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 something that you should also ask for when working with clients. Because let’s face it: people just don’t read—especially when it doesn’t feel urgent. But sometimes your status reports do contain urgent info, and you’ll want to talk through it with them anyway. So schedule a weekly call. It will prompt you to write the report and send it, and you won’t have to worry about whether or not someone knows what’s happening.
NOTE WRITE BRIEF, INFORMATIVE STATUS REPORTS
Status reports keep projects alive! And in order for them to be effective, they need to be brief, readable, and full of relevant information. Learn more about writing great status reports in Chapter 9, “Setting and Managing Expectations.”
Plan Your Team’s Time
Team staffing can feel like a giant game of Tetris when you’re working in an organization that handles multiple projects. For example, you work to keep your project moving on a positive path so that you can keep your teams intact for the course of a project, because you know that delays could create gaps in availability for those people who might get pulled onto other projects. As part of a larger PM team, you must work through new assignments and reduce the risk of impacting current assignments by talking through the best-laid staffing plans (see Figure 1.4).
FIGURE 1.4 Your team will love you for considering resourcing plans. Learn more about how to create solid staffing plans in Chapter 6, “Managing Resources.”
Motivate Teams
Times can get tough on projects: feedback can be brutal, meetings can get tricky, and clients aren’t always easy to please. As the PM, you act as the cheerleader and motivator to get your team to do the best job possible (on time and within budget, of course). Whether you pick up pizza for the folks who have to pull an all-nighter or give someone props in front of the entire company for doing a great job, you have to be a motivated PM who is genuine and feels like part of the team. There’s nothing more uplifting than being motivated by someone who actually cares.
Monitor Scope
Every project comes with some idea of scope and cost, whether that is documented in a formal scope of work or presented to you by a project stakeholder in a meeting. As the PM, it’s your job to understand the overall size and shape of the project and to make sure that you stay within those boundaries. In order to do this, you must keep a watchful eye on project requirements, deliverables, and project progress. Perhaps you’re watching hours spent in your time-tracking system, or maybe you’re keeping an eye on requirements met or goals achieved. Either way, you have to keep a keen eye on making sure that you have quality
