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The concept of project management is simple: make sure everyone knows what they are supposed to be doing…and then does it. Easy, right?
It can be. Sometimes projects are straightforward. More often, though, clients are working on multiple projects or initiatives at once. You will need to coordinate between them and various team members (or even multiple teams) to keep everyone on the same page and moving forward. When that happens, having the right tools and practices in place can be the difference between an ontime launch with a congenial work environment and paralysis, confusion, and the blame game.
Get Organized with Asana
and Google Drive
Organizing and keeping track of information is a core component of project management. There are many apps out there that can help you do that. We use Asana to track our tasks and GoogleDrive to share documents and assets. I’ll use our processes as an example, but find what works for you and your organization.
In Asana, we use the “Board” view by default. This allows us to create columns, like one might on a whiteboard, and then place tasks into those columns. Typically, we use a status system that goes from “To Do” through “In Progress” and “Ready for Review” to “Complete.” If we need extra columns to hold information or backlog items, they are easy to add. The important thing is that by creating all our tasks in Asana, nothing gets lost or forgotten and it’s easy to assign tasks to the appropriate person.
Having a shared storage space for documents and assets, such as GoogleDrive or Dropbox, is essential. It means that those documents and assets don’t get lost in email inboxed or long email threads. We prefer the Google ecosystem because it makes collaborating within documents or sheets simple.
Facilitate Communication with Slack, Meetings, and Email
A large part of making sure everyone is on the same page is establishing clear lines of communication. There are three standard ways to communicate with clients and your team: email, messaging, and meetings. They all have their place so let’s break them down.
Email is great for items that are either not urgent or of middling complexity. Something is coming up next week and it’s pretty simple? Great! Use email to get the task to the right person. Email is perfect for these situations because they take less time than a meeting and are more relaxed than instant messaging. They also give you enough time to clearly lay out your thoughts or the requirements of a task. However, if something needs to be done ASAP or is more nuanced, one of our other communication methods might be better.
Instant Messaging
It is essential to have a tool for instant messaging within your team and if you can get your client in there, that’s great too. That might mean Slack, Google Chat, or iMessage. Whatever you use, make sure everyone is on board because instant messaging is your best tool for getting information quickly. The client has a question that you’re not sure about? Let the client know you’ll get them that information and message the person who would know.
Meetings
There are really two types of meetings you will generally run as a project manager: Weekly meetings and project meetings.
When you have an ongoing relationship with a client and you’re working consistently and iteratively, short weekly meetings make sense. Generally, these will be 15-30 minutes once per week and allow both parties to review progress, ask questions, and provide feedback.
Once the work is relatively complete, you may want to transition to only having meetings with new projects come up. These tend to be a little longer (30-60 minutes) and allow clients to explain the requirements of a project, and your team to ask questions, with more precision and less wasted time than a long email exchange.
Provide Structure and Follow Up with Meeting Minutes
As great a tool as Asana can be, it can be a little awkward trying to create tasks on the fly during a meeting. Instead, create a “Meeting Minutes” document. In this document, you can set up an agenda for the meeting – including who is at the meeting, when it’s taking place, and what needs to be discussed. Then, you can either include a separate note section, or make notes under each topic. If there are any follow up actions after the meeting, you can note those down here as well and then send an email reminder when appropriate.
So, there you have it. That should be enough to get you started. However, if you are looking for more nuance, aka the “dealing with people” part, see Advanced Project Management.
Good luck!
