Most Important Skills For A Program Quality Director At Girls Incorporated Alameda County
Johanna, a Director of Program Quality, Training, and Assessment, emphasizes time management as "the most essential" skill, describing a highly organized approach to her work. Beyond this, the ability to listen, collaborate effectively ("group work never goes away"), and demonstrate flexibility in a demanding, out-of-school time environment are also crucial for success in this role.
Project Management, Communication, Teamwork, Flexibility, Time Management
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
johanna masis
Director of Program Quality, Training and Assessment
Girls Incorporated of Alameda County
U of A, Tucson and UC Santa Barbara
Holy Names University, MA ESL
Humanities
Education
Operations and Project Management
Immigrant, Transfer Student, Student Athlete
Video Highlights
1. Time management is crucial for project management and reducing mental load. The speaker uses alarms and a personal assistant to effectively manage their time.
2. Active listening is essential to understand the needs of staff, community, and families. The speaker emphasizes curiosity and non-judgmental listening.
3. Collaboration is key, even if initially disliked. The speaker highlights the importance of adapting to group work and remaining flexible in response to changing circumstances, especially in the out-of-school time field where program locations and schedules can be unpredictable.
Transcript
What skills are most important for a job like yours?
Top of the list is time management. If I don't manage my time, it affects a lot of other people and the project management that I have to do. I am obsessed with time; it's a really bad thing.
I have alarms set on my phone from the second I wake up to the end of the day. It just takes away the brain space. So then I have my personal assistant popping off in 10 minutes, and I'm like, "Oh, is that what I'm supposed to be doing?" Cool. I utilize and practice my time management in that way.
I would say the other big skill that's necessary is honestly just listening. Being a good listener. What are the needs of our staff? What are the needs of our community? What are the needs of our families? Just listening without judgment. It's literally just being curious and saying, "Tell me more. What more could we be doing? Give me some examples."
Collaboration. I was not a big fan of group work in college, not going to lie. But here I am, and it's unavoidable. So that's something that I tell a lot of young people who are going to leave college and enter the workforce: "Get used to it. Group work never goes away." Find something about it you like and show up and be present.
I would also say flexibility. That's just because of the field that I'm in, the out-of-school time field. This is like before school, after school programming, summertime programming, intersession. So whenever there are breaks, we provide programming.
You have to be flexible because nothing is ours. All of our programming is done out of the schools, and some folks in school administrations can be very territorial. You just have to be flexible because you could be bringing in a group of 30 kids to do karate, and the next thing they tell you is, "Oh, you can't use the gym today because we're mopping the floors and adding a polish." You're like, "I guess we're doing karate outside, whatever." So just flexibility in general.
As I mentioned earlier, my job is very interdependent on receiving information from other people. I just have to be flexible if something falls through on their end. I've learned to adapt, which has made my job a lot easier to handle, to be honest.