I am currently doing an internship at Great West Life, a global assurance company. It provides insurance plans for both individuals and groups. Being such a large company, it is split into different sections. The one that I happen to be working in is called the Group IT Project Management area. The name is pretty self explanatory – the staff run and manage projects.
In the short time span of 3 weeks, my intern buddy, Matthew Stewart, and I are to interview all of the Project Managers, who know all of the details for their specific project(s). By the end of this internship, with the information we have gathered, we will have updated the Gantt chart. For those of you who are not too familiar with it, it is a great visual tool to display timelines and miniscule details such as start and end dates, and % complete. Since there are many many projects here, at Great West Life, the font on the Gantt chart is probably around a size 8. The chart itself is about 1 and a half metres wide and a wall high.
Today, we had meetings with three PM’s. For the first time, my intern and I had the opportunity to lead our own meetings. To prepare for those meetings, we were to print out Status Reports, which are reviews of the projects. I ended up wasting quite a few dead trees, but we have a special shredding company that comes in and recycles the shreds after. Before the meetings, we ran into issues with the Data Hub, since we did not realize that there was a cord that was supposed to connect to the wall… As you can probably tell, we are not the best with technology.
What I love about being here in the community of Great West Life is that everyone seems like family. For example, one of the staff members that I have the chance to work with brought cheesecake for all of us! One of the best parts about this opportunity, in my opinion, is that I have a Shad intern buddy and that I get to dress as a business professional. The COOLEST part is that I get my own card that has my picture on it. It is basically my key to the entire building. I feel special.
Well, I hope all of you fellow Shads are enjoying your own internships!
Lisa Kim
Great West Life
Winnipeg, MB