5 TH APRIL 2016 HANNAH SMITH Project Management tips and tricks for Wordpress projects

Plan for session What are projects and project management? Common pitfalls and how to avoid them  To define up front or not to define up front?  Roles and split brain  Thinking that process rules all!  Communication Wordpress plugins Over to you… Please ask questions as we go – I like the interruptions and it’s more interesting for everyone!

Hello! A quick bit about me… Degree in Computer Science After Uni a variety of management roles in  Software development SMEs  Large government organisations Now working as a freelance web developer, project manager and business analyst  WordPress  Other CMSs – Joomla, Magento, Shopify  Mobile app front-end development - Ionic

And now… a quick bit about you too… How many of you do projects where there is no project manager role? How many of you do the project manager role as well as something else? Any common pitfalls you want me to cover?

What is the difference between projects and business as usual? Run your business Carry out known processes and procedures, do business as usual Run your business Carry out known processes and procedures, do business as usual Change your business Run projects, programmes and portfolios Change your business Run projects, programmes and portfolios Identify potential for improvement Embed changes

What are projects and project management? Let’s start with the definition of a project… A project is usually defined as: Having fixed time scales with start and end dates and milestones Having a team temporarily formed to produce specific outcomes and products Creating something new that has not been made before By its very nature a project will consist of a lot of unknowns. Successful projects are those that can adapt to unknowns as they arise and turn them to their advantage.

What are projects and project management? Now let’s have a go at defining what project management is… Project management is the application of processes, methods, knowledge, skills and experience to achieve the project objectives. APM – Association of Project Management

Common pitfalls and how to avoid them To define up front or not to define up front? Roles and split brain Thinking that process rules all! Communication

To define up front or not to define up front? There are a few different approaches to project management out there: Waterfall project management, Agile, Six Sigma and Kanban. Today’s talk isn’t going to go into details about these methods (but if pressed I would say Agile is the most helpful for a typical Wordpress project). But I will give some thoughts on one of the big questions:  how much do you define what is needed before you start a project?

To define up front or not to define up front? Defining things takes time, if done proportionately it usually pays off.  Resist the urge to dive in straight away.  Resist the urge to nail all the details down up front.  It’s a balance. Help your client articulate what they want users to do on the site -> call to actions  Their ideas will often be centered around what makes their business’s life easier and not what a user really needs.  Usually it will come back to simple things like sell something or get them to sign up to something.

To define up front or not to define up front? Mock-up some wireframes to clarify content and layout before you start.  At a min draw a picture on a piece of paper, send a photo to them and say this is what you mean?  Build a quick prototype using an off-the-shelf theme to illustrate how the layout and content will behave before putting time into theming. Involve your client often in what you’re doing (more on this later) Whatever you define, it will probably change. Roll with it!!!

To define up front or not to define up front? And try and get the answers to these bonus questions:  What is the most important thing to you, time, cost or quality?  What are your critical success factors? TIME QUALITY COST

To define up front or not to define up front? Remember the genie can only grant ONE wish, not all three!

Roles and split brain

Avoid split-brain as much as possible If you are doing the project management and another role - such as developing, content writing, design etc – you may find it hard to think in two or more contexts. One of your roles usually suffers. Some advice:  Apportion clear time slots to each role. Avoid doing both at once!  Ask yourself, if I put my other hat on will I still get the same answer?  Make others know which hat you are speaking with.  Be realistic about the additional time it takes to think in different contexts.

Have clarity on your roles Define what you can up front. Think about:  Responsible  Accountable  Consulted  Informed No matter how much you define stuff up front, there will be changes. Roll with it and don’t be afraid redefine as you need.

Thinking that process rules all! Can you remember the five categories of project management? Processes Methods Knowledge Skills Experience They’re all as important as each other. It’s not just about process straight- jackets. It’s about softer things like people management, communicating, helping to find consensus, delivering difficult messages, helping people change the way they do things etc etc.

Communication For me this is far more important than the process side of things. Some advice:  Start the project off with a face to face meeting, failing that get on Skype!  Have regular planned meetings with all the team and the client, do not let these slip.  Don’t hide issues, tell the client is stuff is going wrong.  Don’t rely on written communications to solve issues, get people talking.  Encourage honest and open dialogue

Some WordPress project management plugins project-management-plugins/ project-management-plugins/ Many of these are tasks management tools Are they better solutions than say:  Dropbox  Trello  ?

Over to you…. Do you have any questions ?

Thanks for your time Feel free to drop me a line if you need any help or want some advice on project management stuff Through Bristol WordPress People OR