Delusions of grandeur and the reality of agency project management
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Delusions of grandeur and the reality of agency project management
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Presented at EEConf 2019 ( https://www.eeconf.com/ )
Andy McCormickFollow
Delusions of grandeur and the reality of agency project management
- Delusions of Grandeur and The Reality of Agency Project Management Andy McCormick | EEHarbor
- What is Digital Project Management?
- What is Digital Project Management? “Digital project management is the leading, planning, organizing, motivating and delivery of web-enabled projects which use the internet and delivered through screens or connected devices – often within digital agencies, studios, or internal web teams.” - https://thedigitalprojectmanager.com
- What is Digital Project Management at an Agency? ● Making big ideas come to light ● Capacity and Resource Management among multiple projects ● Managing external (client) issues and changes ● Keeper of all budgets and timelines ● Cross-team functionality and engagement. ● Keeper of the relationship with the client / Customer Service ● QA Lead ● Note taker and keeper of documentation ● Business development ● Scoping
- What Makes a Good PM at a Digital Agency? ● Personable ● Detail Oriented ● Able to Communicate
- What are Delusions of Grandeur?
- What are Delusions of Grandeur? “A delusion of grandeur is a false belief in one's importance or greatness.”
- What are Delusions of Grandeur in Agency Project Management? A false belief that everything is going well and that none of your problems are related to your lack of project management.
- Everyone is Delusional
- Owners ~ Think the issue is not enough sales or lazy workers.
- Teams ~ Think they have all the time in the world and deadlines are pointless.
- Clients ~ Think they know what needs to be done and they are never the reason for delays.
- 70% Out of 1,471 IT projects the average overrun was 27% 1 out of every 6 had a schedule overrun of 70%
- 200% Out of 1,471 IT projects the average overrun was 27% 1 out of every 6 had a budget overrun of 200%
- 12 Agency Delusions
- You think that adding more team members to an already late project will help you finish on time... Reality... It actually takes more time due to overhead communication, bringing new people up to speed, and possible bugs introduced by new team members.
- Our team is full of experts who don’t need a babysitter... Reality... Without a vision your team will parish.
- Our company will scale fine without project management... Reality... Without project and capacity management, you will never know how much your team can handle.
- Everyone knows their role in the project ... Reality... Assumptions destroy everything.
- Team members happiness has nothing to do with project delays ... Reality... Team members are tired of projects dragging out, late hours, and unhappy clients.
- Everyone should be able to communicate with your clients... Reality... Clients will try to take every inch you give + Your team doesn’t want to upset you or your client ==================================== Scope creep and undocumented changes
- You think your bad client relationships are because of bad clients ... Reality... 99% of the time, it’s your fault.
- Tools and/or methodologies are the answer ... Reality... No one tool or project management methodology will fix your project issues.
- You’ve done a great job educating your clients on everything for the project... Reality... The reality is that they just looked at your price. Even if they heard 90% of what you said, they didn’t listen to the 10% that was most important to help the project succeed
- Sales has nothing to do with Project Management ... Reality... Without project data, education, and proper estimates, your projects are doom to fail.
- You think clients are actually testing everything before going live... Reality... Clients always find more problems post-launch and you will not be able to merge the fixes into “phase-2”
- You depend on cash flow from “phase-2”... Reality... Phase 2 is an enigma that almost never happens or gets rolled into Phase 1 as scope creep
- “I'm out of it for a little while, and everybody gets delusions of grandeur.”
Editor's Notes
- Intro About Me: Family (bride and 2 boys) PM for EE Harbor Cleveland sports fan Developer by trade (should have been a good one), but now love PM and Operations
- “Digital project management is the leading, planning, organizing, motivating and delivery of web-enabled projects which use the internet and delivered through screens or connected devices – often within digital agencies, studios, or internal web teams.” A lot like normal PM but with the twist of all the digital components.
- DPM’s at agencies Often working with small teams Have to manage a lot of projects at once Keep team members engaged Have to build the project and keep the client informed.
- Personable Able to to communicate with team members Fosters Cross-functional relationships Pushes the team Facilitators Details Timelines Budgets Documentation Goals Procedures Ability to Communicate Have to ensure the client and the team understands the project. Have to communicate issues, setbacks, and general statuses to the client and team Over all a PM at an agency should be about ensuring project success for the sake of the team.
- “A delusion of grandeur is a false belief in one's importance or greatness.”
- A false belief that everything is going well and that none of your problems are related to your lack of project management.
- This isn’t just limited to the business owner. NEXT SLIDE
- Harvard Business Review
- Harvard Business Review
- Brooks law from Paul, Ramp up time.. Overcome this by adding team members before the project is overdue and adjust as needed. -Have proper estimates. -proper documentation -clear scopes and organization of what needs to be done
- “Clients view is that they don’t need to pay for a PM line item” Client Services are not linear Teams need guidance on what to work on and when. When are things due, etc It’s not babysitter or micromanagement. It’s ensuring project success You may survive, but more than likely stuff will fall through the cracks and you’ll end up with the 200% or more budget overruns in your projects.
- Knowing your capacity alone isn’t enough. You have to make sure your team is actually close to your plan otherwise your capacity management will be completely off.
- Who’s supposed to be testing what? Who’s communicating to the client. That’s a design issue, not front-end Assumptions lead to delays, scope creep, and obscurity
- Teams need guidance on what to work on and when. When are things due, etc Bad estimates put your project teams in a position where it is impossible for them to succeed.
- Remember those assumptions the team had that someone else had already approved the work.
- Typically because expectations were set, questions weren’t ask, etc. The agency is the expert and needs to control the project. “Ultimately, the project fails whether or not you get it out the door. It fails because the client is unhappy, or because it’s over budget, or because the quality suffered, or because the team is completely frustrated and will carry that frustration over to the next project, and the one after that. Forcing PMs to manage according to a terrible estimate not only creates disastrous and terrible habits, it normalizes them.”
- Figure out what you need first then find workflows and tools that help accomplish it. Agile was meant for product companies. Most agile coaches will admit that it is not suited for client services.
- Teams need guidance on what to work on and when. When are things due, etc Plan for extra. Plan for scope creep
- “Dear Owner, I am putting in my resignation today because the project you’ve given me is set up to fail. I can’t deliver this project in the estimate that’s been provided—in fact, no developer, project manager, or designer could deliver this project in that time. Not only does my team deserve more respect, but our client deserves it too. This project is not possible within these constraints.” In your PM, you must track, measure, and analyze
- Plan for lots of QA in the project
- This is because of poor details in sales. You want to keep the client happy, so this ends up being scope creep.