Meet ACA Tutors: Anna | project management lvl 1
Anna is our new tutor of the project management level 1 course, which is the next and more specialized course of intro to IT project management. She is an experienced specialist with a finance background.
Without much introduction, let’s get to know her. Enjoy your reading!
Educational and work background
At school, I was an excellent student, and it was tough for me to choose one direction. I had many preferences and potential career options, such as becoming a pianist, a psychologist, an interior designer, a dentist, etc. But after long and heavy discussions with my family, studying Management and Finance became my top priority. I entered the French University in Armenia, where I got my Bachelor’s degree and later did an MBA there.
During my undergraduate years, I started working. At 16, I landed my first internship at the World Bank; then, I had internships at the Central Bank of Armenia and PWC. After graduation, I became an auditor at Deloitte. And only in 2015, I was introduced to project management.
Throughout these five years, I have worked in global organizations with cross-functional teams and successfully completed over 15 software development projects, lasting from 3 months to 1,5 years.
I gained my main expertise in the Fintech industry. However, I have worked in numerous domains using Agile frameworks as well as Waterfall methodology.
To sum up, I have started my career quite early in finance, then switched to Information Technologies, and finally mixed the beauty of both in FinTech.
Hence, despite my young age, I have around 7 years of experience in Finance and IT combined.
What was your first job, and how did you get your first job as a project manager?
After completion of my undergraduate studies, I took a gap year to obtain experience and develop a better understanding of what I want to do in the future. During that time I landed my first full-time job as an Auditor at Deloitte.
Although that was a promising and prestigious career, I didn’t find myself comfortable in audit and felt that it was not a good match for my personality. Thus, I left the company and decided to enter the American University of Armenia to get an MBA degree. Meanwhile, life had different plans for me.
Since my program was during the daytime, I had to compromise AUA with UFAR to study in the evening program. And the reason behind that switch was a phone call, during which I was offered a new job as a Project Manager.
The call was from an HR specialist, who had hired me before, for one of my previous internships. She contacted me to see if I would like to switch careers and assured me that I would make a good project manager. At that time, I had no experience in IT and had a very broad understanding of project management.
However, I felt like that was a “once in a lifetime” opportunity for me, and I could not miss it. Thus, I accepted the offer, and after doing my research on project management and later passing the interviews, I started my career as a Project Manager.
You are about to start your first course of project management as a tutor. What motivates you to start tutoring, and what are you most excited about?
Coming from a family of pedagogues of multiple generations, it has always been on my mind to start a teaching career myself. From early childhood, I was taught to value the role of education and appreciate the idea of passing knowledge to the new generations.
Although this will be my first time teaching project management, it’s not my first experience as a tutor. I have been successfully coaching students to pass exams like TOEFL and IELTS for English proficiency and TCF and DELF for French proficiency when I was still a graduate student.
For me, the most exciting part about teaching is the ability to pass on the knowledge that I have gained through various experiences, open new perspectives for my students, inspire them to be great at what they do, and to love their job as much as I love mine. I believe the biggest prize for an educator is the gratitude and success of their students. It’s the acknowledgment that you make a change and improve the lives of others. And that is the biggest motivation for me.
What particular skills and knowledge helped you to get your first job as a project manager?
As you may have already read, it has never been my intention to start this career. I got an offer to become a project manager from the same person who had hired me before for a different role. Later, when I asked her why she decided to contact me and consider me for this position, I was told that the qualities that she noticed in me, made her think I would make a good project manager. And I am forever grateful for that opportunity, which led me to the career of my dreams.
The qualities that made me a good candidate in the eyes of a recruiter and an employer were persistence, initiative, strong organization and communication skills, ability to adapt and learn quickly, motivation to face new challenges, and the potential to solve them. All these soft skills are, of course, important for any professional, but especially essential for a project manager.
What would you like to know when doing your first steps as a project manager?
When I got my first job as a project manager, most of all, I lacked the understanding of what was expected of me. Yes, I knew what my main job requirements were, but I didn’t know what intermediary steps I had to undertake to meet those requirements. I was a self-starter who was failing and learning from mistakes.
To my strong belief, the most important factor for success is having a clear view of what you do. After all, it’s much easier to win when you know the game.
But even when you know the game, you’ll face unexpected situations as a project manager, and you’ll not be able to google ready-made solutions for them. And that’s when you’ll grow as a professional.
That is what I like the most about project management. No project is like the previous one, and no day is like the previous one. You’ll be challenged each and every day on so many levels. But don’t worry, one day you’ll get comfortable with it, and those challenges will excite you the way they excite me.
What key skills does it take to be an exceptional product manager?
At my last workplace, I was promoted from Project Manager to Product Manager. But I didn’t even ask for it :) I was just doing my best to help a startup succeed on an international market. Since they had a small business team, my engagement was not limited to software development only, but I was also actively involved in solving marketing, Finance, and business issues in general.
I am still a work in progress as a product manager, so I don’t feel I can comment on being an exceptional product manager. However, from my own experience, I can tell that taking the initiative, keeping a strong eye on market trends, analyzing feedback, and making data-driven decisions may bring beneficial results for product managers.
What can newly applying students expect from the upcoming Project Management LVL 1 course?
The goal of this course is to make my students comfortable in managing projects and feel more confident in their workplace, get a promotion, or find a better job as a Project Manager.
When designing the program, I kept in my the following points:
- Showing a personalized approach to each and every student
- Discussing case studies based on students’ field of work and the issues they face
- Preparing students for real-life situations that are not described in textbooks
- Teaching how to fail then get up and succeed
- Sharing practical tips and tricks, I learned during my experience
- Using Jira and other tools to solve PM issues
- Transferring technical knowledge needed to manage software development projects
I am extremely motivated and excited to start this program. I hope to see you during my first class at ACA!
To join Anna’s class: IT Project Management level 1, follow the link:
