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Solita Senior Project Lead combines caring about people and managing challenging projects

Marjaana Koljonen Senior Project Lead, Solita

Published 25 Mar 2024

Reading time 4 min

The role of a Senior Project Lead varies depending on the individual’s interests and expertise. The role also adapts to the needs of the customer, the project, and the team. In the experienced Project Lead’s role, there can be different emphases from technical to agile or consulting approaches; sometimes, a more administrative Project Lead is needed. The most important aspect of this job is to understand large entities, comprehend the customer’s business and goals, and take good care of the team. 

Seniority means that we can work broadly in various contexts and adapt to the customer’s needs and the required role, whether it involves leading a project or adopting a consulting approach. We have extensive experience in managing projects and have led various types of projects of different sizes across different industries.

Our projects are complex entities in terms of both requirements and context and forming an overall picture is crucial in this job. We play a significant role in building genuine trust and long-term partnerships with our customers. Moreover, we must see the longer-term goals of the project, even in challenging situations. It is our responsibility to ensure that our projects deliver value to the customer at every turn.

Solving challenges and collaborating with top-notch individuals are the best parts of this job. When we get a project rolling well, the work is often very rewarding. Collaboration works best when we reach a state of trust among all parties involved. We can perform our work in the best possible way when communication is open, and we can present suggestions and recommendations to our customers.

Safe rooms, our biggest project, and diverse areas of responsibility

We have a great deal of influence over the projects we take on. Everyone has slightly different preferences, which have been attentively listened to. The company’s growth and a broad portfolio of open opportunities for various project lead roles, so there is usually no shortage of options.

Marjaana has experience with classified projects requiring enhanced security. These impose different requirements on how work is done, often from safe rooms and within closed networks. We cannot mention anything about these projects to outsiders. Although security requirements are strict, working from home is sometimes possible. Currently, Marjaana is involved in an international project with partners from several countries. Our development team is international, with contributors from offices in several countries.

Ville, on the other hand, leads one of our biggest projects in history. The project is for Fintraffic Railway, involving nearly 50 people. The work began in 2007, with Ville joining in 2011. Over the years, much digitisation and automation work has been done, including modelling the entire Finnish rail network. This large entity consists of many pieces, with new systems playing a central role. They have enhanced operations and improved rail safety with readily available, up-to-date information, achieving significant cost savings in traffic control.

Vesa and Rikhard, with their coder backgrounds, are particularly inspired by varied and challenging tasks. They have aimed to lead projects that allow for the combination of diverse skills and roles, such as customer leadership or roles as a Scrum Master or Agile Methodology Coach. They have gained experience from various sectors, both public and private, and have become familiar with international work and alliance projects. In addition to client work, Rikhard participates in our internal projects. He coaches other employees in our mentoring program and trains workers who have come through our Solita Academy.

Our daily work in projects involves various responsibilities, such as designing roadmaps to support business goals, transparent and open communication about risks and their minimisation, and understanding dependencies in complex and rapidly changing environments. Regardless of the project or industry, our goal is to keep the customer’s best interest at the centre of our work. We achieve the best results by ensuring a functioning collaboration model with the team and the customer and safeguarding everyone’s well-being.

Community support and good teamwork are the foundations of a successful project

There are also excellent opportunities for learning and development. Diverse customers allow for learning on the job, while we also have various competence communities and networks that provide a good platform for developing one’s skills. There are strong experts around who can teach new things and to whom one can turn if they don’t know something or face challenges in projects. Here, no one is left alone, and help is always available.

Team well-being and caring for team members are also key aspects of our work. For us, caring is not just a word; it is reality and manifests in many ways in our daily work. We offer support and coaching to all Solitans who want and need it, including us seniors. Our definite strength is that the house is full of versatile experts who are willing and able to help. It is refreshing to know that there is always someone who is a bit more experienced than oneself in some area.

Interested in a Project Lead role? Look at our open positions

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