Food for Thought narrowly misses top prize at APM final

Food for Thought, a team of six Thales graduates competing in the Association of Project Management (APM) challenge, narrowly missed out on victory at the finals event held last month.

The team, who worked in partnership with the site facilities team to conduct an eight week food recycling trial at Crawley, were judged on the overall quality of their project, their presentation on the night and additionally on a poster created to highlight the merits of their project.

In a tough competition with competing teams from the likes of BAE systems, AWE and Century Link, the Thales team finished joint first but narrowly missed out on the winner’s trophy when the judges were asked to split the two top teams.

While BAE walked away with the top prize, the Thales team conducted themselves admirably and acted as great ambassadors for Thales and the graduate programme.

Laura Evans, a business graduate and part of the Thales team, says: "The team, ‘Food for Thought’, consisted of graduates from business, finance and engineering so it was a great opportunity to work with graduates that I wouldn’t work with in my day job. In line with the ‘collaboration’ theme given to us by APM, we designed an eight week trial of a food waste initiative at the Thales Crawley site. We worked with different stakeholders within the business to ensure that food waste was being recycled in both the kitchen and some of the office spaces at the site. After making the finals and presenting our project at the finals night in Reading, the team were placed second overall. We were given a lot of positive feedback on the night, even to the point that certain members of APM told the team they thought we should have won!

"The challenge didn’t come without its difficulties. In a team of six, all with busy day jobs and conflicting priorities, it was sometimes hard to schedule meetings. Often people wouldn’t be able to attend and we would update them at a more suitable time. These problems are something that people face on a day to day basis and it will help each member of the team to deal with similar situations in the future.

"I was really pleased with the result and as a team we are proud of what we achieved. I would recommend the APM challenge to any graduate, whatever your role in the business.

It gives you the chance to work with other graduates, develop project management skills which are vital in Thales and network with different areas of the business.

"The experience I gained will definitely help me in future roles and I’ve met graduates that I wouldn’t have met otherwise."