3 questions to Manon Joguet

Manon Joguet is Project Management Officer (PMO) among France Energies Marines team. We interviewed her as part of our Institute’s 2022 activity report.

What are the different aspects of your job as PMO?
I provide support to project leaders throughout the life cycle of collaborative R&D projects, i.e., from set-up to closure. This involves preparing templates for leading working groups, helping to define budgets, explaining how the Institute works, leading a risk identification workshop, helping to manage deliverables and administrative documents during the project and at the end of the project, scheduling meetings, and working with Juliette Saunier to draw up a table for protecting industrial property. My role is also to understand the difficulties the project leaders face, to identify the points to watch and report this on to the Institute’s management. The latter can then decide on a clear and common course of action with a view to further professionalising project management. I then support the decisions taken so that the teams can easily implement them. The last major aspect of my role is to be the main contact for the French National Research Agency for all matters relating to the twenty or so collaborative projects currently being carried out by the Institute and supported by the France 2030 investment plan.

What was your biggest challenge over the past year?
This involved setting up a company-wide project management tool. This began with identifying and summarising the needs of the Institute’s various components, which were then transcribed into a software interface. Twenty or so project managers then had to be trained in the tool, followed by all the employees of France Energies Marines in the entry of timesheets for cost accounting. The tool we have chosen is complex at first but will become increasingly relevant. It implies a change in practices, but I’ve noticed a real willingness internally. My colleagues are adopting it more and more.

What are the main actions to carry out?
The priority will be to develop training for project managers with a view to improve the professionalism of project management. We have found that this type of training provided by external organisations is often very generic and product oriented. That’s why we decided to create an in-house training module tailored to the specific way in which public-private collaborative R&D works. In concrete terms, in 2023 there will be five sessions timed to our project construction schedule: one three-hour session on project set-up in May, one two-hour session on project closure in June, another two-hour session on project launch in September and two one-day sessions on project monitoring in October and November.

Photo credit: France Energies Marines