Wow! I can’t believe it’s been over a month since my last post. Actually, I can. I’ve been busy. Very busy. Been working on a pretty large web project that’s requiring a lot of hours during the day, and a lot of hours during the night to complete. It’s a challenge, but I have confidence that the end result will justify the means–even if the means means long hours in front of a computer without being able to publish my normal Level2wo blog posts. Sorry, sometimes priorities get in the way. That’s a joke.

I think for today’s post I just want to jot down some off the cuff notes about what’s been going on in the project that’s taking so much of my time. It’ll help me think, and maybe give you some insight into another project manager’s world, so you realize that you’re challenges and difficulties may just be normal. Or, maybe, make you feel that much better about your management skills.

The project I’m working on has many moving pieces, including a project team in four locations, English as a second language (for some team members), difficulties in communication (at varying levels among various resources), and lots and lots of digital assets spread across multiple business units. Managing the project is like lasso-ing a hurricane…but I must admit, the lasso does work.

As in previous lives, you come to understand that, while there is chaos all around, understanding that chaos and ensuring everyone on your team is comfortable with that chaos is key to project success. As a PM, I often strive to bring comfort and to ease my team members when they are stressed, over-worked, and when they simply need to step back, take a deep breath, relax, and get their second (and third and fourth) wind. As any project manager knows, there is pressure coming from all around to ensure client expectations are met, to ensure the little details fit into the larger project, to ensure that budgets are met, to ensure that everyone is communicating what they need to be communicating to each other for the health of the project, to ensure that all contingencies are in place, and on and on. It’s normal to get stressed out, both as a team member and as a project manager. Read it again: It’s Normal.

I’ve found that, given you’re doing everything you need to be doing, given that you’re prepared and understand that there will be very, very busy times and some not-so busy times, given that you understand the need and value in coaching and making people smile from time to time, you’ll do fine. That’s not to say you’ll not go through the ups and downs yourself, but you’ll do fine. It’s managing the inputs above that will provide you with the output–a completed project that is polished at the end, even though it may have started as a rough boulder in the beginning.

Project Management Issues

Projects are rarely easy. Well, let me rephrase that. Projects often have difficulties. Hmm. Let me use Robert Burns’ or John Stenbeck’s more popularly known phrase: “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” Or, maybe…well, you get my point. Projects of any kind face difficulties, from scope creep to communication issues, over-promising and under-delivering, and quality and cost issues. There’s more, but I just don’t have the time to get into them all.

So what do you do? It’s simple, and yet it’s maybe not that simple. Nothing beats planning. Nothing except for luck, great clients, great teammates, and, if you’re lucky, a combination of the two. But that’s not something you should count on. Issues arising, clients changing their minds, less than efficient team members. That’s what you should expect; if you get anything better than that, then you, my friend, have a heck of a team that you need to hold onto.

 In interactive projects, much can and does go wrong. And by wrong I don’t mean failures of massive proportion, but rather websites becoming a lot larger and more complex than agreed to in the SOW (statement of work), quality being produced by outside vendors not being up to what your (or worse, the client’s) expectations are, technology failures (server crashes, missed deadlines, delayed client approvals, PHs (person hours) over budget), etc.

What do you do? Truthfully? Roll with the punches. Learn from your mistakes, and learn from the mistakes of others, so that you don’t repeat the mistakes. Learn how your organization works, and learn how your client’s organization works. Once you understand the big picture, managing the minutae gets better. But learn. Be patient. Understand that everyone has an agenda, that everyone is probably as just as busy as you are and lacks as many resources as you do, and that they’re making the best of it. Have a smile on your face, because the storm will pass. It always does. And keep your head in the game, showing confidence and glee the entire time. You get your teammates to stay in the game, you’ll get that much more done that much quicker. And focus. You’ll be fine…just know it, and all will work out.

One of the aspects of building websites and working for interactive agencies that is sometimes nice and sometimes excruiciatingly painful (for some, anyway), is the hurry up and wait aspect of projects. If you’ve been involved in this type of work–or other types that rely on bidding for a contract, a lot of back and forth with clients, dotting all of the i’s and crossing all of the t’s, you know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s good and it’s bad–depending, anyway, on who you ask.

Personally, i’m neither here nor there on the matter. I enjoy having downtime to prep, to learn more about my client’s business, to think (or at least try to think) as they do. I know putting myself in my client’s shoes is one of the best ways for me to help them get where they need to get. In previous positions, I’ve not always had the opportunity to step back for a few minutes in order to look at the bigger picture. And I know (and I’m sure you know), plenty of people that don’t really care to grasp the bigger picture, because they know what their role is and know (or think) that their role will not have a direct impact or substantial impact on the client business to make a difference…so why try. And, in reality, some of them may be right. But there needs to be a little bit of both type people–the contributor with his or her eye on the larger picture, and the contributor who can’t see the trees for the forest. I think that helps–at least I know it does in my world.

OK, I sense i’m blabbing here, because it’s getting late and i’m tired. I hope I made sense up above–and, in fact, I ‘hope’ so much that i’m not even going to read what I just wrote, which is pretty rare. Have a great night.

Seems like Facebook is about to crack the whip. When it comes to the applications that make it through to see the light of day, anyway. At a recent programmer’s conference, Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg spoke to a group of programmers about the influence his 4 1/2 year old company has built up, as well as what their role might (or might not) be at Facebook in the future.

And no suprise here, the programmers listened. Turns out (and it’s not a suprise to anyone reading this, I’m sure), Facebook can make an application company. Literally. Some $200 Million in Venture Capital has poured into companies that have been building applications for the social networking site, not to mention the $240 Million Microsoft through at Facebook for a piece of the action. With the deluge of applications on the site, some issues have arisen.

Personally, I’ve sent email to contacts I did not want to send email to. A few careless clicks and away went communication to people I did not intend to send email to. Apparently, I’m not the only one. One of the issues Zuckerberg and Facebook will be trying to tackle is that of applications either maliciously or unfortunately performing actions detrimental to users–either exposing security holes, or anything that would damage user experience. And seems Facebook will now be rating, endorsing, and banning applications moving forward. In my opinion, that’s a great move.

Personally, I don’t particularly want to be invited to slay anyone or throw pie at any of my contacts. But then again, that application is probably not for my age group anyway.

I was thinking today about the industry I’m in, and while it’s not a shocking revelation, it did occur to me again how young the industry actually is. Many of the professionals in the industry (myself included), were not in this industry a decade ago. And why would they be, when the industry had really just begun–at least as we know it. But it gives light to the fact that it’s the skill sets that matter–not so much the industry, per se. Although yes, it does help if you come from a related industry. Marketing, advertising, programming, project management, copywriting–these are all areas within interactive media that are crucial to what we do–and if you’re in one of those areas in another industry, you’d probably be able to make the leap.

If you are, my suggestion is that you do a little messing around on your spare time. Figure out what you like to do, and practice it. Build a website. Run a PPC campaign. Write some copy on a blog somewhere, and see if you can use a little SEO magic to make it show up on the first page or second page of google. It’s not easy, but it’s not that difficult. In fact, I landed at the third spot on the first page of google a few weeks back for ‘Project Management Steps’ without even trying to. (No, it’s not there any more, but hey, I did it without trying). Good luck.

Without sounding too…something, I can’t stress the importance of teamwork. Not only in the sense of your coworkers helping you achieve the goals you need to achieve and vice versa, but in bringing together ideas and perspectives that, when combined (again, sorry to use this word, which I’m sure you’ve all heard plenty of times just in the past few weeks alone) create synergy. It’s what makes projects succesful, initiatives succesful, and, to go a little further, it’s what makes communities, country, and the world succesful.

But with teamwork comes personalities, egos, opinions, and every other factor you can imagine that has the potential to throw teamwork off track and away from the goals you’ve set for that team to begin with. Though not always the case, gathering groups of people, especially in business, means that you’ll often have to deal with adversity, often have to defer when you think your points may be valid, and, the true test of your understanding of situations and benefitting from teamwork–you’ll have to be able to open your eyes and be receptive to points other than yours, right or wrong.

It’s through that process that the best ideas will emerge–be it for a direct mail piece, a larger marketing strategy, creative, or even what type of venue to have for company outings. Let me stress that again: open your eyes and be receptive to points other than yours. You’re not going to be right all of the time, and I’m not going to be right all of the time. I learn from you, and you learn from me. It’s what makes the wheels turn, and what brings the good ideas to better ideas.

Rarely will you encounter that genius who’s ideas and insight and execution are perfection incarnate; rarely will you have anyone single-handedly, at least in a company of any size, be the end all be all for whatever product or service you’re hawking.

Knowing how to be a teamplayer doesn’t mean giving up your place in the food chain–it means securing it through smart decisions, an open mind, and the realization that we’re all consumers of good ideas and bad, and we’re all producers of them as well. It’s the end result we’re after by participating in a team of any size or structure–so don’t sabotage it, because you’re the beneficiary.

When you’re out there in the middle of techville, managing website builds and SEM campaigns and thinking about Search Engine Optimization, and writing copy (that, obviously, needs to be keyword rich), and you’re thinking about CTRs and PPC and maybe viewing your client’s business from the actual business perspective rather than from your point of view, and you’re google-ing things to help you cram in the minor bits and pieces of technology and the latest trends, you often for get the best resource of all (in my opinion): Books!

Below are a few books I find helpful when managing interactive media projects, some better than others–but I’ll stay hushed on which ones, as you may find some more interesting than others and I don’t want to skew your opinion in any way.

1. Managing Interactive Media: Project Management for Web and Digital Media by Elaine England and Andy Finney
2. Managing Interactive Media Projects by Tim Frick
3. Fundamentals of Technology Project Management by Colleen Garton and Erika McCulloch
4. Lean Project Management: Eight Principles For Success by Lawrence P. Leach
5. The Project Management Memory Jogger: A Pocket Guide for Project Teams (Growth Opportunity Alliance of Lawrence) by Paula Martin and Karen Tate
6. Web Project Management: Delivering Successful Commercial Web Sites by Ashley Friedlein
7. IT Project Management: On Track from Start to Finish, Second Edition (Certification Press) by Joseph Phillips

If you’re an experienced project management professional, or a newbie, the above books are good. I didn’t include the Project Management for Dummies book, but I’ve actually read it and it’s a good resource to keep at home–but don’t bring it to the office if you have a copy or buy one–not that you should be ashamed of it, because it’s a good resource, but you want to look your best, especially in front of clients–and Dummies books aren’t always the best way to project professionalism to the PM craft (or, likely any other professional position).

One of the great things about software is that it opens up a world of ease to those who learn and use it to achieve, more often than not, completion of tasks that would otherwise take a much longer time to complete. That said, sorry if I am not making complete sense–I’ve been reading software manuals all day. Yes, this is where you laugh. Or chuckle. Or, at worse, give a silent nod of acknowledgement.

Actually, it’s not so bad. But it got me thinking. While we do use a variety of software programs to get done the things we need to get done, such as everything Microsoft ever puts out (excel, word, powerpoint, project, access, etc.) (no, I’m not going to mention Vista), we also ocassionally end up using new software that we’ve either never heard of, heard of and had no contact with, or heard of and tried to avoid. It’s times like these that I don’t look to the future to solve but the past. It’s sort of like financial planning–we know we need it but no one ever really teaches us it as we grow up (I know, I can hear you yelling either a) When we were growing up certain software didn’t exist, or b) Many of the software programs extant today ARE being taught to kids in school. Well, good. Good for those kids, I suppose. But in the land of Me, I want more of a quick fix than anything else. Maybe a quick IT doctor visit where I’m injected with the knowledge to not have to read printouts and dictionary-length software manuals that are standard issue in the brains of kids today. But I’m probably asking for too much. Well, at least I can blog about it. That’s something my folks probably think is a space creature from some far away Sci-Fi flic.

Today is the 4th of July, and I thought it would be appropriate to show some patriotism. We’ll be up and publishing again on Monday. Have a great holiday weekend.

Monday is our big move to Atlanta–and we’re going to be heading cross country for two weeks, hitting what are, in my opinion, the prettiest and more interesting places in America.
We’re going to have a guest blogger on Level2wo.net–founding partner and world-class web and design wiz, E. Themmen. I hope you enjoy his posts.

But from my end–it’s time for the fun stuff–showing off pictures of the places we will go! Below are some pictures from the national parks we’re going to–some of which I worked at during my youth–though, truth be told, I don’t feel it was that long ago.

Enjoy!