running a successful project team (rob smith)
DESCRIPTION
Rob Smith Strategy Director at digital agency Blueleaf spoke at the monthly London Web Meet-up on Running a Successful Project Team. "How do you motivate the team to produce their best creative work, whilst never forgetting the commercials? There's all sorts of methodologies available for seeing a project from start to finish - PRINCE, Waterfall and agile to name a few. Rob will give advice on how to tackle a project and decide the method to use to get the right commercial return whilst never loosing the ambition to create outstanding work. During this talk you will learn about delivering successful projects, inspiring teams, encouraging team work, increasing creativity and developer freedom."TRANSCRIPT
RUNNING A SUCCESSFUL
PROJECT TEAM
ME‣ Strategy Director ‣ Sales & initial vision ‣ High level view throughout project ‣ Ran many projects, now help concentrate on how
BLUELEAF
-£105,210 OF FEES
6 MONTHS LATE
WHAT HAPPENED?
TOPICS FOR TODAY
LEAD TEAM
TOOLSCHECKS PLAN
LEAD
THE WAY THE WEB SHOULD BE®
RESPONSIBILITY‣ Responsible means you have the
ability to choose your response ‣ You are responsible for the team’s output ‣ You must shoulder that fully ‣ Any problems is eventually, your fault
COMMON PROBLEMS‣ You have the wrong person ‣ You have the right person in the wrong seat ‣ You didn’t educate an individual enough ‣ You didn’t educate the team enough ‣ You didn’t follow the process enough
BAD“Why the hell did you do it that way? Isn’t it obvious that’s the wrong way?”
“Just get it fixed ASAP and tell me so I can ship it / test it / shout more”
GOOD“I’m sorry, it’s clear to me the request was easy to interpret a different way”
“I’ll write better requests in the future. For this one, could we do it this way?”
PLAN
THE WAY THE WEB SHOULD BE®
PROJECT JOURNEY
3 40 60 100 120
KICK OFF SPEC SIGNOFF
CLIENT UNHAPPY WITH DESIGNS
DEV ROADBLOCK LAUNCH
THE WAY THE WEB SHOULD BE®
WHOLE JOURNEY
55 60 65 80 90
BA OFF SICK
CLIENT ON HOLIDAY
LEAD DEV HAS FUNERAL
SECURE MORE RESOURCE
HOSTING COMPANY FOLDS
KICK OFF SPEC SIGNOFF
CLIENT UNHAPPY WITH DESIGNS
DEV ROADBLOCK LAUNCH
BUCKET OF PAIN‣ Poor planning fills bucket of pain ‣ Poor detail in specification ‣ Lack of clear scope ‣ All fill the bucket ‣ Bucket pours on project in later stages
TEAM
THE LONE RANGER
LONE RANGER‣ Setting up ‘own way’ of working ‣ If off, everyone dreads looking at the work ‣ Resists change ‣ Chance to change but don’t hang around -
they are very damaging
THE WEAK LINK
THE WEAK LINK‣ Not reliable ‣ Messages / conversations get lost / not
relayed to the right people ‣ Client thinks all is fine ‣ No one realises until it’s too late
THE PERFECTIONIST
THE PERFECTIONIST‣ The enemy of progress ‣ Attitude can really affect team moral ‣ Can create commercial black holes
A CULT OF HIGH STANDARDS‣ Everyone does things the same way ‣ Everyone holds each other accountable ‣ No fear of challenging each other to do better ‣ Adopt a set of well known standards as a base
VALUES‣ Know your team values ‣ All teams are different - know thyself ‣ Hire/fire based on those values
BLUELEAF VALUES‣ Know your team values ‣ All teams are different - know thyself ‣ Hire/fire based on those values
DON’T WAIT!‣ If you’re a small team do this now ‣ So much harder to do it later ‣ Makes it much easier to hire/fire based on fit
TOOLS
TOOLS TO SUCCEED‣ Less important what they are ‣ More important that they exist ‣ And there’s a process to use them well ‣ Don’t make good work hard work
CHECKS
QUALITY IS AN ATTITUDE
GOOD TESTING TAKES TIME
QUALITY ASSURANCE‣ Design QA - Lead designer ‣ Specification QA - Producer / BA ‣ Fresh eyes QA - Outside project ‣ Normo QA - non agency / client person
TESTING DONE WELL‣ Project Managers shouldn’t test ‣ Developers shouldn’t test (end to end) ‣ Shockingly, testers should test ‣ Crowd testing available
BAKE IN QUALITY‣ All code reviewed and approved ‣ All designs reviewed and approved ‣ Automate dev testing via TDD & tools ‣ Never accept “I’ll do it later”
CONCLUSION
CONTACTS‣ [email protected] ‣ @rob_smith ‣ 07736 319 735 ‣ If you want to work with us or join us!