Biggest Challenges Faced by a Project Manager at KINEXON Sports and Media
Patrick's biggest challenge as Project Manager at KINEXON stemmed from rapid company growth; starting as one of the first eight US employees, the team scaled from 20 to 200 clients while staff increased to only 12, forcing a continued need to "wear all the hats" despite efforts to create distinct departments, hampered by a hiring freeze due to market recession.
Project Management, Teamwork, Overcoming Challenges, Scaling a Business, Hiring and Resource Management
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Patrick Song
Project Manager
KINEXON Sports & Media Inc
University of Notre Dame, 2012
UCLA Anderson MBA
Economics
Sports & Fitness
Operations and Project Management
None Applicable
Video Highlights
1. Rapid scaling of a company can create challenges in maintaining efficient workflows and team structures.
2. The transition from a small, versatile team to a larger organization with specialized roles requires careful planning and execution.
3. Economic downturns and hiring freezes can hinder the ability to optimize team structures and resource allocation, leading to increased workload for existing staff members.
Transcript
What is your biggest challenge in your current role?
The biggest challenge in my current role relates to the early days of the company. I was one of the first six to eight employees on the US team. At that time, it worked because we were a very small startup with a limited number of clients.
We only had about 20 clients in total. By my fourth year, we had scaled up to 200 clients, but our team had only grown to 12 people.
The biggest challenge then was that it became much harder to wear all the necessary hats. We needed departments to handle distinct roles like customer success, customer support, and project management.
Ideally, these roles would have been delineated into three distinct operational areas. However, with the market receding, it was much tougher to secure funding, and we implemented a hiring freeze.
As a result, we still ended up wearing many different hats, though it was spread across more people. It became very challenging to manage all of the clientele.