Although it’s been very unfortunate to not be be able to work in office and connect with my coworkers more, it’s been a great opportunity for me to practice proactively reaching out and taking more effort to build these relationships myself. 

• The many coffee chats I’ve had with the team (especially the people I don’t directly work with) gave me lots of insight on what kind of company Pound & Grain was and how much passion its employees had for the work that they do. 
• I had a new chat this week with a super talented strategist, we talked about
  • working on projects solo vs. as a team
  • The versatility of work a strategist does at P&G 

Practicum through a covid lens–despite the restrictions, Pound & Grain made the best out of the situation:

• Daily quizzes
  • These have been a super great way to start the day, and for me not to feel siloed in my own room doing my own work. It’s super lovely to see everybody’s faces in the morning and compete for number 1 in harry potter knowledge (which I am ashamed to admit I did not get a high score in despite having read the series three times)
• Trivia night
  • Loved ending the work week with this happy hour event
    • This was early on in my practicum as well, so I was able to connect with my team members through our drive to win

 Working during covid also has many benefits that I’ve grown so accustomed to:

• Getting to run downstairs whenever to take advantage of a lil petting time with my son David

• Getting to make the food I like (for cheap!)

• Getting to use up my break time whenever I want

• Blasting music as I work

Speaking of music, here are my top 3 #wfh songs I’ve been enjoying throughout this practicum:

Thank you for reading!! See you next week.

It’s been very nice to delve and focus on one brief this week, which may sound like I was doing one thing, but I got to do a range of deliverables to promote a fundraiser: 

Revising a Website:

• Adding in sponsors and organizing them by tiers
• Making my own jira ticket (a bug tracking and agile project management service) for the first time:
  • Reviewing and providing feedback for the developers’ work to ensure it resembled the revised prototype

Outreach:

• Branded email newsletters made special for high profile donors

Sponsorship Invite: 

• Another branded e-vite

Sponsorship Package:

• Designing the sticker for a box of goodies 

 Mobile:

• Creating a screen for the fundraiser site

The experience:

• Assisting with refining the user flow, and how that impacts development and design

I was lucky to have been signed on to this project in its beginning and see it develop to now: sitting in for all the meetings and getting to see the campaign site design at all its stages. 

It was extremely insightful to meet with the development team in discussing limitations and clever work-arounds to these limitations (like solving puzzles!). I was also happy to have been able to join that discussion in finding the best solution. 

Some stuff to study up on:

• Levels of WCAG Compliance
  • I was only aware of meeting colour contrast requirements, definitely need to apply these standards to my senior retirement app portfolio project

Other projects I worked on:

• Revising logos to client feedback and re-exporting them 
• Helping out with wireframing for a portal of a site
  • Lots of organizational hierarchy involved which I’m syked for!

Thank you for reading on week 6! See you next week for my final blog post

5 weeks at P&G has been jam-packed with new experiences and so many opportunities for personal growth. I’ve spent a good amount of time getting to know a beyond wonderful team and have thoroughly enjoyed forming deeper connections with the people I’ve teamed up with. My coworkers have been so fun to talk to, and it’s very clear to me that they’re all passionate about what they do at P&G.  

From coffee chats to team meetings, here are some top takeaways and morsels of wisdom I’ve garnered from the mighty team at P&G:

• Take advantage of all opportunities, put yourself out there 
• Keep reaching out to people!! In a busy agency where everybody has their hands full, it’s on you to get out there and make yourself useful. Make your presence and skillset known so that people can keep you in mind when they need help!!
  • This has been especially challenging because of covid, so it’s been a great exercise for me to be more sociable and to take initiative.
• Everybody was once at the intern stage, as long you’re working hard to continuously improve, don’t beat yourself up for not being at your coworkers’ standard.
• There’s always more to learn and improve on, the education don’t stop when you’re out of school!! 
• Once you stop learning in your job, it may be time to move on to something else
• Seek help from other people, you’re in a team!!! 
  • And then get to a level where you can return the favour 

Initially struggling in multitasking and better communication, here are some things I’ve done to improve based on everybody’s advice (still improving!):

• It’s better to underpromise and overdeliver on deliverable timelines, rather than the opposite
• Communicate with project managers early on regarding when I can get the task done
  • Immediately look over the deliverable brief to gauge how long it would take and to reach out ASAP if there are any questions
  • It’s better to over communicate than say nothin’!
•  If I don’t think I can take on a task, clearly explain the reason (What I’m currently working on, etc.)
  • DON’T JUST BLINDLY SAY YES
• Prioritize projects by
  • Due date
  • Client -> Internal
    • Sometimes these dates aren’t clearly stated so just reach out to project managers to ask about what to place priority on!
• Refer to my allotted hours to also gauge roughly what my resourcing should look like for the week
  

And that’s my blurb on week 5, see you next week!!!