Date: 07.05.24 - 10.05.24
Stakeholders: Robbin Vernooij
Project Manager: Rui Pedro Fernandes Ramos
Team: Yan, Leo, Bruno, Tawab, Dominik, Aileen
TLDR:
Lots of fun in Power BI ( + Querry). A Lot of new Learnings and Explerience for the Team. Clients is very Happy.
Who was the placement with:
Chin & Beard Suds Co is an esteemed purveyor of luxury soap products. We opened in 2100 online and found great success with a wide customer base. This led to us opening some physical stores. In 2103 there was a pandemic, which we used as an opportunity to introduce antibacterial products.
By the beginning of 2105 Robbin, Founder and CEO, had been able to open 8 stores (4 in the North and 4 in London) because of strong sales. However, certain stores did not perform as expected and had to be closed.
The Task:
It is now January 2111 and our company is under performing. Robbin would like to gain a fresh perspective of his company to understand where improvements can be made.
Key investors on the board are showing signs of a lack of trust that the business can improve, so Robbin needs to demonstrate awareness of areas that may be causing issues, so that the team can formulate a plan to improve. The board is a group of experienced business owners and professionals so they won’t let anything slide that isn’t well supported by data and facts.
The good:
The Communication between Client and Us was awesome. Open to new Ideas and Informativ when we had questions about the Data. The Support by other DSDElers was also Ourstanding. Their Experience helped me making decisions about Project Management Strategies.
We had the possibility to work with Power-BI and try out a lot.
The Best:
The Team.
I thought it would be a lot more chaotic. After all, it was the first customer project. Considering that everything was new and no project structure had yet been created, the team did a great job and quickly adapted to the new conditions. As a PM I am happy to have them in my Team.
The bad:
Stress.
Unfortunately, we had 2 days less for the customer project, which increased the stress level enormously. It was working under constant time pressure.
Missing knowledge / experience
In our final presentation we presented our final dashboards. The presentation itself went well, but we could have talked a lot more about data preparation and the implementation process. I didn't yet know what exactly the customer would want to see in a Friday presentation. So after 30 minutes we were finished with the presentation. This also applies to our first presentation. No structured introduction of the team and very improvised structure.
Learnings:
Distribution of tasks within the group and structured exchange with the customer are essential. As soon as the team members have a task and are working on it independently, I as PM can step back a little and let them work on the organization.
Take your time when presenting. We have the time and we should take advantage of it. 2 hours have been set aside for the kick-off and the Friday presentation. These should be fully utilized to ask/answer questions and provide a deep insight into the project
Questions questions questions. Don't be afraid to ask questions. We're afraid that we might annoy the customer with questions, but if there's information we need, we can't avoid asking a question. We are only humans. Unfortunately not mentalists
Power Bi is fun. We learned what is possible with Power BI and, above all, what is not possible. This gave us a deeper understanding of the implementation options. It was cool that everyone had their own dashboard and could let off steam individually. A lot was experimented with and a lot was discarded. In the end, what counts is the experience gained.
Thanks:
To Robin. Very cool customer and also very helpful with questions. He made our lives a lot more pleasant
The biggest thanks goes to the team. Without you the project would not have been possible. You have made my life more pleasant :D