PJ Icasas: “A major shift in perspective is required.”
Tuesday Osoyos interviewed PJ Icasas, Sr. Project Manager, over Yahoo! Messenger in November 2007.
tuesday_osoyos: For the benefit of our readers, can you please describe how you got into Marketing Valet and what your role has been the past few years?
pj_icasas: Well, most people will find this as a surprise but I first applied to MV as a writer. One of my old colleagues in PR, Gigi de Leon, joined Marketing Valet as an editor and invited me to join since they had more openings here. Ted and Marielle gave me an interview, and halfway through they started steering me towards Project Management. I figured, "what the heck," and went for it, so I became the second member of a two-man project management team in MV. Things kind of snowballed from there.
As for my roles these past few years, I’ve been a boatload of things - I’ve been, in no particular order, a PM, a copywriter, a designer, a programmer, acting Production Manager, and now, the Senior Project Manager in charge of both Nokia and Adobe.
tuesday_osoyos: You’ve been on the night shift from the beginning. Were you given a choice then or was it made a requirement, probably cleared with you during your interview?
pj_icasas: Oh, it was definitely a requirement! Since it was just me and Kat Fonacier, we couldn't both be on the same shift, so I had to do night shift. Kat had been at it for three years at the time already, so she needed the reprieve!
tuesday_osoyos: How long did it take you to adjust, to both the workload and schedule?
pj_icasas: After the 6th month or so, I got into the routine and my body clock was able to adjust. As for the workload, I had to adjust immediately; it was sort of a sink-or-swim situation. I came from PR, anyway, so I'm used to the long hours.
tuesday_osoyos: So how has it been being an Account Head for two of our most demanding clients? Any major adjustment from when you were Sr. PM handling them directly?
pj_icasas: Definitely, a major shift in perspective is required. Instead of handling day-to-day requests and projects, the focus needs to move to higher-level stuff like staff management and training, budgets, etc.
The biggest advantage that I have in this area is that I can view these management issues from a PM perspective, and know exactly what kind of support my team needs, since I've been there before.
I have to trust my PMs to make sure they're getting the service they need, and to make sure that the clients can actually pay for the stuff they request. So far though, it's been working out great!
tuesday_osoyos: What's it like now to work for Ted Fong? What are his expectations?
pj_icasas: Naturally, being in a position of more responsibility, he's far more critical of my performance than when I was a mere PM.
But Ted also understands that management is a new thing for me, and is always ready with feedback and support.
tuesday_osoyos: Hmm... you say that as if being a "mere" PM has ever been easy, hehehe
pj_icasas: Oh, of course not; it's never easy! I'm speaking in terms of responsibility. As a PM your focus is your client, and his projects. But as a manager, you have to make sure that all PMs are doing a proper job and that the entire account is in good shape.
tuesday_osoyos: What are your plans to grow the accounts you're handling?
pj_icasas: I'm a firm believer in the power of personal referral and word of mouth, and the most effective way to encourage people to spread our reputation is to do a colossal job with our existing clients, and use them as a jump-off point to more clients and bigger projects.