Why Project Management Matters for Finance Professionals

Why Project Management Matters for Finance Professionals

When navigating your career as a Finance professional, you will undoubtedly find new skills that will help you become more effective in your role. For many, project management is a necessary skill that improves business performance and helps companies achieve their business objectives. Regardless of your career path, Project Management methods can be applied to any project in every industry. 

Recently, Twilio hosted a virtual event entitled “Think Like a Project Manager: An essential skill for corporate finance professionals.” The event was designed to bring finance experts together to share best practices and outline ways to incorporate the fundamental principles of Project Management in their current roles. 

To kick-off the session, Khozema Shipchandler, Chief Financial Officer at Twilio highlighted his own personal experiences in leveraging the principles of project management to achieve long-term career success. “The most successful finance people in the industry have strong project management skills,” said Shipchandler.

Essential Skills for Project Management 

The event continued with a fireside chat with two panelists JaKela Walker, Senior Finance Director & Controller at DSM North America and Natalia Carvajal, Senior Director of M&A Integration at Microsoft.

The session was moderated by Tom Ford, Senior Director of Financial Systems & Operations at Twilio. During the discussion, the panelists provided invaluable insights on key project management skills they’ve used throughout their careers and how those skills helped them lead successful strategic projects.

Here's some key takeaways from the discussion:

Communication is crucial

Get to know your project stakeholders

• For each stakeholder, take the time to understand the influence, authority, and decision-making power they have. 
• Be clear and agree on the deliverables, timeline, and expectations at the beginning. It’s always better to under-promise and over-deliver. 
• Managing stakeholders can be difficult – if you come across challenges with a stakeholder, first try to dissect what their specific concern or objection is. Once you understand their concerns, it becomes easier to try to directly address the challenges. 

Risk management

• You must identify, evaluate, and prioritize risk throughout the project to help identify threats. 
• Conduct a risk analysis to help measure the probability and impact of the risk.
• Be specific about each risk and how to mitigate them. Don't be afraid to kill a task if necessary, after risk evaluation.  

Make the most out of every meeting

• There are both formal and informal practices and tools to use when conducting meetings. There should be a mix of both to drive optimal success. 
• Campfire meetings or family dinner meetings are an example of an informal practice where everything goes. There is no set agenda, and the team can use this time to discuss topics freely and go deep into specific areas.
• There are also times where you need to be more formal and have a set agenda that clearly states the purpose of the meeting and what will be discussed.
• You may need to send materials before the meeting for review.
• At the end of the meeting, be sure to recap the material – with action items – so everyone is aligned.
• Leveraging an Excel or other spreadsheet as a calendar or sequencing roadmap can be an extremely useful tool to keep the team on track and organized. 
• Remember to assess if a meeting is even necessary; sometimes we just have meetings for the sake of having them. Be sure that you are using everyone's time wisely and creating space for work to get done. 

Leadership and Influence  

• To influence you must understand an individual’s drivers, motivators, and perspective on the end goal.  
• Align on key goals and action plans. Identify where each team member can contribute specifically. 
• Sometimes you may have to create a unique role for team members. JaKela mentioned she found a role for individuals called the “Challenger”. The Challenger’ssole duty is to poke holes and challenge everything the team comes up with to ensure they are thinking through every option. 

Leveraging project management to be a more effective leader 

• See where you can leverage project management practices in your daily life to help improve productivity. You can use your project management skills with simple tasks such as reviewing your meeting for the week by seeing what is coming next, identifying what you need to prioritize, and outlining potential areas of risk. 
• Lean into perfecting your skills – it can help set you apart from others, and escalate your career progression. Become an expert and be proactive in identifying how to connect the dots on broader business initiatives. 

The event wrapped up with an interactive workshop led by Maria Ramos Technical Trainer at Laserfiche, that allowed attendees to put their learnings into practice. An attendee said "Honestly, this was one of the most amazing educational experiences I've ever had. I learned so much about the company and project management. I realized that I've been doing project management this entire time.”

Thank you to our amazing team who helped organize this event, our guest speakers and attendees for taking the time to learn and grow with us.

Stay connected and learn more about Twilio

We look forward to seeing you at our next event. Check out our After Hours events page to stay up to date.

Get the full experience from our Think Like a Project Manager: An essential skill for corporate finance professional event register here for the recording and resources.

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