HBK CHAT VOL: 22 ISS 1

Antenna Farm

HBK CHAT

Intelsat C-18: My inaugural project - Gladys Magagula

Intelsat C-18 project was my first taste of proj- ect management and ground station building. After SumbandilaSat malfunctioned, I did a lot of things in various departments and was attracted to the build- ing of an antenna from scratch. I requested and was granted permission to shadow the project manager for the C-18 project. Before I could understand what Project Management Book of Knowledge, aka PMBOK, was, the project manager had to move from the project and I was given the challenge to lead the project management effort for C-18. It was exciting and overwhelming at the same time, but the belief that the SANSA SO management team had in me kept me going. I searched around for project management courses and found that Wits Business School

was offering a project management course that was programmed to start later that year. SANSA SO, as an investor in people, sped up my registration and payment to start the programme because the organisation wanted to give the client the best service, whatever the circumstances. The year 2013 was an action learning year in that I had to live the theory of project management in my day-to-day work tasks. While being discreet, I would create a hypothetical scenario in class to get advice and comments from lecturers which I would, in turn, apply to the project. With the help of the lecturers, the engineers, the technical team, and the challenging contractor, we delivered a successful project. To date, I have worked on many Intelsat projects and still counting.

4