NOTE CONTINUOUS LEARNING
It’s not always easy to find great resources to stay abreast with what’s happening in project management. Check out this always-updated list of great resources for PMs: http://brettharned.com/resources/.
Invested in the Work
This almost goes without saying, but the best project managers are the ones who get out from behind their spreadsheets and play an active role in their projects. Don’t just attend meetings and take notes. Participate in them. Hunt down problems and address them. Share your ideas. Share conversations you’ve had with the team and clients. Shape the path of the project and be the PM who not only cares about what happens internally on the project, but also how your project will succeed when it launches. And, if you are that part-time PM, embrace the role and give it just as much attention as you give your other work. Know that taking on the role of PM doesn’t just mean checking off items on a to-do list. It’s about thinking critically about the path of the project, its people, and potential outcomes. Keep your eye on project goals and do your best to help the team do the same.
Typical PM Tasks
Again, what you do as a project manager will vary from company to company, but there are some core tasks that will strengthen the perception of your role as a PM. We’ll cover these in later chapters, but here’s a high-level view of what you should be doing as a PM:
• Create project estimates
• Craft, build, and manage the process
• Create and manage project plans
• Manage tasks
• Report on status
• Plan your team’s time
• Motivate teams
• Monitor scope
• Wrangle calendars and meetings
• Facilitate communications
• And much more
Create Project Estimates
Without a basic understanding of what it takes to complete a project, you’ll be lost. You should try to gain a general understanding of each person’s project role, the effort required, and how that might match up to your project scope and deadline. A great way to do this is by sitting down with people who do jobs that you don’t fully understand. Maybe there’s a developer or designer on your team who would be willing to walk you through their process to give you a better understanding of the steps they take and the effort associated with each. Once you have a good understanding of that work, you can speak about tasks with confidence and begin to draft estimates.
It can also be very helpful to work with people on your team to create project estimates (see Figure 1.1). This kind of exercise will not only help you create sound estimates for projects, but it also can help you gain a better understanding of different types of work and deliverables, the effort involved, and how they might work together to form a new project process. Plus, you’ll come up with a sound estimate that could possibly be reused on similar projects in the future.
FIGURE 1.1 Creating project estimates can be tricky. Work with your team to establish estimating practices that work for you. (Read more in Chapter 3, “Start with an Estimate.”)
Craft, Build, and Manage the Process
We all love naming our processes—whether it is an existing term or a newfangled, company-branded one we made up. Either way, you’ll find nuances to every team’s process, so you can’t necessarily just step in and pick something up and expect it to work the same way it did at another company or with another team. You’ve got to do what you can to understand that terminology, because it will be different from place to place. If you’re working in digital, you may run waterfall, Agile, or hybrid processes on your projects. No matter what methodology you follow, you must understand the ins and outs of how your project should run from beginning to end and be willing to help your team through it and spend the time to do it right.
Create and Manage Project Plans
Every project comes with a deadline. It’s up to you to understand the process by which your team will meet that deadline and document it in order to keep things on track and communicate progress to others. And guess what? Creating a plan will help you in more ways than one. You can create a line-by-line plan with specific deadlines, a Gantt chart with overall timelines, or even a Kanban board that shows work tasks from initiation to completion (see Figure 1.2). However you choose to handle your plan, be sure to keep the level of time and effort needed to complete the tasks in mind, as well as staffing considerations. There’s nothing worse than missing a deadline because you didn’t consider the people who would actually be doing the work.
FIGURE 1.2 Project plans can be quick and dirty or complex and measured. Find the right balance for your teams. (Read more in Chapter 5.)
Manage Tasks
You don’t want to be seen as a taskmaster or a box checker, but you should always have your finger on the pulse of what’s happening on your projects. But how do you keep track of so much at one time? Shared to-do lists and open, regular communication are a start (see Figure 1.3). But also think about routines when it comes to status updates, check-ins, and communications with your team and stakeholders. When you do that, your checking in feels expected and less of a burden and suddenly you become the helpful PM.
FIGURE 1.3 Keeping a master to-do list of all project tasks can help you keep your team and stakeholders on track.
Report on Status
It’s the PM’s job to keep everyone informed of what is happening—or not happening—on a project at all times. While on-the-go communications are a must, it’s important to remember that there’s information passed in hallway conversations and even meetings that your whole team might not be privy to. So be sure to keep good notes and be vigilant about keeping your team and clients up-to-date on what’s happening on the project on a regular basis. A great way to do this is via status reports that communicate progress, next steps, action items, to-dos, and blockers on a weekly basis. Following these reports up with a phone call to review the items is