Profile of an IPMA Young Crew member

Carla Ferreira (pictured) is an active member of the IPMA Young Crew; she is a certified project management Training Consultant who has been a practicing project manager for five years. She holds a bachelors degree in computer science and also a post graduate diploma in project management.

Her professional career has seen her work as a software development manager and lead projects that involve  the restructuring of business intelligence platforms  and aligning their outcomes to support the improvement of business transformation in-house project management offices. As a professional she is very interested in leadership and project management training within the context of team building, mentoring and coaching.

Tunde Ajia, an APM member of the Thames Valley Branch had the opportunity of interviewing her and getting her thoughts on being a recent recipient of the prestigious 2011 IPMA Young Project Management Award.

TA: When did you get involved with the IPMA Young Crew? And how have you found it?
Since 2008, I have been a young professional member of APOGEP, which is the Portuguese chapter of the IPMA and have attended three Young Crew global workshops till date; the most recent being that of Brisbane during the 25th IPMA World congress in 2011 in Australia.

I have been involved in the planning of various Young Crew events globally. However, my most recent event was with the Young Crew Italy Chapter in May 2012 where I was invited as a guest speaker to deliver an interactive workshop on leadership techniques and their application in Project Management environments.

I find the IPMA Young Crew to be a concrete platform for engaging with very vibrant and dynamic young professionals around the world who are passionate about project management and creating change.

TA: What are your key strengths?
Having greatly been involved in IT projects that entail complex sets of technological challenges, my key strengths within the project management domain are that of team building and planning control. These play key roles in all phases of major business change projects; as today a lot of IT projects are made up of virtual teams in various locations and being able to successfully deliver projects within different cultural environments is quite a challenge. The discipline involved with aligning and balancing the expectations and deliverables off all sub teams within projects is what needs to be controlled when planning a project to succeed.

TA: Why did you decide to enter for the IPMA Young Project Manager award?
I first heard about the award when I attended the Young Crew workshop a few years ago and decided that I would put myself forward for the award at a point in my career that I felt professionally I had acquired the developmental knowledge, experience and capability required of a fully pledged project manager.

What motivated me the most to apply for the award in 2011 was my desire for knowledge sharing of my own professional experience and also to learn from other project managers who have a lot more experience than I do. I put a lot of passion into everything I do and the application process was a wonderful experience in terms of feedback not only from the judging panel but also feedback and recognition form my managers at work.
To be eventually selected as a finalist of the IPMA award is a great honour because in the global industry today this award serves as a quality stamp and added value to me as a certified professional.  My advice to potential applicants would be to provide an in-depth analysis of critical situations in their projects and clear explanations as to how and why you did choose a determined option or specific approach, with an emphasis of the benefits to your team and added value to your customer.

I highly recommend that potential candidates apply for this award, and also as young project managers we should never fall short of seeking advice whenever we have doubts; have peer reviews with other project managers regarding key decisions we need to make in relation to projects we manage. Constantly acquire new hard skills and always improve on your soft skills.