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Start the Project by Thinking About How it Should End

2/27/2015

I realize this is a quote from Stephen Covey’s “7 Habits of Highly Effective People.” This one came to mind due to a recent post I saw on Twitter and it hit me that this is perfectly oriented toward project management. All PMs and all business professionals, really, should be keeping this mindset. Long range vision – not just the here and now. Start the project with the end in mind.

What this quote really means is: begin each day, task, or project with a clear vision of your desired direction and destination, and then continue by flexing your proactive muscles to make things happen. I believe this applies well to both the project view and the daily view of what a project manager is up against...

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What Resource Management Tasks Cause You the Most Pain?

2/24/2015

Calling all creative project managers. What is your least favorite resource management task on the projects you manage? Resource forecasting? Resolving conflicts between the team members you manage?...

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Would Your Creative Client Hire Your Ad Agency Again?

2/24/2015

Do you ever ask yourself or your team this question as you’re working on a creative project? “Would this client hire our ad agency again to work on their next creative product rollout or marketing campaign?” While client satisfaction should probably always be our ultimate goal, we are often too busy in the here and now to consider what’s going on with the client; are they excited about what we are doing for them, and will they want more? But that needs to be in our thoughts – especially if we are a strategic link to keeping a firm viable, grabbing new clients and revenue streams and holding on to existing clients. During these times, ask yourself, “Would this client hire me again?” I do that often. My motto is, “You’re only as successful as your last client thinks you are…” So, would they? Am I doing the right things for them? Am I serving them well…giving them my best?...

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What Resource Management Techniques Make Your Ad Agency Work?

2/20/2015

Let's face it...resource management is often that dirty two-word phrase that no one wants to deal with. Would project management life be much easier if we could just run with the project and not worry about budgets and time sheets and resources and team availability. Of course, that wouldn't leave us with much of any importance to manage, but our creative juices would be allowed to flow freely, right? Think what you could do for your client and for your organization if there were no resource or budget constraints. Or timeframe constraints. For that matter. Sky's the limit! Go!...

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The Limitless Project Budget

2/19/2015

I realize we often don’t get to deal with the fantasy world much in project management. If we did, none of my projects would ever have issues, all would have customers that would agree with everything I presented, and none of my teams would ever have conflicts or personal issues – or personnel issues, for that matter. And that’s just to name a few (should I go on???). No? Ok.

A project without a timeframe may be a pain because I want to run other projects, lead other teams and actually have a life. So projects do need to end at some point. But a project with no budget limitations or concerns would be nice. Think about this…how would you live your life if money was never a consideration? Ok, now apply that to a project. This particular scenario may not bring about our best side in terms of best practices and strategic thinking…those little things that we do because we are challenged to stay within parameters like budget and time while also trying to fill our client’s needs properly. But let’s consider what we might do with a project that had no budget limitations...

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Planning Well for the PM Exit

2/19/2015

Most project managers will tell you that the projects they enjoy the most are the ones they get to see through from beginning to end. In the world of project management, however, it is often a rare thing…depending on your organization, of course…to get to see a project through 100%. People leave the company, new people join, more important projects kickoff needing an experienced project manager, and other factors weigh-in to often make end-to-end project management something that rarely happens...

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What Helps You Determine Client Satisfaction on Projects?

2/19/2015

How do you gauge client satisfaction on your creative projects? Is it touch points throughout the creative project - one on one with the sponsor on the customer side? Is it a lessons learned session at the end of the project?...

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How Much Does Your Creative Budget Squelch Creative Projects?

2/13/2015

How prominent does budget management weigh into your day to day and week to week activities on creative projects? Is it at the forefront as a primary concern or is it an afterthought on the project - a brief discussion on weekly team project status sessions? And what tools do you use to manage the project financials on a daily/weekly basis throughout the project? Many PMs use Excel spreadsheets or similar tools to manage project financials, but our project management software - like Workamajig - can usually do a great job of helping us stay on top of our budget and resource management (a large part of budget management) on an ongoing basis. Please share your thoughts and experiences. Thanks!

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Good Requirements = Good Project

2/12/2015

Seriously. You can’t make a perfect project. You can’t just “will” a project to success. Too many variables. But you can do all that you can do to make a project engagement successful. And the two biggest ingredients to that success that the project manager can have a great deal of control over is practicing effective and efficient communication and seeing to it that no works starts without good, detailed, complete-as-possible requirements that read well and mean something to both the customer and the project team. Today, we’re going to talk about requirements...

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Even Nationwide Should Apply Logic to Their Creative Projects

2/5/2015

Seriously…who pays $4.5 million dollars and then runs a depressing ad – I mean THE most depressing ad possible – during the biggest sporting event of the year? Apparently Nationwide does, as part of their “Make Safe Happen” campaign. They featured a little boy who doesn’t get to grow up because he’s dead. What does insurance really have to do with safety? An insurance company like Nationwide wants you to be alive and act safely because it keeps their costs down. But their service to you is to help you out after the accident happens, not before. They are definitely not in the accident prevention genre. But if you don’t have accidents, they make more money, don't have to pay anything out…and that’s definitely in their best interest. So why spend $4.5 million (PLUS whatever it cost for an outside agency to put together the video for them…probably at least another $200,000) on an ad about a dead boy? During the Super Bowl?

Let’s look at another situation. My favorite band is Cheap Trick – a classic rock band from the ‘70s still making music well into their 60s. In 1997, they announced that the next single off their latest album was going to be “Shelter” a good, but downer of a song about a guy not having his father and mother any more (like the little boy, they are dead). They were going to release it at Christmas time. I know the band…I said it was a bad idea. Others chimed in…and thankfully they listened to us.

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<<Previous

Start the Project by Thinking About How it Should End

What Resource Management Tasks Cause You the Most Pain?

Would Your Creative Client Hire Your Ad Agency Again?

What Resource Management Techniques Make Your Ad Agency Work?

The Limitless Project Budget

Planning Well for the PM Exit

What Helps You Determine Client Satisfaction on Projects?

How Much Does Your Creative Budget Squelch Creative Projects?

Good Requirements = Good Project

Even Nationwide Should Apply Logic to Their Creative Projects

Author:

Brad Egeland

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