Day in the life of
Policy and Process Manager – Brittany Pogue-Mohammed
A work day for me varies between working on huge, cross-functional transformative projects with a big budget and keeping the wheels on the bus by solving process issues, tech issues, training issues, and making improvements to the processes we currently have while noting larger changes we can make to really transform what we do and how we do it.
My typical day
I will say that when you’re in operations, there is no normal and that is one of the biggest draws of working in this field. You are always working on something new and exciting.
Usually, my day is filled with a lot of calls/meetings. My job spans many different groups at a very large organization so I have to spend the time actually interfacing with them. A typical day alternates from working on something in current state to something in future state. We need to ensure we can do business today, so we have to make improvements to our process and systems to allow for that business but at the same time, we need to think about large changes to transform a process or system and work toward that as well. We work on projects with an eye on today and an eye on the future. We can put a bandaid on something but we also need to really think is this the best way to do this?
A normal day is working on large scale, company wide initiatives for the near future as well for about a year out. I will also work on changes about two months out- these are more of bandaids/minor changes to help the day to day go a bit more smoothly. I will also spend time working with individuals- answering user questions or helping them with a solution of some sort. This is because I am an expert in our system and policies so I am usually their starting point when it comes to making any kind of change.
Pros
My job is never the same day to day and there is always something new and exciting to work on. You are always problem solving, working on new and interesting solutions, helping people, thinking through the best way to do things. The higher education industry has been in a state of change for the past few years so our company has undergone massive changes every year for the past 5 or so years. My job is to think about those changes, operationalize and optimize them.
Cons
The cons would be that it is a non-stop job. Improving never stops so it can get a bit tiresome if you are at a large company working on many projects at the same time. Your company can also hamper your ability to really transform depending on budgets, scale, and where they are as an organization. Typically a person in an operations role loves to transform but might not get the ability to do so very often based on the company they work for.
