Welcome to the Productive Project Manager Articles

Project Managers, Do you have repeatable processes and approaches?Do you know what's challenging and frustrating, having to start again for something you know you've done before?Trying to remember how you did it or where that file you created a few months back was stored can waste a lot of time.

There have been so many times when I wished I had used neutral thinking as a Project Manager. ⁠⁠The most obvious is getting a crappy email from a client or a not particularly helpful teammate or manager, and I’ve sent an angry or defensive reply straight away.

No one likes a problem, and in some cases, the fix needed cannot be done for some time but with a client demanding change, this can be difficult to manage.Whether you work in an agency or client side, it doesn’t matter. Managing expectations is problematic as to get the expected solution; you might be held back by a lack of knowledge/skills, capacity in the team or just the budget or approval to do it.

There are two types of checklists. The Process Checklist which removes the thinking, so you can do repetitive tasks faster, maintain quality standards and be consistent in everything you do. The Outlier Checklist which covers actions you might need to do, think of, and check but not consistently.

Did you know 28% of your working week is lost to task switching, procrastination and distractions around the office and home? This shocking stat is from the book, The One Thing by Gary Keller, which I highly recommend. We have to do task switching as Project Managers all the time, but we often do it without realising it. Can you imagine getting back 28% of your week to work on what you want?

Mobile use can be overwhelming, the feeling of always having to check it, whether checking it's in your pocket as you move around or have you got any new messages since the last time you checked. It's incredibly distracting, kills our focus and drains our willpower and often without realising its negative impact on our performance at work.

The average professional spends 28% of their day reading and answering emails. That's a massive 2.6 hours per day and 120 messages received per day*. I'm sure you've had days where you could add more to that!

Often when you hear about habits and productivity, it’s about working hard, how much you create, staying focused etc…What’s not always talk about as much is self-care. Making sure the focus is on you, may sound selfish to some, but the more you work on yourself, the better you relationships will be, your productivity increase and many other aspects of your life can improve.

Effective communication is critical for the success of any project. In project management, communication is vital in keeping all team members informed, motivated, and on track to meet project goals and deadlines. It helps team members coordinate their efforts, resolve conflicts, and make informed decisions.

So can you have the best day ever or even the perfect day? That could be reducing how much you procrastinate, being more focused and present, achieve what you planned to do. This approach can move you one step closed to achieving that perfect day.

Don’t you hate getting last-minute requests at the end of the day? I know I do. It’s especially frustrating if it then causes you to work late, as quite often, if the sender just asked you earlier, you could have helped. This is a quick and easy way to avoid those last-minute changes at the end of the day.

This productivity tip is actually five tips as it's the five most impactful things that have improved my productivity at work, and when done together throughout the day, they have a massive impact on the amount of work I produce, plus the value it creates.

Project status meetings can be long and often low on value; if you have a remote team, there is a much more efficient way of running them that can be done in minutes.

Do you sometimes struggle with meetings that seem to have a lot of talk but not a lot of value? I probably didn’t need to ask that, as meetings in the workplace are often very low on value but high on time for so many.

Performance algorithms are a simple but powerful way to improve your performance, avoid procrastination and fight off those inner negative thoughts, and they're so simple to create.

No one enjoys sharing bad news, whether that’s a mistake you’ve made, a teammate has, or just a significant delay on a project. It happens though, and as a Project Manager, you need to be ready to share the news with your project stakeholder and take responsibility.

Don't let your days control what you do, be proactive and plan your day so you can take back control.

If you struggle with nerves before a big meeting, interview or any event, this is a quick and easy way to become calmer and improve your performance.

Neutral thinking is a power-up for Project Managers when you use it. You can stay focused on what's important, and just as importantly, you're calm, and your stress levels reduce.

Change is going to happen whether you’re working with the Waterfall approach, Agile or any other delivery methodology. It just comes in different forms. But change shouldn’t be seen as a negative; change is about improvements, doing what’s right and what’s needed for the business and its users.

Story Points are often misunderstood and misused by teams and in some cases render them useless. In this post, we look at how you can educate the team on what Story Points are and how to use them.

The Waterfall methodology or model is the traditional approach to project management. It breaks down the stages of a project into sequential phases.

A user story gets its name from how it should be used, not how it should be written. A story should be told in a natural way through a good conversation. A good story conversation is about the who, why and not the what.

There is a simple approach called reflections which I originally heard from Ed Mylett where you allocate some set time to think about key events that have happened that day or week. You then write down in a weekly learning log the key things you would do differently next time.

This approach is an excellent note-taking strategy for meetings when you want a clear separation between what you hear in the meeting, versus what you have learnt or what you need to do after the meeting. 

How many times have you created an agenda, or been passed an agenda for a meeting and thought, “Wow, great agenda, I love how this is written and presented and the agenda items are so exciting, I can’t wait to get started.”

This is fun and really simple Scrum retrospective you can run with minimal stationery. It’s easy to understand and uses the simple start, stop and continue approach to retrospectives, which many teams are familiar with.

You might want to know what Scrum is, or you’re using Scrum and having some problems, or you just to learn more about it. This introduction to Scrum is a mixture of the Scrum fundamentals, so pretty much what you get in the Scrum guide, mixed in with real-life experiences from within a digital agency.

This approach is starting to have a significant impact with me, my team and within our agency when it comes to setting goals at work, and that's creating goals for everything we do.

This is a very simple retrospective idea that has a big impact on all teams. Other teams will be surprised when one full team of people approached their desks with a "Thank you" card. 

The importance of habits

In Project Management common sense goes a long way, so if it doesn’t feel right then there is usually a problem. These Project Management tips are some of the key things that are vital for success

If you’re looking for a great way to take notes in a meeting, come up with ideas or just anything where you need to get a lot of information down on paper fast, you can’t go far wrong with creating a Mind Map.

Story mapping is a great way to you visualise the stories you tell and create about a product or services. You don’t have to be creating software, it could be anything as it really helps you see the full journey for your customer, then break it down into sub-features

This tool will help you find out what you should NOT be spending time on and help you either automate them, delegate them or eliminate them!

This is a great game to play with teams who are new to Agile and frameworks like Scrum. It teaches the attendees the benefits of working in sprints, planning, retrospectives and teamwork.

Agile, simply means able to move quickly and easily, that’s it!

There are a number of terms you’ll consistently hear when working with Agile frameworks like Scrum, Kanban or just discussing an Agile approach in general

The simplest description is the Product Owner decides on the what, the Development team work out the how and the Scrum Master help the team achieve the how.

Retrospectives can sometimes get repetitive and the last thing you want is the team going through the motions with their feedback. The Sail Boat approach gets the team up and involved right from the start and working together. 

This post has been created to provide a simple overview of the five key Scrum ceremonies.

To take control of my week ahead, day to day and make sure I recognise what didn’t go well, I follow these three steps to maximise my productivity. 

Do you want to be left behind, moving along at a pace where you’re busy and feel like you’re getting stuff done, but you’re not achieving anything significant?

Sometimes you come across motivational and inspiring quotes online and look at the person saying it or re-quoting it and think, do they really mean that or they just forwarding it on in the hope of a few likes or shares.

If you’re looking to become a Project Manager you have a couple of options to do this. There is the study-heavy path, which could start with a University-based degree followed by various certification courses.

Portfolio planning is often seen as a big sophisticated approach to managing projects, but it’s only as complicated as you make it. 

Alongside the contract, a statement of work describes the work required by your client and agreed by you. It lays out the services you'll provide, timelines, deliverables, assumptions and the costs.

A Scrum Master is not a Project Manager, and a Project Manager is not a Scrum Master, the roles are very different as they have a different set of responsibilities and approach to working with teams.

For a Project Manager, one of the most likely causes of confrontation on a project or when a project is closing are the project deliverables.

I've created these ten steps to help you structure how you plan a project from day one. Each step includes additional tips and approaches that you can take and adjust for your project.

Remote working has been a thing for many years now, but for some companies, it’s always had an air of distrust about it.

Thousands of companies around the world are adapting to the new way of working, and it’s changing the way we think about how we work and how we recruit.

nterviewing for the role of a Project Manager, Junior Project Manager or Senior Project Manager can be daunting, but with the right preparation, you can deliver with confidence and in a relaxed state. 

How to Run Kick-Ass Meetings was first discussed in the “Surviving Remote Project Management“ Webinar.

How to stay in control of your project was first discussed in the “Surviving Remote Project Management“ Webinar

How to Maximise Team Collaboration was first discussed in the “Surviving Remote Project Management“ Webinar

A retrospective is an opportunity to learn and improve as a team. It doesn’t matter what type of team, the industry or methodology, a retrospective is an extremely valuable approach for continuous improvement.