S5E109: Enabling early careers in Project Controls with Michelle Banner & Johnny Shepherd

In this week’s pod, we welcomed Michelle Banner and Jonathan Shepherd to talk about enabling early careers in Project Controls. Michelle has more than 20 years of experience in infrastructure, nuclear, utilities, and various other industries. She is recognized as a technical expert in her specialism of Planning and Risk along with having a substantial background in cost and estimating. She is experienced in delivering EPC, R&D and Engineering contracts for infrastructure, utilities and nuclear. She is experienced in all aspects of project delivery from bidding through to commissioning and closeout.

As a recognized expert, Michelle has written and delivered training both internally and for external clients on topics such as Earned Value Management, Schedule Management and Resource Management. She has also had a leading involvement in the development of endpoint assessment material for TASC (assessing Project Controls competence up to degree level). Johnny has developed a passion for project controls since embarking on the apprenticeship programme in 2014.

Jonathan has a particular speciality in project planning and has recently been promoted to a senior role at an early stage of his career. Throughout his career, Johnny has made a conscious effort to develop a rounded skill set within project controls as he has ambitions to take a leading role in the future.

He has recently embarked on the BSc (Hons) Project Controls Professional Degree Apprenticeship, the first of its kind in the UK. In doing so, Johnny aims to develop his critical thinking skills and to begin supporting his projects & programmes in a more strategic way the main topics we discussed on the podcast were as follows:

• There is not enough emphasis on mentorships. Many relationships are informal which can be to the detriment of introverts
• The UK has had success with STEM representatives going into schools to promote Engineering. This should be the case for Project Management / Controls are both skillsets are required on major projects
• The pandemic has made it more difficult for apprentices to check their work with a colleague
• One of the main barriers to entry is a lack of promotion of what Project Controls actually is and that it is a viable career path
• There needs to be regular feedback and 1:1s  with apprentices]
• Apprentice programmes offer a structure whilst giving people enough time to experience different scenarios on a project

Tune in next week when we’re joined by Adam Robinson. For more information, blogs or to support our charities visit www.projectchatterpodcast.com

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