how people are so driven here, hence forms a team of people building a good culture.
I love how Springworks provides its employees with such flexibility of maintaining a work-life balance without hampering team communications and productivity, especially in the times of the Remote framework of working.
I break my day into smaller chunks of 2 hours for each task and take a few breaks in between to chill. This way, I can work more efficiently.
Also, it’s great to see Springworks pampering its employees with WFH Setup Allowance, wifi reimbursements, rewards & recognition to make them have a good remote working experience.
What advice would you give to other Project Managers?
Communication goes both ways. It’s so important to listen to your colleagues, your team, your stakeholders, your sponsor, and anyone else — because through listening, we come to understand better how to communicate the change that is happening.
Think of ways where you can build a feedback loop into the way you communicate, so there are plenty of ways for people to get in touch with you.
In other words, make it easy to communicate as a team!
Also, make sure that your next day is already structured. I block my calendar for the upcoming day beforehand, which makes my day go less complicated.
