My first year on the Grayce Development Programme

Grayce Analyst, Molly Allen, reflects on her first year on the graduate Development Programme.

Since joining Grayce I’ve worn many different hats; IT Engineer, Risk Analyst, Support Analyst and now PMO. I’ve been on four different sites with three different companies, all in under a year.

Whilst wearing each of my hats, I’ve had the opportunity to build my subject matter knowledge and develop skills integral to succeeding in project work. Stakeholder management, communication, multi-tasking and planning. All while gaining first-hand experience on some really interesting and exciting client projects in regulation, IT and risk.

On the bench

Along with working for a number of clients, I’ve also been on ‘the bench’. As a North West-based Analyst, I was able to work alongside the Grayce HQ team. While other consultants may roll their eyes at the word 'bench', at Grayce you’re given a great opportunity to engage with members of the HQ team. You get to learn about different areas of the business and meet new starters coming in for their initial training.

Whilst on the bench, I was able to support Grayce-related projects. This gave me a great opportunity to work with our brilliant Head of People, Gemma Phipps. Together, we built the Grayce Centre of Excellence. An online library that holds over 100 different resources for Analysts to use when on client site.

Working in PMO in pharmaceuticals

I’m currently working in a PMO role with the process workstream on an IT/Infrastructure programme called ‘ERP Simplification’ at a global pharmaceutical organisation. It's safe to say there tends not to be a ‘typical’ day there! Mondays for the Process team consist of lots of meetings, catch ups and preparing for the week ahead. As a PMO, I’m also shared with the Quality & Risk workstream. So, some days I catch up with the Quality and Risk workstream lead, manage our programme RAID log and nudge people who have outstanding risks that need dealing with.

We’re very lucky on site to have a strong community of Analysts. We eat lunch together and we sometimes team up with people on the client’s internal graduate scheme for social events. Once a month we have a Grayce team meeting. This is a great opportunity for us to get to know each other better and share ideas. The Grayce Analysts here are great at supporting each other. So, there is always someone to reach out to if I ever have a question or need some help.

In the afternoon, I’m usually chasing actions, updating plans and getting together with other PMOs where there’s workstream crossovers. Whilst the PMOs on this programme are aligned to different workstreams, we take an Agile approach to supporting and collaborating with one another.

From all this, I can tell you one thing: with Grayce, on client site and on my project - life is never boring!