Project Associate Intern
My main responsibility for the summer was to support the contracting and compliance team with any of the issues they were facing. I was also the only intern within the Methods and Capabilities group which allowed me to assist other teams with projects they were working on. I had two main projects for the summer: 2020 Budget entry & the development of workflow diagrams for the team.
After my first few weeks on the team, I started sketching Swimlane Diagrams of the different contracting processes so that I could have a better understanding of how the team operated. After refining the diagrams and reviewing them with some team members, we decided they would be a great addition to the Resources website. I worked on creating digital files and eventually presented them in front of the team for approval. They are going to be available for any PM that needs a refresher on the process or for any new colleague as on-boarding materials. My responsibilities for 2020 budget entry were mostly to help the project managers upload their figures properly. Many of the colleagues were unfamiliar with the updated system and I set up meetings for training and to help with minor issues. I mainly used WebEx to facilitate these meetings and had the PM share their screen as I walked them through everything. This gave me a lot of face time with the project managers on my floor and in different areas of the group.
It was really interesting to see how much organizations are trying to leverage technology first-hand. Especially with an organization as large a Pfizer, it must be very difficult to get every colleague on the same page. All of Pfizer’s executives would preach the same values and mission statement which was visibly carried down by upper management and even down to the lower levels of the company. One of their stated objectives is to lead the “digital race” within the pharmaceutical industry. This goal can be seen with their initiatives to simplify business operations through digitization. I could also see it through my role using the project center WebApp. The system kept track of every active and closing project with details on vendors, project managers, contract dates, and PO numbers. It also ran reports that identified projects with that need review. For example, many projects had forecasts that exceeded the validated PO amount (and vice versa). Whenever I needed to reach out to a PM about the health of their project, it was very easy to navigate the site and find the information that I needed. Because I am also a finance major, the budget entry was also very interesting to me. I kept a separate excel sheet where I could see who had uploaded the budgets and whether there was variance between the entries and the approved numbers. I also had access to the PowerBI dashboards that automatically kept track of everything. This experience really allowed me to apply a lot of what I’ve been learning at Fox, in both the MIS and Finance departments.