Manage Projects Like a Pro
Episode Stats
Summary
If you struggle with project management, getting things done, and moving your team forward to outcomes, I m going to share with you the three very different unique perspectives I have that I ve learned from being coached and trained from some of the best project managers in the world.
Transcript
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If you struggle with project management, getting things done, moving your team forward to outcomes,
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I'm going to share with you the three very different unique perspectives I have that I've
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learned from being coached and trained from some of the best project managers in the world
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to building and managing not only companies, but projects and OKRs and strategies. I mean,
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you name the management strategy out there to try to get more done with your team. I've read it,
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I've consumed it, but what I'm going to share with you today is a completely different perspective
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to simplify it, to look for the minimum effective dose, not try to boil the ocean, but what
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are the three moves that I feel if you guys add that's probably missing from your execution
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today will have the biggest impact on your projects and getting things done?
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The one thing you will quickly learn from me if I'm managing a project and you're part
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that team is that i like to grab everything and put it into what i call a project file and it is
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not complicated some of you guys want to talk about asana and trello and the toolings which is
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great but what i want to encourage you to do is consider just dumping everything into a project
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file to be able to start playing with it to work with it so what's unique is the way i structure
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that project file there's three specific elements that make it different the way i look at projects
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that you may be missing right now in your process number one is the success criteria i'm a big fan
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of asking people when this is successful let's list out the four to six different areas that
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we'll know have improved measurable impact in the business or in your life that's gonna decide if
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this project has been successful what are the success criterias that we're gonna list out so
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that we all know that as especially if you have multiple team members you got three people on a
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project you got 20 people on a project you need to make sure everybody's rowing the boat in the
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same direction they're pulling on the rope in the same direction and the only way to ensure that is
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to get on the same page for the specific success criterias of the project that's number one number
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two is that you define the measurement what are the leading indicators what are the activities
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what are we gonna agree upon daily weekly monthly that we're gonna measure as a team and review
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to let us know we're making progress towards the outcome the success criteria because oftentimes
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what i've discovered and i was just on a project meeting people get really excited about like
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moving things forward and creating and like pushing the boulder up the mountain you know
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this like starts as a little snowball and they keep building it and building it and it becomes
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harder but the closer they get to the top the more they get excited and get this bolder but what i
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want to do is slow things down and say hey how are we going to know we're making the right progress
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in the right direction what data what activities and and can we all agree what ours are going to be
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somebody it might be you know sending 25 emails per day every day for the next two months right
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and that's their contribution to the project somebody else it might be like meeting with
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to do a standup and say, what did you do yesterday?
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So like, and then just measuring that, it sounds crazy,
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let's just define what we're gonna measure as a team,
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every person on this team that we're going to review
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once a week, ideally it's an activity, it's an initiative,
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and these are leading indicators to the final outcome
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that I think is unique is I like to collect everything
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that might exist, resources, strategies, images.
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and they've got this process that they call sell by chat.
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through our sales inbox and other different platforms
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And a new person took over and they started creating an SOP,
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you collected all of the different resources that exist to define this process that you're going to
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go create this project that you're initiating and they were like no and i go hey why don't we start
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with this and i and i tell you even like i have a lot of clients that outsource you know to marketing
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agencies to sales agencies to uh productivity agencies operation agencies and the thing that
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they miss is literally just looking side of their company and collecting not only stuff they've
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created but even external resources that they like you know i was on another call with my coo
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and we were talking about building a calendar because our team is huge now of everybody's
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time off because what's happening now is that there's projects they need to execute and there's
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certain people that are not in the loop and there's dependencies depending on timelines
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and events that people need to be aware of just like one page where the executive leadership team
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the senior leadership team can see everybody's time off so that we can see opportunities to
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improve and all i did is i went online to google images and i searched for examples of calendars
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one page team calendars and i went through it until i found one template that i liked and i
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said this this is what it's supposed to look like i share that because if you take the internal
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resources and you take literally 15 minutes to research external resources and you link them
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all up in the project file so that every new person that might be added to the project or you
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have this open when you're doing your project meetings reviews it and is aware and they know
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where it is and it's easy accessible it will change the game for how you manage projects
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the one thing stopping project teams from being successful is they don't create a cadence for
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success and i like to use a framework that i've created called the weekly sync it doesn't matter
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what project you're working on today if you want to achieve an outcome you have to ask yourself
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what is the rhythm of success how often are we going to look at our activities and our numbers
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and our progress and what is the right frequency for doing that is it daily is it weekly is it
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monthly but at minimum if you are working on a project that is meaningful for me my book launch
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i was dedicated to making sure this thing was a bestseller and i and i sat down and i said to the
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team what's the rhythm we need to adhere to now you know i'm technically the talent i had a book
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launch team and a book ceo and everything i really wanted to show up and support i'm also running
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another company sas academy and the book itself is almost like birthing it's a new business a new
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startup and we set on the weekly sync structure and the key is is like defining up front what is
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the agenda so at minimum these are the three things that always show up on a weekly sync
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the first one is a link to the project file and an update and review of everybody's progress so
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in the project file you should have broken down kind of the key projects and sequencing and
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timelines having that open to just get everybody to report back on hey bob you're working on this
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project how you doing jane you're working on this project how you doing like getting them to give a
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red green yellow status report here's the timeline make sure there's dates there are you on track
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that is the first thing that we start with number two is the metrics the measurement and i always
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call it the leading metrics to the outcome what are the numbers that we're going to measure that's
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going to get us this specific outcome and how are we doing are we red green or yellow these are
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quantitative measurements so that we know if somebody is on track the third thing is a list
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of discussions now here's where most people fail in the discussions is i expect throughout the week
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between our meetings that my team is adding stuff to the discussion so i know if that's not been the
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case if i show up to the meeting and in the discussion it's just a public google doc that
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if they do not have any new items listed under discussions because what i'm looking for is
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people that are executing projects seeing friction seeing challenges not getting responses and saying
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hey we got to solve that problem i'm going to add it to the list because what happens in most
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project teams is you get on there and say does anybody have any discussions and they're like
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nope everything is good i have nothing to review and then you're like well why didn't you get this
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done oh you know what last week i was waiting on jane but she was on vacation huh should we talk
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about vacation schedules because that would be a great discussion to have so to me if i don't see
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before the meeting in the agenda of the weekly sync under discussions new items added by the team
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that is part of that project then i know they're not using the document the way they need to be
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and it has to be solved one of the biggest pet peeves that i have is when i can't find the thing
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that i know exists so what i've done when it comes to project management is i created this
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rule all people that work on a team with me know this rule it's called linkability and the rule is
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very simple if you have the document the project file the hub spot form whatever you're working on
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if you have it open and then you email anybody for advice or feedback or you post a slack message
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you have to include the link it might sound small but i will tell you from experience if any time
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you talk about an asset you include the link to your dropbox location to another slack thread even
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Again, some of you might be like, this sounds so basic.
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or we talk about things in email to link to the final place
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didn't find this this and this and then there's an email that's sent out to the whole team and
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you're wondering well where is that project file like you you had it open you didn't attach it you
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didn't link it and everybody else is like well i want to look at it maybe i can help you maybe i
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can see within there you know where it could be in that section and it's so interesting to have
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especially new team members that are kind of new to communication processes and like team
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collaboration that linkability linking up the thing is not part of it so for me it's part of
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our communication guidelines it's part of our project management rhythms and it's a non-negotiable
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and i usually just reply to somebody that's forgotten to do it and i go linkability question
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mark and they're like oh yes i need to make this linkable because sometimes they'll have something
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on their computer and they haven't put it up in a shared folder to make it linkable and that's step
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one and then they can link it to the email to the slack post to the project management software
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So if you wanna level up your project management skills
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and to be able to tackle not only $10,000 projects,
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and maybe someday million to $10 million projects,
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so you collect everything and you put it into one place.
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Then you gotta get really clear about the weekly sync
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and what is the agenda that we're gonna go through
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to prompt the review to know that everybody is on track,
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and then finally get everybody to agree to linkability
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so that all the communication around the project
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To help you guys take your project management skill
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to project management to help you execute even better.