Last Updated 16th April 2024
Paula Flanagan, Programme Management Lead – POST
Tell me about yourself?
Hi, my name is Paula Flanagan. I joined UCD in October 2023 as the Programme Manager Lead/Programme Management Office (PMO) for the POST programme. Before joining UCD I also held the PMO role in Enterprise Ireland and the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer (OGCIO). I have over 30 years’ ICT operational and project/programme/portfolio management experience.
I have a Masters in Project Management and have acquired considerable expertise in applying project management processes and methodologies to facilitate the achievement of solving challenging problems, across both the public and private sectors.
What project are you working on? Tell us a little bit about it?
I am currently working on a range of projects and project proposals. Two of the exciting projects are The Clinical Placement Strategy Project and Supporting the Changing Needs of Students Projects.
This Clinical Placement Strategy is identifying the range of challenges and associated risks encountered across healthcare disciplines in UCD for clinical placements and delivering a variety of projects to mitigate against the high frequency, high severity risks identified by the Schools.
The Supporting the Changing Needs of Students has a focus on equity of access for learners on flexible, offsite and not-for-award modes of study to a seamless student experience. I have two neurodiverse children and as a parent I support a vision to create a truly inclusive society where children can access the necessary supports to participate in their community without barriers, to reach their full potential.
What is your role on the project? What element are you working on?
I have a pragmatic approach to project management and basically my role is to bring an objective and practical way of working to manage business projects.
In addition to supporting the above projects, I’m using my project management expertise to demonstrate by actively doing and showing the project stakeholders how these projects can benefit from adopting a structured, yet flexible, approach to solving key challenges.
I am also working on an Agile led project, with UCD Agile, Change Management and the IT PMO on a UCD Project Delivery Framework (based on PM² ) which aims to rollout a suite of UCD project and programme management documentation for managing and tracking budgets and change control processes throughout the project lifecycle.
UCD POST, UCD Agile and the Change Management team are also trialling the Government Enterprise Project Portfolio Management (EPPM) Framework application called PPM. I am a member of the Government Steering Committee for adoption of this application across the public service. It's great to understand how other Public Sector bodies are building their own project management maturity and using the PPM application to assist them.
What do you enjoy most about working on this project?
I’m a Di for those of you that have done the Disc assessment in UCD.
I love the versatility of project management, working with a variety of different people, and the sense of achievement when a challenging problem is solved, and benefits are realised.
I like to coach people, listen to and work with people to build a high functioning project team that makes a positive difference.
Working on projects is never boring! No two projects are the same.
If you have any questions about the UCD POST programme, please do not hesitate to contact the programme team by emailing (opens in a new window)ucdpostpmo@ucd.ie.