Becoming a Project Manager

Hi! My name is Kristin Ardese and I am a professional Graphic Designer and Marketing Strategist. I hope that by sharing some of my expertise, I can help offer valuable insights and build an engaging community.

I never thought that I would be involved in creating anything under the term “Project Management.”  To be honest, the name of this assignment was a bit daunting to me at first. How could I, a 20-year-old college student, mimic the position of a Project Manager? Well, this week, I found a way to do it. Thankfully, I was provided with fantastic inspiration and project management applications to help me along the way. After experimenting with the three applications Asana, Trello, and Podio, I decided to settle on using Trello as my guide.

Getting Started

When first setting up, my mind was racing with different ways to organize up my project. In this case my project was my Foundations Graduate Studies course. The goal was to find a way to include my courses in the future, while also maintaining a sense of organization. I certainly did not want multiple cards for one course, as I found that crowding stressful to look at.

Modules and Checklists

I decided to create 1 card per course that is separated into Modules. When you click into a module, you will first see a description overview of what is being accomplished in the module. Then, you will find a checklist of the overall assignments. These include dates that are benchmarks of when an assignment should be completed for the week. To get more specific and detailed, I followed this with each assignment having their own personal sub-checklist.  These sub-checklists include smaller benchmarks that allow someone following the course to see exactly what needs to be done for each assignment.

Final Comments

When looking at my first Project Management Course, I am quite proud of the organization and process that I chose to design. The use of checklists allows one to easily follow and understand what needs to be done to complete each module. I also enjoy the simplicity of the card design, as it creates a condensed and organized process that I find, decreases confusion and stress.