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The past 3.5 weeks have been full of highs and lows.

Highs:

• Seeing old teammates in Dublin and Hyderabad
• Meeting new teammates in Dublin, Hyderabad, and Gurgaon
• Wrapping things up with an old project
• Getting excited about a new project
• Traveling to Goa, Howth, Bray & Greystones
• Experiencing spectacular weather in Dublin.
• Rock-climbing in Gurgaon with the team
• Walking to work in Hyderabad and Dublin.
• Getting driven to work in Gurgaon.

Lows:

• Multiple video conferences that kept me in the office until 10pm-midnight
• More meetings than I’ve ever had, with little downtime to process
• Losing my cell phone
• My Macbook Pro breaking
• Not being able to train for my Tour de Cure ride
• Missing home

Thankfully, there are more highs than lows. If you asked me a month ago what I’d be doing in May, I imagined work as usual and weekend bike rides. To then be sent away within a week’s notice would have sounded crazy. But, I like that I’m still relatively young with no idea what I want to be doing in 5 years. I know that discomforts a lot of people, including my parents, but I like having the flexibility to take advantage of opportunities. I’d rather be somewhere unfamiliar than familiar. I’d rather make a mistake than be too cautious to take risks. It’s okay for me to pick up and work out of another country. It’s okay for me to work long hours. I’m not married nor do I have children. I’m young.

One thing about a temporary trip versus working abroad. When working abroad, immersing yourself with the team is important, but I still found myself having to take on almost two roles – working with the folks in the office but also keeping the status quo with everyone in my home office. This meant an increased amount of email and meetings.

The past 3.5 weeks have been a great opportunity to learn more about myself because I’ve been put in a new environment. I like to think I know a lot about myself, but the characteristics I’ve found myself at odds with is balancing motivation and drive with scope and clarity. When I was an RA at Stanford, I went through training and we took a “what kind of leader are you?” survey. I came back as a ‘driver.’ And that’s pretty true for me – I have no qualms prodding people to do their work, doing the gruntwork to move something along, and spending extra hours to get something where I want it to be. But, and this has been feedback for me on a few occasions, I’ve found that I need to think of the long-term effects and impacts of what I’m doing. I need to step-back and look at something from a high-level perspective. I didn’t do that nearly enough with my old project and am making that a focus point with my new role.

I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t have much in the world of formal training when it comes to project management, but I can offer these tips that I’ve picked up the past few weeks:

• Always have a regularly updated design document ready to go. This can be utilized at any moment to outline your vision of the project to any new stakeholder or interested party.
• Perform cost/benefit analysis for each change. You can have the greatest idea in the world, but people will always be skeptical unless you show a tangible or estimated gain.
• Have an agenda for your meetings. I’ve written about this before.
• Don’t underestimate the important of networking. I can’t tell you how many times going home and resting would have been nice. But, spending time with your team when you have the opportunity is a great way to build relationships that make working with them much easier. In fact, a new teammate was a roommate of mine when I was in Hyderabad last November. Looking back, I wished I established that relationship even more when I was there.
• Don’t silo communication. People you least expect may want to know what you’re up to. Put that in a place where everyone knows where they can access it.
• Think broadly. Don’t get caught in the day-to-day everyday. Having a vision clearly articulated (see first tip) convinces more people that you’ve got your stuff together and that the day-to-day will eventually lead to place everyone agrees upon.

You know, these are all things that I’ve probably heard before and they’re pretty obvious. So maybe the final tip is to remind yourself to think about these points when you go about your work. I know I could use a refresher every now and then.

But, enough about work. I’m really looking forward to the next few months. A Tour de Cure bike ride, Yosemite Young Lakes, Boston for my sister’s wedding, Sonoma for the 4th of July, and St. Louis for the Baseball All-Star Game!