This week I took on the role of Project Manager for our cohort's first client project. This was internal with the mock-company ‘Prep Air’, and was a chance to get our head around the structure of client projects.
Wanting to be as prepared as possible, I talked to my fellow data schoolers, and asked everyone what tips they had for a new project manager. I received plenty of top tips that helped me feel somewhat calmer in this first stressful week, and now I’ll share them with you (along with some of of my own thoughts)!
Before you start:
Research as much as you can. For me this was asking for tips from everyone in the office - people are always more than happy to share their top tips for these client projects and listening to them will help you feel so much more prepared for the week.
Similarly to this, research the client. For a real world client, the internet will have plenty of resources about their work and industry. For an internal client like Prep Air, the easiest way to do this is by reading previous project logs. This is also a good way to find out about feedback received and learn from previous projects.
Prepare a master document. By the end of the week everyone will have a huge backlog of their work: notes, calculations, dashboard sketches etc. If you prepare a document for all of these before the week starts, it means that everything is together, making organising the final presentation and handover that much easier.
Draft a plan and a rough timeline. With projects like this, there’s room to do as much or as little as time allows, so keeping the team aware of schedules is very useful in limiting last minute stress.
Plan questions. Before going into a client call you want to have your questions organised, with an idea of who will ask what. I found the best way to do this was by setting up a spreadsheet with all possible questions, and highlighting those that were the highest priority.
During:
Most importantly, make sure you answer the question! This seems obvious, but it’s so easy to get sidetracked by other insights that may seem important, but aren’t relevant to the scope of the project. Keep the question in the front of your mind through each stage of analysis (I found it useful to write it on the board each day).
Always check your numbers! Make sure the insights in the data make sense as it’s easy to miss something.
Keep communicating with the client. Particularly in the first project, the scope of what you are able to deliver within the limited time will inevitably change as the week goes on. Make sure to keep the client in the loop and check that they’re happy with any updates.
Check in with the team at the start and end of project time. With projects like this, the team are often working independently, but it's useful to know what everyone else is working on to keep consistency and avoid too much overlap. Schedule time to check in regularly and ensure that at these points everyone has their laptop off and is paying attention to everyone else in the room.
Enforce breaks! This is hard, but important.
Focus on PM tasks. While the team are working you should be away from the data, focusing on other things. As PM your role is to guide the project and ensure the team are on track. Things you can do while the team are building dashboards include: building a template and colour scheme for the final dashboard (this is hugely helpful for any last minute Friday magic); emailing client to keep them up to date; keeping clear notes (which is useful for handovers and reflective logs); building presentation slides early so they are ready to go by Friday.
Finally, as project manager you are there to support your team. Check in with them regularly! Its their first client project too and they are probably as stressed and overwhelmed as you are - listen to their ideas, talk through complex calculations with them and ask how they’re doing. Also, bring snacks!!! A team with sweet treats is a happy team!
If you want anymore top tips, this blog from Claudina Mukangabo was very useful before my week as PM.