Personal Narrative 5: Management

Management skills. Foreign Service Officers are often required to manage projects, demonstrating the ability to plan and organize, set priorities, employ a systematic approach, and allocate time and resources efficiently. Describe a project you managed (or helped to manage), and how you sought to achieve the project's goals. Include the following elements in your response: the project, and the steps you took to manage this project. What was the result?

In 2013 I was assigned responsibility for relocating the office buildings for the battalion headquarters and three subordinate company headquarters. My staff of four used the Project Management Professional methodology.

First, we engaged both installation and subordinate unit stakeholders by communicating the desired end-state face-to-face and listening to everyone's concerns.

Second, we began planning. We did a walkthrough of the new site, then developed a draft room allocation. We solicited feedback from everyone involved and went through several rounds of revisions. Once finalized, we used backwards planning to establish the movement timeline.

Once execution began, we monitored progress at the different locations, and sent out a progress report of each day's events.

At the end of the move, I walked through each location, collected keys, and then turned over the buildings to the installation management. We received written confirmation of the project deliverables, and recorded both the lessons learned and project documents on the unit's Sharepoint website.

The project was a success. We finished on schedule and within budget; we were one of only a few units on Camp Humphreys who could make such a claim.