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  • 📬 Fredo's Letters: I'm Not a Project Manager, I'm an Operator

📬 Fredo's Letters: I'm Not a Project Manager, I'm an Operator

Author

Alfred Adarkwah
September 29, 2023

I’ve never felt more like myself.

While I am feeling a little physically and mentally drained at the moment as a result of partially tearing my peck (not a football player anymore 😔) and dealing with all that life continues to throw at me both professionally and personally, I still feel I am where I need to be. The journey of pursuing balance is never-ending and will always come with challenging times like this.

Right now I am focused on doing, evaluating, failing fast, and gaining more experiences rather than overthinking and questioning myself. As I work on scaling other companies, I’m also in the process of scaling myself. My intention in this process is to be relieved of the things that rob me of my time, focus, and energy.

My focus is and should solely be on the people and activities that increase my wellness. Whether that be my personal peace, physical health, or financial well-being.

I feel especially great about sending out a series of letters consistently this past month. My goal in sharing Fredo’s Lessons is to teach others that when you know how to approach your goals like a project manager, those goals start to feel more attainable. As I continue to share these lessons, I hope you feel equipped with the tools and skills to think through any goal and plan it step by step en route to executing it, not just thinking about it.

I genuinely believe that a Project Manager is just a CEO in training. The pipeline I see developing out of the increased need for Project Managers across various sectors in the job market starts with the PM and subsequently moves through to Director of Operations, Chief Operating Officer, and finally Chief Executive Officer.

Earlier this year I was posed with the question of whether or not my experience in managing individual products and projects could be applied to a larger scope. It was this question that made me realize something.

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I’m not a project manager anymore, I’m an operational architect.

In any organization, all work can be broken down into two categories:

Operations or Projects.

If you have been reading Fredo’s Lessons, you already know that projects are defined as unique, temporary endeavors with a specific beginning and end. Projects are initiated by organizations for a variety of reasons but always to address a specific need.

Operations on the other hand are an organization's on-going, repetitive activities that maximize efficiency and effectiveness. You can think of projects as smaller elements that address needs within the larger never-ending project of operations.

In 2020, as the third hire within Summit One Vanderbilt’s sales and marketing team, I was responsible for overseeing the development of their consumer-oriented digital products and user experience. The centralized piece of the business was its ticketing system which encompassed how customers would buy their tickets, ticket sales revenue, and daily management of customers that visited the attraction.

Here, my role as Product Manager was simply one piece in the much larger goal of setting up the infrastructure for the operations of Summit One Vanderbilt for years to come.

Though I was working on a specific product, I was aligning with and needing to better understand each of the organization’s departments including sales, marketing, finance, and guest experience. All projects require us to communicate across various departments and stakeholders to ensure all impacted areas of the process are accounted for, but this was the beginning of a new understanding for me.

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Operations is the common denominator through which all aspects of the business must run through.

It is the invisible process running behind the scenes at all times to ensure maximum efficiency and effectiveness of the organization’s activities. Ultimately, all projects are simply a means to this end of smooth operating across all departments simultaneously. Despite often being overlooked for the critical role it plays, operations affects every single facet of how an organization functions and its overall success.

The work I find myself gravitating to at this stage in my career has shifted from the management of individual projects for clients to the management of overall operations for businesses.

While I will to continue to champion the skills and concepts of project management, I will continually remind you that these are just the basic building blocks to a much bigger vision. All organizations benefit greatly from the work of quality project managers, but without the quality execution of the incessant and invisible process of operations existing in the background, these organizations will fall short of their potential.

The gift I have to give is my ability to evaluate an organization’s current structure and identify their areas of inefficiencies. From there, I work with them to develop a plan to address those things and track the impact of the intervention over time.

These skills been developed over time managing countless projects. So for those of you following me on this journey and who are tapped into Fredo’s Lessons, please remember that I am not just sharing bite-sized lessons on how to be a project manager, I am teaching you how to be an operator, and one day a CEO.

The blueprint for Fredo’s House is only just now being laid out, and I cannot wait to show you all what we are building.

Thank you all for reading and supporting me in the ways you do.

With Love,

Fredo