Aspeq’s Acting Head of Project Management Office (PMO), Kirsten Lintott, has been with the company for over five years in a series of increasingly busy and rewarding roles.
She joined as a Question Bank Coordinator in the Assessments team, helping develop and maintain high-quality and robust exam questions for Aspeq’s global clients. After that, she moved to Project Leader, then Project Manager, and finally - at the start of this year - a secondment to the Head of PMO.
“As the Head of PMO, my role sits at the interface between Aspeq’s internal teams and our clients. I make sure that projects are ticking along and that expectations on both sides are clear.”
The new role is a great fit for Kirsten, who enjoys helping people through problems and celebrating success.
“Naturally, I love being able to deliver good news to our clients but equally, I want to be there to help solve problems and strategise when challenges arise.”
Kirsten’s secret weapon is her ability to empathise: being able to intuitively understand everyone’s pressures and needs and collaborate on a common goal.
With Aspeq’s clients, Kirsten values openness and is always solution focused.
“When something doesn’t go the way we planned, I like to sit down and think of all of the possible questions and concerns the client might have and come prepared with options. That, paired with a real understanding of our clients’ definition of success, always makes for a constructive conversation.”
The flip side of her role is working with internal development teams to ensure client goals are realised on time and on budget. The team works well together because their relationships are fundamentally built on respect and genuinely liking each other.
“It might sound weird, but when the going gets tough, I like to think that we’re not at work: we’re mates trying to come up with a solution to a common problem together. That usually takes the heat out of the situation and encourages everyone to pitch in with their best efforts.”
In fact, Kirsten says she’s met some of her best friends at Aspeq, which is part of what makes it such a special place to work.
“There’s really, really good people at Aspeq and we work well together right across the company.”
Kirsten also loves the way Aspeq celebrates individuals through initiatives like monthly Values Awards.
“The Values Awards are a chance to nominate your teammates who have done something outstanding or went above and beyond. Each month, we celebrate them with a morning tea and a gift voucher. It’s a really special way to feel like your individual contribution matters.”
One project that Kirsten is working on that will surely get some kudos from her colleagues is creating a system to track Aspeq’s projects from start to finish.
“While we have a robust system in place for tracking and evaluating projects, we’re working to have all that data at our fingertips, so that we can quickly look back on projects from five, 10 years ago to analyse key statistics as well as successes and lessons learned.”
It’s a project that allows Kirsten to apply her technical background: with an undergraduate in computer science and biology, Kirsten is a capable coder who builds automated processes to power her obsession with planning and organisation.
“While it’s great to be able to flex my technical muscle through work, I’ve definitely found my fit with project management.”
Kirsten’s methodological approach to work seeps into her personal life, too. For the past few years, she’s been building an at-home library.
“I love to read and I collect a lot of books. At 500 books, I’m halfway through building a library of my own, which requires 1000 physical books.”
And in Kirsten’s library, you can be sure the books will be well-organised.
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