A Typical Day in the Office for a Chromeye Project Manager

In Chromeye, we are proud to have gathered a power team of amazing digital enthusiasts, who share their creativity every day in order to help brands be successful. We intend to bring that great team closer to you, therefore we invite you to become briefly part of the day of a Project Manager in our office. Here comes the story…

Think of a beautiful, peaceful and sunny day in the spring… blue skies, fluffy white clouds like cotton candy, birds chirping, lilac aroma in the fresh air… Our PM Sofia is on the way to the office enjoying a short walk, thinking of the well-organized and perfectly planned day ahead. She is part of Chromeye’s creative team, built of top-notch designers, experts in developing visual assets for the online active industries. And Sofia is in charge of empowering this design team into creating concepts and working on production requests for clients like Betfair, Paddy Power, 32red, The Times, Tesco Bank, Experian.

Arriving in the office

Once in the office, it is time for the morning dose of coffee (or coke, or tea), for turning on the computer, the mailbox and all other systems. Oops, a few unread emails! When did these arrive? They have to be handled before the nice beverages. There is always time for beverages, right?

There. All sorted. Oh, no! An early message from the Office Manager – one of the designers will not come to work this day. Some hectic re-assigning and rescheduling and few frantic emails later and all is in order again. Sofia is right on schedule, everybody is in the office now, the clients are starting to send their emails, new projects, updates to old projects, their questions…

There is a little problem with the PM’s credentials for the project management system JIRA, but that is quickly resolved after consulting with some colleagues and reading through the instructions on the platform. The PM is logged in now and a happy smile appears on this person’s face when two designers come into the room to say hi and chat about their weekend. Their stories are so vivid and funny. Ah, a JIRA notification pops up on the screen – there are urgent requests for the day. It is such a good luck that Chromeye’s best creative designer is in the room and there is also the fastest production specialist. The PM grabs this opportunity and starts swiftly assigning and explaining the new tasks to the designers. Killjoy – they say and wander off to start on their new urgent projects.

The PM is so proud of Chromeye’s designers, she thinks they are the best! They have a sense of humor, they are creative, they all work very quickly and are experts in creating and producing static and animated designs, banners, GIFs, landing pages, motion graphics, various visuals and 3d objects. But wait, no time to linger on these thoughts, there are 13 new emails in the inbox.

Oh goodness! 3 minutes of small talk while reading new notifications, processing info, assessing the situation, assigning urgent tasks and consulting the colleagues and WHAAAM 13 new emails! The PM is now in a hurry, all these need to be dealt with, the new briefs need to be read, questions have to be sent to the clients, the workload has to be managed, some spreadsheets to be filled in…

Oh, haha, what a funny GIF meme appeared in the PM’s chat screen :D. This designer is the greatest, she is so easygoing and funny and friendly!

The PM is excited, one of the emails is from this client who needs urgently some stuff (and by stuff he means hundreds of html5 banners for yesterday) and the PM loves learning new things and working hectically on difficult projects and solving problems! Oh, and the issue with those two designers that were fighting over whose proposal is to be presented to the client is also resolved – one quick run to the next room, some wise words (long live Obi-One Kenobi!), some smiles and clever approach and – BAM – easy peasy.

Lunchtime

Why is the Office Manager asking whether the PM wants to go with her and the others to have lunch at the nearby restaurant? Chromeye’s Office Manager is a very smart and very capable lady and the PM likes her and admires her positive attitude. The PM needs some safe ground at this moment and is determined to now take a sip of that coffee/coke. Finally, the well deserved morning beverage :)!

Hm, what now, what does this designer mean by ‘I would like to schedule my summer leave and wanted to discuss with you first’? What summer leave, it’s only the beginning of May, how dare he! And why is this coffee/coke cold/warm? It’s 1 pm?! Not possible! And this day is not even a tough one and hasn’t even begun…

Well… OK, let’s eat then, this, after all, is the perfect opportunity to discuss some issues with the General Manager and the colleagues, yep, killjoy or no killjoy – as a friend designer said – to be a PM means to be a Permanent Moaner. Carpe Diem Baby!

Oh, the salad is so tasty and the coke is so bubbly and cold, great decision to come to lunch! After all, a Chromeye’s PM is always fast, catches up in few minutes, learns and thinks quickly and reacts even faster, has a proven track record for being highly responsive, mega multi-tasking and very skilfull in organizing and handling various projects. The PM knows that there will be some catching up to do after the lunch break and is now hurrying back to the office to read the 50 new emails and notifications.

Done! Right on time for the meeting with this new client and then for the conference call with those contractors. What? New 50 emails, but the PM was gone for just an hour! Nevermind, these will be sorted in 15 minutes and then the PM will have enough time to fill in some new spreadsheets and upload/download some assets for the designers’ team…

Erm, a message from home – what’s for dinner tonight… hm, is it possible? Yep, it is almost COP and all ETAs were met!

Are you all still thinking of a tranquil day in the spring? Well, now imagine it is winter, or autumn, or summer… Because this is a typical day for a PM at Chromeye – interesting, full of all kinds of challenges, active, hectic, busy, presenting numerous opportunities for solving problems, for getting creative with people, for taking control over time and tasks.

Yes! 10 minutes to COP and this article is also completed 🙂