For using her project management position to advance workplace mental health support

PMO Manager at Deloitte | Belfast, Northern Ireland

Lauren Szymura is grateful that she spent the first half of her career learning how to tailor project management fundamentals and frameworks to individual clients. It has been crucial to the work she now does as project management office (PMO) manager for Deloitte in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Lauren’s career journey happened in tandem with her studies, when she landed a “higher-level apprenticeship scheme” at Deloitte within their PMO practice while also enrolled in University of Ulster’s Business Technology program. Not only did studying while working in project management allow Lauren to apply what she was learning in real time, but being at the university gave her easy access to experts in the field.

With the support of PMI, Lauren has gained “a network of like-minded individuals on a global scale.” But her goal is to make an impact on the community level.

“I’d love to be part of a project that provides opportunity and mentorship to girls who are interested in working within the technology sector but may not have the accessibility or knowledge to start,” she says.

This kind of access has led Lauren to become “passionate and driven in her career,” and she’d like to pay it forward. She would like to do that by being a role model for those just starting out in their career in project management and mentoring those who decide to take the apprenticeship route, as she did.

“I believe having someone who you can ask for guidance and support from is invaluable and I hope I can share my own insights based on my experiences to other like-minded individuals within the PMO profession,” she explains.

Lauren considers herself a “big advocate for mental health and wellbeing both inside and outside of work,” so it’s important to her to support mental health within her team. She embodies this at work by being transparent about her own mental health.

The stress of the job can be overwhelming, at least initially. Lauren recalls how, when she first joined Deloitte, she struggled to accept that she didn’t have the answers or experience to solve challenges she faced as a project professional. One of the directors reminded her that regardless of experience, people don’t know everything—they can’t. She recalls crucial advice that he imparted to her: “Even if you feel less experienced or knowledgeable than everybody else, one, you know way more than you think and, two, you have something valuable to bring to the team.”

While her work brings her a lot of joy, Lauren finds that she gets as much satisfaction from learning from the more challenging projects. In one instance, where she was a governance and reporting lead within a PMO, supporting a client’s large-scale change delivery within the financial sector, she worked through the issue of teams being too siloed, thus lacking clear accountability.

“We overcame this by assessing their current governance landscape and implementing regular program touchpoints to support cross-program visibility.”

Lack of clarity of roles and responsibilities is also often a reason for problems with client engagement, and her experience has taught her to identify these gaps early to foster success.

For Lauren, success is measured by the level of interaction and engagement she has with each team member.

Overall, she loves the variety that project-management brings. “No project is the same,” she says. “Being exposed to new technologies, solutions, challenges, and program approaches has allowed me to grow my skill set but also my confidence.”