Project: To inspire the next generation

Christina Baker, Project Manager for Yunex Traffic, volunteers as a STEM Ambassador to get primary school children lit up by a career working on the projects of tomorrow.

When I started my career as a project manager, I was sure of a few goals I wanted to achieve. One of those was making a positive impact on others. My interest in giving back to our community sparked from a very casual conversation with a colleague. I had so many innovative ideas for helping others but nowhere to put them, so they suggested I become a STEM ambassador – and that is exactly what I did.

Engaging the young stakeholders

In 2019, I decided I wanted to create and deliver a STEM workshop. Although I had little experience in project management at the time, I worked through it as a project. The first opportunity to kick‑start creating my own workshop was when a colleague’s daughter, who is a primary school teacher in West London, reached out for help to run an interactive STEM session for her class of 20 children in Year 6 and one other group of 20 pupils. Immediately I grabbed that opportunity and started the stakeholder engagement. The timeline was one month; I began my research.

First, I needed to understand the scope. The key objective here was to ensure it was interactive enough to keep the students engaged but also spark their interest in STEM subjects for future careers. It was a challenge to find the right balance while researching, as I had little understanding of how advanced a Year 6 pupil’s knowledge is. But I stuck to it and learnt about the subjects and what would be applicable to them. Eventually, the final scope of works was to gather the necessary equipment, learn how to build an electrical circuit and how to teach children to build them, prepare presentations, deliver fun experiments (I chose three different ones) and finally deliver the full‑day workshop to two classes.

Moving from creative to linear thinking

Once my scope was clear, I was able to establish the requirements. This was a real learning experience for me. I love to jump between ideas and kick‑start things, so I really had to discipline myself to focus on one thing at a time to deliver my workshop. I began by writing up the presentation and prompt notes. This was very time‑consuming to do alone, so I made the executive decision to ask for help. Sometimes I strive to do everything on my own, but by being vulnerable and asking for help, the results usually prove to be better.

I asked around but not many people were interested, and this became a blocker. Until I met Cameron. Cameron was a graduate engineer, the exact person I was looking for. Someone to help me with the technical aspects of the workshop planning and execution. Quickly, we came up with a more strategic way of delivering – instead of focusing on presentations, we made the slides interactive by teaching pupils each STEM topic through games and fun activities.

Now that we had a plan of action, we started our implementation. Cameron and I gathered our equipment to start trialling the activities; we also presented them to our managers for feedback. As we used some of our working hours on this, we had to ensure stakeholder engagement was done in the workplace. By involving our line managers, our goal was to give them a sense of involvement and receive governance support. It definitely worked, as they were both impressed with our initiatives and also let us have a bit of extra time out of our workdays.

The big day

Finally, it was event day. I felt well prepared and excited to put my hard work into action. Receiving feedback from children is much easier than from adults – they will either show it through their expressions or simply tell you when they are bored. This made it much easier to manage activities based on what was and wasn’t working.

My biggest highlight of the day came when we demonstrated how pressure works by blowing up balloons and releasing them. We all released our balloons at the same time and the kids laughed as the balloons flew around the room in all directions. There was so much joy in that specific moment, I will remember it forever

Future project managers

As well as promoting STEM careers, I wanted to highlight the importance of project management and how they could potentially become project professionals. I explained project management in simplistic terms through the analogy of building a house. I gave each of the students a whiteboard and pen to draw a house. We went through each part of the house step by step, which made them realise how many things need to be considered, e.g. how the foundation of the house needs to be laid, which requires a concrete supplier, then we need bricklayers to start the walls, window suppliers, electrical workers, etc. This worked well, as they managed to wrap their heads around the basics of project management.

The benefits of giving back

As we wrapped up, a few kids stopped to ask me if I would come back to do more – one ran up to me with a big hug. This really melted my heart and made me realise how much of an impact I had on them. Most of the time, the focus in promoting STEM or project management careers is on school leavers or university students, but maybe we should be focusing on younger groups. Nurturing the future generations from a young age could help towards the continuous development of the professional world.

The feedback was amazing; I felt that the headteacher was very happy with our workshop, the students showed they enjoyed it, our managers were satisfied with us contributing beyond the job and all stakeholders seemed to be pleased. I learned so much about myself and developed my soft skills.

Without even knowing it at the time, I had just planned and delivered my very first project. Now I am a more experienced project manager, a STEM Ambassador, a volunteer at Dorset Careers Hub, an APM education ambassador and a volunteer at my workplace’s careers events. I rotate through these volunteer roles and pick things up whenever I have a free evening or can use up some of my at‑work volunteer days. I believe my outreach work is a success if I help just one individual find their path to success.

Read about STEM Ambassadors and APM’s work with STEM Learning