Great People: Introducing Dee Gaywood

Meet Dee. One of our talented Delivery Managers.

She sits right at the heart of all her projects, with her head deep in the detail. Her job is to keep projects running on track, to budget and to ensure the quality of output our clients expect. She's always asking the important questions about scoping, requirements, progress and budgets. She's a problem solver, a doer, a progress maker and she has an important question for you: chocolate or crisps?

Who are you and what do you do?

I am Dee, a Delivery Manager at Great State. I work with clients to pinpoint project goals and implement meaningful change.

How did you get to be here?

Well, digital project management is a big jump away from my undergraduate degree - I studied Drama and Theatre Performance! I moved into digital project management over 5 years ago, with a brief stint working in events management beforehand. I was drawn to project management as it allowed me to combine a variety of skills whilst still being creative and working with people. I also like implementing change as I think progress is so important, and tech is a great way of driving it.

What are you working on right now?

I am working with The Royal Yacht Association to migrate their website to a new Umbraco platform. I am also delivering a project for Capita on the Army Jobs website to improve the experience. We're elevating the reserves pages to better support recruitment, paying particular attention to the user experience. We're designing a new feature that helps users identify which types of roles are available to them to join the army.

I'm also working with The Royal Navy on creating social assets for a paid media campaign that runs throughout the year - with a key objective to drive recruitment of 16-24 year olds.

How do you know when you’ve produced something great?

When the client is excited about what we have delivered, and we see great results in line with the success criteria and KPI’s set out at the start of the project. And on a deeper level, I love it when the team are proud of the work and we've introduced new technology or engineering practices to elevate the product.

What excites you about your work?

I really enjoy finding new ways to coach and support a team, understanding what is important to people and working with what motivates them. For me, people are at the heart of projects and the key to delivering success.

What excites you in life?

I have a passion for discovering new things, whether this is learning to screen print, going to a dance class or sea swimming. I live in Devon and love getting out in nature whenever I can.

What is the future of tech looking like to you?

Connection. I believe tech should work for people to connect them to each other and open the world to enhance new experiences and help take on some of the burden of the day to day.  

Ask a question back. What do you want to know?

Chocolate or crisps?