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  • #1 in Banking & financial services
  • 1,000 - 50,000 employees

Cameron Howard

Cameron Howard studied Bachelor of Commerce (Majoring in Management)/Bachelor of Biomedical Science at Monash University, Melbourne in 2020 and is now a Graduate in Project Delivery at NAB

7:00am Wakeup

I try to give myself about an hour before work each day to relax, exercise and eat breakfast. The activity varies day on day and might be as simple as a walk, a swim at the local pool or a gym session – I find that because I work almost exclusively from home that it is great to leave the house first thing and break the cycle of being inside all day.

8am – Coffee

Coffee and a solid breakfast is a great way to start the day. I use this time to logon to my computer and check my emails and plan what the day ahead might entail. I schedule lunch into my calendar along with any other focus time that I may need to complete work tasks.

8:30 – 9:00am – Daily Stand-Up

Each day at 8:30am our direct team of five people has a meeting to start the day where we review priority work, plan for the day ahead and catch up on what is happening in everyone’s lives. In a team where we all work remotely this time is extremely beneficial to ensuring that everyone stays accountable to what they have been tasked with and also serves a  great opportunity for us to stay up to date on the personal lives of each team member.

9:00 am – Governance Meeting

Today I have a meeting with the governing team who looks after the funding allocation for our program as we request to launch a new project. We must outline to the Leadership Team why this project must occur (to mitigate risk) and have some high-level conversations about how we might execute the project. This will allow us to prepare for the solution phase which comes after we have this project endorsed and approved for preliminary funding.

11:00 am – Learning and Development Session

The Early Careers Team and the Gradate Committee put together ad-hoc sessions that serve as foundational skills for us Graduates in our first year. These sessions cover a range of topics that aim to build fundamental working skills across the bank and also allow us to network with senior leaders at NAB and to push us towards areas of the bank in which we may want to build our career. Today’s session is on Data Ethics – a very important issue of privacy and security for our customers at NAB.

12:00 pm – Process Planning

My People Leader (Manager) has tasked me recently with redesigning our project handover process. With in-flight projects it is extremely important that an incoming Project Manager be aware of the team, process, stage of execution and be provided with key documents that will allow a seamless transition. I have booked a meeting with one of our new starters to uncover how his recently acquired project is tracking and what he found useful about my new handover process. I will use his feedback to update the process as required and make changes where necessary and report positive feedback to my People Leader.

1:00 pm – Lunch

As previously mentioned, I find it extremely important to block some me time into the calendar each day to eat and relax for a moment. My day is very meeting heavy and zoom fatigue is absolutely a thing! Scheduling an hour in my work day for lunch allows me a defined break or in some case a buffer to reschedule important meetings or execute priority work during peak periods.

2:00 pm – Project Work

I leave most of my afternoon to work through the projects that I am currently managing. I currently manage the solutioning phase of three projects across different technological domains of the bank. One of my projects deals with the upgrade of a risk management software that is used heavily in the home loan platform of our digital bank (UBank), another is a major migration of on premises data to cloud services and another is mandated by the federal government and is a simplification of current data processing to increase the ease of reporting to regulatory bodies that govern the bank. There are many stakeholders involved in each of these projects and it is my role to liaise with all parties to ensure that budgets are adhered to, timelines are met and that the scope of each project is unanimously endorsed.

Ad-hoc Meetings

Today has been relatively meeting free during the afternoon which has allowed me time to work on completing some financial forecasts for the projects I am working on, send some emails to chase various approvals and plan for what the weeks ahead will look like in each of my projects. Given the nature of our work in Project Management it is very common though that I will take a call or have a meeting slotted in at the last minute to engage in conversation about a risk to the project or an issue that may have arisen that might undermine our timely delivery. Part of the beauty of Project Management is the agile nature of the work. Things are rapidly evolving and changing, and you must always be on guard for a problem that may arise. A day in my working life never goes according to plan and you must be ready to respond in line with this!

5:30 pm – Log-off

I often get away from my computer by 5pm but I almost always make sure to log-off by this time unless something really pressing comes up! It is important when you work from home to separate home and work time. Once I log off I make sure to not check work emails or answer teams messages (even though I have access to these on my phone)

7:00 pm – Dinner

Most nights I try to have an after-work activity. Even if it is as simple as going to Coles to do my shopping or play netball in my mixed team or even going out for dinner and a drink with some friends, getting out of the house after being home for most of the day is my way of separating from work. It is very easy to get stuck at your desk and keeping working through tasks.

9:00pm Relax

A bit of Netflix with the housemates and some snacks is a perfect way to end the day. We have the opportunity to share our experiences from the day and hang-out.

11:00 pm – Sleep

I normally try and sleep by about this time so I can get my 8 hours in before my 7am alarm tomorrow. Depending on what show we’re bingeing at the moment this is not always possible!