Lee Beckett | How I Became a Project Planner
My working life has covered a number of different careers and industries, but the common thread has always been working as part of a team to deliver an end goal.
Education and Early Career
In the early stages of my career, I provided care and expertise in operating theatres: leading a small team supervising theatres, and negotiating workloads with Surgeons, Anaesthetists and nursing teams. And although I loved leading a team, I made the decision to leave the healthcare sector to pursue my passion for music.
I gained a Bachelors and then a Masters Degree from Leeds University, which led me to work with the world renowned Hallé Orchestra in Manchester as part of their concerts team. I saw first-hand how a dedicated and resourceful group of musicians could deliver a world class programme of music throughout the UK, and overseas on tours.
Project Planning and Events Management
It was this role that fired up my enthusiasm for providing live music performances, by bringing joy to thousands of people – and grew my passion for events management. I then developed this passion further by taking a Local Government role as part of their Events Team.
Learning about events management made me realise how important collaboration is, and how to work to short deadlines using multiple agencies to deliver a range of services. I honed my supervision and leadership skills learned initially through my nursing career – bringing them to project management.
Collecting together all the elements required to provide events for up to 40,000 people requires all the tools and skills of project management. I worked with Local Authorities for a number of years, before moving to an exciting new role leading and developing a three-year programme of arts in a local venue, starting completely from scratch.
A New Direction
When this fixed-term project unfortunately came to an end, I was left without a clear direction. The arts had suffered terribly in the financial crash and years of austerity – which prompted a move to a completely different area.
I worked for a large regional business as a manger, which developed my project management skills further. Through conversations with my brother Mark, we discussed how I could bring together my ideas for the branches in my care. He’d been working as a Project Planner in the petrochemical industry for some time, and suggested using Primavera P6 to achieve my goal.
Although I wasn’t familiar with it at the time, I had experience using planning software and used Primavera to create an Annual Operating Plan (or AOP) for the five branches, equipment, vehicles and 30 staff under my leadership.
I loved developing my own AOP plan and instantly saw the adaptability for businesses it offered, and not just in the construction or heavy industry fields. We then discussed the idea of BPS Ltd. and agreed to set up the business together, joining together our skill sets to achieve our vision.
