My First Project

 My first real project came when I wasn't a project manager, just a desktop support tech. You see, I worked at BellSouth for several years and was very good at my job. As a reward, I was offered a nice assignment close to where I lived in Vinings, Georgia. It's a suburb north of Atlanta. It's near Cumberland Mall and now is near where the Atlanta Braves currently play. I was in a group with 2 other techs and we did it all, desktop support, network support, etc. If you had an IT issue we solved it. We also had a large secured lab where we'd experiment on machines, make LANS for testing and generally have a lot of fun playing around with IT. It also gave me time to work on my MBA, which BellSouth paid for as part of their training program. 

Soon, the other tech left for another assignment and it was just me and my boss, let's call him Steve. We got along well so there were no issues with just the two of us being there. Our overall boss, let's call him Willis, the one who sent me here, still worked downtown at the BellSouth building. Well, one day, Steve decides he doesn't want to do IT anymore and leaves to start his own construction firm specializing in marble countertops. It didn't surprise me much. You see, I went to his house one day for lunch and he showed me where he was building a 2nd floor to his house as well as a new marble counter. He was quite passionate about it. Well now that just left me as the lone tech. No replacements were coming. That also left me as the manager there but with no pay raise or promotion...yet.

Everything seem to be going fine, I was able to handle everything. However, what I didn't know was that the lease was not renewed and that department had to move downtown within the next 2 months. Apparently Steve knew about this several months ago, but didn't tell anyone, i.e. me since I was the only other person there at the time. So imagine my surprise when Willis asks me how the move is coming and all I could say was, "What'd  you talkin' about Willis?" (yeah not his real name that was intentional). That's when he informed me I had 2 months to get their IT ready to move. They were moving downtown to the main building. I was going back to the building I had left about a year earlier. 

This was an absolute deadline, could not be moved because a new company was moving into the space the following Monday. Our move was scheduled for the Friday before.

While I didn't use a spreadsheet or PM software, I still had to keep track of everything, including moving the server, finding space in server room for a new server, and creating a backup server. Now, I had done moves before but it was with a team of about 4-5 other people. We prepped PCs, wrapped cables so the movers could handle things without them getting tangled, set up the server with the new IP addresses (this was automating IP address was a thing) and made sure everything was ready to go Monday morning. Mondays were simultaneously fun and a bit of mess. We'd cater breakfast for them usually coffee and donuts, and be around to handle every IT issue. The thing was, now it was just me.

There was a move coordinator but she was handling the overall move, not just the IT. Along with what I was doing she was focused on furniture, cubical assignments, telephones, and power to the space. we were moving to.

I had to organize what I had and worked with her. As she put people into cubes, I made sure to coordinate their PC to that space and the IP address. I was able to get a little help. One of the network guys I worked with previously, Marc, would help set up the network while I did the desktops. That was a huge relief and helped make sure I wouldn't be working around the clock all weekend. Fortunate also was the group was down to about 20 people now, probably the main reason the lease didn't get renewed, so I didn't have a lot of desktops to work on. Packing them up was the easy part.

That Saturday and Sunday I spent my time unpacking and hooking up PCs and printers, changing IP address, getting them online, once Marc had set up the servers, and connecting them back to their server files. 

As I said, while I didn't use PM software, I did use a physical checklist. Yes, sheets of paper. I created a sheet for each person which had their name, cube assignment, new telephone number, IP address, and a generic login password that I had set to change as soon as they logged in. I put these sheets on each computer as I finished.

Monday morning rolled around and I got into the office early. I was 3 donuts and 2 cups of coffee in when the first person arrived. They logged in without a hitch! Soon everyone was coming in, logging in and getting to work. 

A move that usually takes 4-6 months to coordinate, I had done in 2 and there were no major glitches. The only thing was one person didn't have access to a folder she needed, but that was easily fixed. This impressed the boss of the group I was with and Willis. A few days later, he called me into his cube and promoted me to a C level manager, complete with the raise to go with it. I was happy, my wife and I celebrated the news and everything was great. I even got a couple of tech who reported to me.

That was my first real taste of being a project manager. While I didn't have anyone really working for me, bringing Marc to help with the server was also my first glimpse into a matrixed environment. Yes, it was only 1 person but I'm going to count it. It also gave me insight into working with other project managers. It was small relative to what I do now but still, considering I had zero experience before, it was meaningful.

Unfortunately, it wouldn't last. Six months later the entire IT department got outsourced to EDS and they had their own mangers. So while I went back to being a tech, I was still C level and had my current salary. There were opportunities, but that's for another blog.

Thanks for reading!