Managing technical projects is hard. Managing technical projects without the necessary information to inform stakeholders, team members and third parties is a recipe for disaster.

1. Managing with Data
Know Where You’re Going. Know Where You’ve Been.

2. % US BUSINESS LEADERS
WHO EXPECT THEIR IT
PROJECTS TO FAIL
75

3. YOUR GOALS
SHOULD
INFORM YOUR
APPROACH

4. Different projects
require different
approaches. There is
no magic process.

5. FOUR
CONSTANTS OF
SUCCESSFUL
PROJECTS
PREPARATION
COMMUNICATION
ADAPTATION
TRUST

6. PREPARATION

7. Victorious warriors win first
and then go to war, while
defeated warriors go to war
first and then seek to win.
Sun Tzu, The Art of War

9. PREPARATION

10. SET GOALS
You can be flexible and adapt
to changing situations. Having
goals and setting milestones
allows you to understand the
impact that change has.

11. SCOPE AND
GROOMUnderstand the level of effort
required to complete each
task, then ensure you have the
resources and bandwidth to
ensure it can be accomplished.

12. LET’S VIEW A SPREADSHEET!

13. COMMUNICATION

14. Bad news does not improve
with age.
Shannon Hager, Earlier Today

15. SOMETIMES THE PICTURE IS UGLY
But that’s when it’s the most
important to communicate.

16. LET'S VIEW THE DASHBOARD!

17. Anecdotes should be used
sparingly and only in support
of facts.

18. Sometimes it
feels like the
EDM API services
are down every
morning.
ANECDOTE
This is easily dismissed by
leadership. Surely their
services aren’t down every
morning.
“
“

19. FACT
The EDM Services have been
down every morning this week
and we can tell you for how
long and what impact it has
had on our team.

20. Borrower Portal
spilled several
stories this
Sprint, we need
more oversight.
ANECDOTE
It’s easy to assign blame, but
finding and eliminating the root
cause of a problem is the only
action that matters.
“
“

21. FACT
During the latest Sprint, the
Borrower Portal team was
directly impacted by 47.9% of
the outages and blockers. This
is the root cause of spillover.

22. It seems like
adding Gabe to
the Admin Portal
team has helped.
ANECDOTE
The results of decisions feel
right, but is there any hidden
cost? Did this move really
help?
“
“

23. FACT
Adding Gabe to the team was
important, as demands for time
outweighed available
resources.

24. FACT
Due to API’s becoming
available later than expected
and PTO requests for team
members, the Admin Portal
team had a resource deficit.

25. WHAT WE’VE
GOT HERE, IS A
FAILURE TO
COMMUNICATE

26. Communicate all of the
information available,
regardless of the
anticipated response.
It’s our duty as
consultants.

28. Business leaders want
information that is both honest
and actionable.

29. OUR JOB IS TO INFORM
But we cannot control what a client does with the information

30. ADAPTATION

31. If API’s aren’t on-
boarded, we can
use mock data
and hard coded
tokens.
UNKNOWNS
Yes, we can always build a
workaround, but what debt do
we incur? How does that
impact future Sprints and our
Goals?
“
“

32. EXPOSE DEBT
AND RISK
Everyone knows that
workarounds aren’t ideal, but
do we know why? And do we
know how much debt we have
created?

33. MAKE
INFORMED
DECISIONS
API blockers require that we
pivot to addressing UI issues.
We can quickly see the impact
this has and adjust resources
accordingly.

34. Empower clients to be flexible
by ensuring they have the
necessary information to make
the right decisions.

35. TRUST

36. Treat your men as you would
your own beloved sons. And
they will follow you into the
deepest valley.
Sun Tzu, The Art of War

37. THERE ARE NO
REDSHIRTS ON
YOUR TEAM

38. BE FLEXIBLE
Allow people to take PTO and
have a good quality of life.
Understand and adjust for
fluctuating resources;
communicate your plans.

39. We need to get some eyes on the
preview and see what I missed,
what needs changed, etc. The
sooner the better. Testing is a
mess right now for the reasons
Bhuvana mentioned, because it
returns all draft loans instead of by
site, because the user is
hardcoded, etc.
LISTEN TO YOUR
TEAM MEMBERS
Listen to feedback and try to
find data to support the
anecdotal evidence that your
team calls out. If a problem
exists, it should be exposed in
the data.
“
“