I'm Ellen and I'm a director of technical program management. That means I lead a team of
program managers at Google. I love project management because I really like this
idea that you can do more together as a team with a group of people than
you could do alone. By bringing in a bunch of people together and getting organized, getting aligned
around a common goal, We can do some pretty
amazing things. I think a successful project
manager is somebody who really knows how to pull
together a group of people. To me, there's really two
parts of project management. One is this laser-like focus
on executing on this goal, but then the other
part is the people. So a successful project
manager can do both. When I first started
managing project managers, it was really about everyone
works on their own project. How do I just guide them, give them guidance and help
them with their projects. Over the years, I've shifted to mentoring on
project management, to mentoring project managers. What I mean by that
is, it's different. I'm no longer saying, "Here's what you should
do on your project." I'm really trying to
help them think about how to think about
their projects. One of the things that I think about a lot as I'm building a project management
team is having a really diverse set
of folks with different backgrounds,
different experiences. We're a global company, so we're really trying
to make sure we are a global team as well. When I talk about diversity
of background and experience, it really is about working
in different types of environments with
different types of teams. When I chat with new project
managers and they say like, "How do I continue to grow
as a project manager?" My answer is, work on
different projects, work on as many
projects as you can, but don't be afraid to
try different areas, different domains, work
with different people. With every project you work on, you're going to really
learn something.