As we start the new year, I thought this would be a good time to reflect on my career at Menlo so far. I started at Menlo in March of 2025, when I began my 3-week trial for the position of Project Manager. Now almost a year into my Menlo experience, I have began taking on more client project management responsibilities. You may wonder, what was I doing in 2025 when I was not occupied with client project work?
At Menlo, we strive to consistently staff what we call a "bench"—a group of team members who are intentionally scheduled on non-billable work. We do this so that we always have excess capacity to fill in on billable work when someone is out of the office.
When someone is on the bench, they work on meaningful internal projects with the goal of either growing our skills or supporting our client projects. When I’m on the bench, I act as the Project Manager for a few of our internal projects, including Archie, our quality-of-life improvement project that supports our work with NASA, and Project Kool-Aid, a series of experiments with AI-assisted software development.
As someone new to project management, I had a lot to learn and, in the spirit of Menlo, I learned by doing. I have supported client projects by assisting with weekly tasks like preparing for Show and Tells, updating Work Authorization Boards, tracking our team’s hours to generate invoices, and pairing with Senior Project Managers to observe how they manage their projects.
I have also gotten the chance to be involved in other aspects of Menlo’s business. I have acted as a Quality Advocate for many projects, pairing with our Senior Quality Advocate, Matt. Here I experienced what it’s like to work on the inside of a project, doing the day-to-day work. I have also acted as a High-Tech Anthropologist®, where I learned the importance of trusting the data rather than making assumptions, with the goal of bringing joy to end users. This helped me understand all of the roles at Menlo and the ways in which they all come together to execute a project.
Not only that, but I have also learned the process of doing payroll, reconciling receipts, building our weekly schedule, doing Costco trips to stock up on snacks and drinks (and sometimes a $1.50 hot dog for lunch), hosting countless tours, and many other tasks that have contributed to my continuous learning. While I may not always have a pair partner, others have definitely helped me succeed.
As I come up to my one year anniversary of starting my Menlo journey, I can see the importance of my time on the bench. I’ve been able to learn many parts of the business, make mistakes sooner, and learn from those mistakes without the high stakes of a client project. Pairing with Senior Project Managers allowed me to observe their work and model my project management behavior on what works best for me. I now can confidently work with clients to help them drive their projects, prioritize the work that needs to be done, and bring together a team to move work forward!