For helping China’s first domestically developed passenger jet soar

Full Lifecycle Management Team Senior Project Manager at Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, Ltd. | Shanghai, China

One year. That’s the amount of time Yu Jing Yu and his team were given to research and develop a specific part for China’s first domestically developed passenger jet. As the senior project manager of the full lifecycle management team at Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, Ltd., Yu felt the pressure. “The time was tight, the tasks were heavy, and the difficulty was great,” he recalls.

Yet Yu wasn’t worried about whether he and his team would be able to deliver the project on time, within scope, and on budget. He relied on core project management principles and a framework he developed which he calls a "three-level regular meeting" management mechanism, which ensures teams stay aligned, motivated, and on track.

Yu explains the framework involves three distinct types of meetings, each with a specific cadence and purpose.

“The working group of the project team holds a daily meeting to check progress and coordinate and solve problems within the team. This meeting is generally organized by the project manager,” he says.

Then, Yu explains, there is a weekly project team meeting to check the progress of the weekly project plan and address the internal problems of the project, which is generally organized by the senior project manager.

Finally, there is a monthly meeting, which “is held to check the progress of the monthly program plan, coordinate resource scheduling among programs, and make decisions on major matters and issues.” This meeting is typically organized and led by the project’s general manager.

Yu says this structured approach fosters close, constant communication among team members and ensures that any concerns are addressed and resolved before they become larger problems. Regular progress reviews also give team members a sense of accomplishment and motivation to achieve goals.

For Yu, the most rewarding part of the job is fostering communication and celebrating the successes of his team. These moments of progress and teamwork are the markers he uses to gauge a project’s success.