News
Five minutes with: Kathy Halpin
1 November, 2011
Inside DeakinPrime
Kathy Halpin, Senior Project Manager
Kathy Halpin is a Senior Project Manager at DeakinPrime. She has over 10 years’ experience in education and training including adult migrant education, financial services, membership associations and in e-learning. She has worked as an instructional designer and has project managed e-learning products for both national and multinational organisations including CPA Australia, CGU Insurance, ANZIIF and AMES International.
Kathy has managed a number of corporate education and training programs, including a well-received leadership development program for one of Australia’s energy providers. In her current role, Kathy has taken the lead in overseeing the development of training materials and the delivery of full award programs to her current clients.
What are some of the key areas that a Project Manager needs to look after?
Managing the lifecycle of the project involves managing the time, cost and quality of a project and ensuring that the client’s needs and expectations are met which is constantly reviewed. This includes the project objectives, which are reviewed to ensure that they are still relevant during the lifecycle of the project.
When we talk to a lot of DeakinPrime clients, time is an element of a project they are really concerned with. How do you ensure that a project is kept on time for the client?
Initially by creating a master plan in collaboration with all of the key players including the clients, other stakeholders and the members of the project team. Therefore, having a detailed plan well in advance and setting clear expectations and agreeing to milestones and deliverables are essential, which avoids any confusion or lack of clarity early on in the picture. By breaking down the project into manageable phases and stages and then the further you go into each phase, the more detail you can provide. You allocate the right resources at the right time and let everyone in the project involved know how it’s progressing.
During your years at DeakinPrime, you have worked with a great deal of clients in many different industries. Can you share the experience of working with one particular client?
One of our clients is Jemena who is an energy provide, it was one of the first projects I managed when I first started with DeakinPrime. I recall day three of working here when I had to visit the program, which was a residential out at Lancefield. When I was driving on my way there I was looking around at the country environment and I was aware I didn’t know where I was going or who I was going to meet but I did know a little about the program. Once I got there I met the client contact and we hit it off straight away! It was somebody that had worked with us in the past and I knew there was history there and therefore wanted to make sure that they experienced the same excellent service that they had in the past. For me, it was building that rapport by listening to them and their needs and thinking ahead and not just waiting for them to come up with requests or queries. That’s the way it has flourished – by being flexible, listening to the client’s needs and expectations and meeting them, whilst allowing for changes in the program. Always being in communication has been the key to providing a really good program and developing a good partnership with that client.
Many DeakinPrime courses are focused around management and leadership. Who is an inspiring leader for you?
The first person who comes to mind is Quentin Bryce, the first female Governor-General of Australia. She was the first in many aspects of her career, which I find quite inspirational and she is someone who I admire. She was one of the first women to be accepted by the Queensland bar, the first woman to be a faculty member of the Law school where she had studied and the first director of the Queensland Women's Information Service, so she displays the leadership qualities that I admire as a risk taker, innovator and pioneer. I also think she’s a powerful and very intelligent role model for many Australians and is someone who I believe is generally authentic.
