From exhausting to exhilarating: Lessons learned from a challenging project
Have you heard the saying, “What happens, happens for good?” It may be a cliche, but I’m sure we’ve all felt the truth behind these words at some point in our lives.
For me, it was when I didn’t land my dream job during on-campus placements. I was devastated at the time, but little did I know, it was the best thing that could have happened to me. Instead, it led me down a path that ultimately brought me here, writing blogs and working with GreyB’s editorial team.
But that’s just my story. One of my colleagues, Megha, recently shared her experience with us, and I just had to pass it along. So come on, let’s jump into her story and see how things worked out for her in the end!
SUB: Sharing is Caring: Learnings from a battery Project
Dr. Megha Agarwal
Senior Research Analyst
Hi Folks,
So we just wrapped up a project for a battery client. If anyone had asked me about the experience from this project just a week back, I would have said – a difficult and exhausting project. While you may wonder why then, let me tell you that there were a couple of things due to which I would have given that statement.
This project was the most demanding, from tight timelines to making presentations twice a week. And the client was no less than a Ph.D. guide who pointed out every minute detail and discussed each slide in such depth that he kept us on our toes all the time. This resulted in long work hours and weekend sittings. Who knew I would write this email to rave and not complain about this project?
Finally, after presenting the outcomes to the client a couple of days back, I would say this was the best project I have done till now in GreyB because I learned many things. I am summarizing key takeaways that I learned.
- Have frequent discussions with the client: As we interacted more with the client, we clarified what type of our searches benefit him and his goal for conducting this study. Written communication, like emails, can never get this level of clarity.
- Know your content well: The client seemed to be taking our viva sometimes. He asked for full forms of abbreviations and asked why we cited this article from a particular publisher. So basically, whatever data we put in the presentation should be exact and clear for the reader. Simple rule – if you don’t understand it while writing, you will not be able to explain it while presenting.
- Checking Minute details and highlighting the details most important to the client: The client is a battery manufacturer, so the battery specifications of a device were of utmost importance to him. Our findings mostly revolved around medical device recycling, re-manufacturing, etc. So we mentioned the findings without adding any more information. We should add layers to our findings. So, in this case, whenever we mentioned any findings related to a device, we would go ahead and check what type of battery this device has and make a small note to display there itself.
- Making PowerPoint presentations and data searches should go simultaneously in the market search type of projects: I made a mistake while planning this project where I thought I should complete the search first and then start making a presentation (this we usually do for patent-based landscapes). But the strategy should be just the opposite in pure market-based projects. If one makes a presentation simultaneously, the understanding of the domain broadens, and one can search better and faster. Are you keeping note of these points? Well, here is the last learning that I would like to mention.
- Learned how to make relevant presentations: With each slide, I questioned myself, “What would the client say looking at this slide? Is this slide presentable to him? Have we put relevant details? Is there any irrelevant information?
I felt each and every finding that the team came across was validated by the client. He explained his thoughts, like why this is useful to him and why this is not as if we were co-creating it (Now I understand why Rajesh talked about the power of this concept. Thanks for introducing it to us). That satisfied and happy tone of the client while appreciating the work on the final day of the presentation changed everything I felt about this project.
Regards
Thanks for reading our stories about how unexpected challenges or setbacks can lead to amazing learnings.
But now we want to hear from you! Have you ever experienced a hard time that was a blessing in disguise? We’d love to hear your stories. Share your experiences with us in the comments below. Let’s continue to inspire each other and find the good in every situation!
