Shirley O'Neill

Elevator pitch, describe yourself in 2 sentences or less?

I am an experienced professional with a passion for people.

Best advice you’d give a young Project Manager in how to balance work and personal life?

Identify what’s really important to you in how you work and live. An easy way to understand this is to do some work on identifying your values. We live our lives based on our personal values they are our SatNav and working in an environment/culture that is aligned with your values and purposefully connecting more with them will increase  your happiness, energy and fulfilment.

What, according to you, is an important skill for a project manager to succeed?

Enterprise mindset, what is the organisation trying to achieve and how is what you are doing always adding value? I would add that it is equally important to identify ways to demonstrate this in a tangible way to key stakeholders. How are you communicating and sharing this alignment to the organisation in a consistent way.

Best advice you were ever given as a young aspiring project manager, and best advice you would give an aspiring project manager?

Keep a focus on people… people make change happen or they don’t!! 

What part of the project do you find most “interesting and/or challenging”?

An ideal project is where there is a strong multidiscipline team with a broad range of skills and experience including high EQ. 

What have been the biggest challenges in your career to date?

Toxic work environment, poor communication particularly at middle management level.

Lack of respect and lack of feedback on performance…..positive or negative!

What has been the proudest moment in your life so far?

Successful completion of level 6 programme in collaboration with IT Carlow for LloydsPharmacy.

It gave pharmacy colleagues the opportunity to return to education and significantly improve their earning potential whilst supporting the business needs.

Flash Questions

Agile, Waterfall, Wagile or What’s your preferred project management methodology?
I haven’t used any of the above. 

Favourite Movie?
“As Good as it Gets”, Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt and Greg Kinnear

Favourite Singer/Band?
 The Boss! Bruce Springsteen also Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, Damien Dempsey and Roy Orbison.

What’s the best book you’ve ever read?
The Power of Positive Thinking – Norman Vincent Peele.