A Day in the Life: Nancy Nason

by Nancy Nason, Chattanooga City employee

My name is Nancy Nason and I work in the Information Services Division for the City of Chattanooga. My official title is “I.T. Business Project Analyst”. I am a geek at heart but honestly, I am not nearly as technically savvy as I used to be.

In the twenty-plus years that I have been in this job, it has changed along with the computers we use. I started out as a computer programmer. Today my job is more of an event planner and talent manager. As the technical support lead for the City's HR-Payroll software, every day brings a new challenge.

My day starts at 8:00 by checking email and an online queue of recent requests. I assign any new emergencies to one of about four people on our team of eight programmers. These are the guys that can really make magic with the city's software. That's the Talent Management part of my job.

I usually have two or three big projects going as well. That's the Business Project part of my job. The goal of these projects is to make the city's computer software do something it hasn't done before. Once I understand what the client in a City office needs, I plan all the steps to get us there. Then I make assignments to one or more of those eight programmers and give my manager a high-level list of deadlines for the project. I also often have to direct the work of consultants on these projects as well.

These projects require that I contact all kinds of organizations, like software vendors, business partners, government agencies, etc. to schedule meetings, conference calls, and product demonstrations. That's the Event Management part of my job. It's pretty interesting because I talk to people around the country and sometimes around the world.

By now I will have three or four different programmers working on both projects and emergencies. Each day I check with them to find out how things are going. They bounce ideas off me and I help them work through problems they have run into. Sometimes just talking through the situation is all that's needed.

In the middle of all this, I have the usual staff meetings and status reports to do. I arrange follow-up meetings with my clients and work with them on new uses of their software in a training and trouble-shooting role.

When a programmer finishes an assignment, I make sure everything works as promised and let the client know that their problem is fixed or their new feature is available. I keep track of all this activity in a separate version of the CSR system that the rest of the city uses for tracking citizen calls.

Wow! Is it 4:30 already? Well, I may be here a little while longer, but before I go I make notes about what we accomplished that day and make a list of things to get done the next day.

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