Madeline Pavlides

When it was time to leave high school, I had no idea what I wanted to do next. All I knew was that I wanted to give Uni a go and that my interests, compared to my other friends, were different… So, I decided to study Electrical Engineering. I had no idea that the path I choose would give me all these amazing opportunities and experiences in various fields, roles, and parts of the world.

Ten years ago, I moved from Sweden to Australia and now call the Gold Coast home. It was a scary decision since I moved without having a job to come to, but it didn’t take me long to find one and I have been with Energy Queensland in different positions ever since.

My current role as a Project Manager at Yurika is completely different from where I started many, many moons ago as a graduate engineer within Ericsson.

UNIQ You is a fantastic opportunity for me to give back and show that choosing a path into a STEM career will give you so much more than the university program you chose. Your degree is only the foundation and the start of your own journey.

The project manager is the key person for driving a project from start to finish, managing stakeholder/customer engagement and ensuring that the project stays within budget and is completed on time. Project managers handle the “project life cycle”.

This includes the following stages:

1. Initiating: Before the project commences, the project manager defines the main objectives, purpose, and scope, shared expectations, and determines how to move the project forward.
2. Planning: Project managers work with stakeholders to create a project plan. Scope, cost, timelines, and risk are all defined. This is not set in stone; it is an evolving plan that doesn’t end until the project does.
3. Executing: This is the phase where the team executes the work defined in the project plan.
4. Monitoring: This phase begins at the beginning of the project and continues until closing. During this phase, a project manager monitors project progress and the budget, as well as making sure key milestones are reached, and compares performance against the plan.
5. Closing: Reviewing work that is completed and formally signing off on the project.