Baker Hughes, a GE Company, (BHGE) has more than 64,000 employees worldwide. Alaina Sajatovic Nelson is one of them. She is a staff technical product manager and a recent recipient of a GRIT Award.
"When I first stepped into this job, I wasn't sure I was ready. I soon discovered steel-toe boots are very useful when you need to jump in feet-first."
Alaina Sajatovic Nelson, BHGE
She says most digital products have a technical and a functional owner. That means, she usually has to wear both hats. "I was challenged to make both technical decisions and decisions about what features the applications should have, and how they should work."
She didn't think she had the experience to make these decisions. So, she was always nervous she would make wrong choices.
Overcoming challenges
In Alaina's case, she bought a pair of steel-toe boots and jumped into the manufacturing world feet first. She partnered with experts, visited factories, shadowed and interviewed operators.
"Growing my manufacturing expertise and confidence led to better relationships with my users and the development of a digital tool that really meets their needs."
BHGE is the world’s first and only full stream provider of integrated oilfield products, services and digital solutions. It helps customers around the globe safely maximize productivity across the oil and gas value chain and the lifetime of their assets, while minimizing environmental impacts.
Early in the development of the application, Alaina struggled with communicating with the stakeholders. For instance, she shared the date for a major release, but development took longer than planned. When her team missed the date, the stakeholders were frustrated. She it cost a hit to the application's credibility.
Learning transparency
In software engineering, it is quite common for things to take longer than planned. After Alaina's communication glitch, her motto became "100% transparency" with all future releases.
"I used the biweekly steering committee to walk stakeholders through the completed work, what was left to do, and any risks that I saw."
Glitches lead to rewards
Alaina loves hearing about how the application she manages truly changes the way users work. Her tool helps operators handle safety concerns quicker and get them escalated to leadership faster. Plus, she appreciates the genuine feedback she now receives from operators.
"I believe they’ve come to see me as one of their own rather than an IT person from headquarters."
