Kate Cavaleri

Background

About Kate Cavaleri

I have been working in project and program management in technology spaces including IoT and digital transformation for more than a decade, and have found, sadly, that a lot of people think of project management as project plans and Gantt charts. In the technology and digitalization space, I often hear people wonder "Are we replacing human jobs with robots?" The best part of my job is turning that assumption on its head: I am constantly asking my client partners what they want to achieve, or where they want to be. I have yet to meet anyone who responds that their dream is to be copying data from one place to another, to manually compare databases, or to perform ANY task for the time. I strongly believe technology replaces the monotonous parts of our jobs to give us the space to create, to problem solve, and to look into the future. Project and program management, to me, is all about achieving those goals, and therefore it's all about communication. Why are we doing this? What is the goal, how will it affect you when we're done? I fundamentally do not believe in checking tasks off a list without context: if you aren't excited about getting this done because you can see a better future as a result, then we haven't had the right conversations yet. Trust me, though, we will! A couple of years ago I wanted to run a half marathon, and after years of horseback riding and college rugby, my goal was just to finish without injury. I had never run more than 5 miles without stopping, so it was a big goal that required six months of training, and I had an end date that was immovable: the Rock 'n' Roll half marathon in Washington, DC. So, I created an Asana project with my training plan, included a risk register with contingencies like indoor exercises I could swap on rainy days, and milestones with rewards. Am I a little bit obsessed with organization, and I'll be the first to admit that, but when I crossed the finish line of my second half marathon that summer, I knew I had completed that project successfully. That's what it's all about: knowing where we want to go, acknowledging that it's going to be hard, and using technology and organization to make sure we cross those finish lines.