Meet Yves Pintens: Project Manager

“This project is an interesting opportunity for me and allows me to show and further improve my project management skills. Moreover, it also brings some new elements to the table.”

PROJECT MANAGEMENT AS A SERVICE

The project that Yves is currently working on is a great example of project management as a service. Yves is the central point of contact in a team of twenty. 

“The pharmaceutical company is redesigning and restructuring several of its buildings and facilities. Our job is to unburden them on the IT-side and build the necessary network infrastructure for the new situation. Meeting rooms, Wi-Fi, switches: we set it all up and make the necessary changes in the network infrastructure to suit the company’s needs, allowing them to fully focus on their core business.” 

THE GO-TO PERSON

“My most important tasks are streamlining the communication between different stakeholders, composing teams, ensuring that everything is finished on time and within the allocated budget, and end-to-end reporting. An interesting but also pretty challenging role, especially since we’re dealing with a very large and extremely specialized company. You have to find the key stakeholders and need a lot of technical baggage. The project environment is complex and there are a lot of uncertainties that you have to take into account.”

FOCUS ON DELIVERY

The project environment in which Yves currently works is very delivery-oriented. 

“The decisions about the network and IT architecture were already made when we came into the picture. We are there to implement the architecture in the real world. This means that day-to-day problems often have to be solved quickly and on the spot. The actual reality often differs from the planning, and you often don’t have a lot of time to think things through. This way of working was fairly new to me and has definitely sharpened my improvisation and decision-making skills. However, good planning skills are still essential. They create a stronger and better foundation for making ad-hoc decisions.”

THEORY AND PRACTICAL SKILLS

Working for Prosource has allowed Yves to build a strong theoretical knowledge base.

“All the theoretical aspects of project management were covered in great detail. Prosource also gave me the opportunity to get several valuable certificates. But perhaps the most important thing of all: working in a demanding and multi-faceted project environment enabled me to convert my theoretical knowledge into practical tasks and skills. Making the right choices, recognizing which theories work or don’t work in a specific practical setting,  making and giving presentations, and having the responsibility to conduct various projects like a business owner would do. These are all things that I have gradually managed to master thanks to the support of Prosource and the experienced, knowledgeable and fine people in the organization.”

HELP AND KNOWLEDGE ARE AROUND THE CORNER

Yves appreciates the combination of expertise, familiarity and knowledge sharing that sets Prosource apart from many other companies. 

“There’s always someone around who has dealt with the same questions and issues that you face. I also like the presence of an experienced mentor, someone who asks broader questions that transcend your specific project. This is very enriching and allows you to expand your horizon and get a different perspective on certain issues.” 

Yves also values the balance between working on a project for a multinational enterprise and ‘coming home’ to Prosource. 

“Prosource offers a warm, professional and secure working environment. You see your colleagues regularly, whilst the thresholds for asking questions and sharing knowledge are low.”

Does Yves have any clear-cut future aspirations? 

“My biggest ambition is to hone further and perfect my project management and leadership skills. It would also be great to work on a nice variety of projects in the future.”

There’s much more to explore! Discover the inspiring stories of the people of Prosource.

Read about the experience of Gert Leroy, Business Change Management Consultant at Colruyt Group via Prosource and how he introduced Agile in a non-agile context, or the experience of Eline Horemans, Project Management Lead at Horta. 

Or check out Ruben Coomans, Junior Consultant at BEA Sensors or Famke Vancoillie: Junior Project Consultant & learn more about what drives them and their passion for Project Management.