Hello Reader,
I was recently the project manager for week 6 of our cohort - with the task of creating YouTube videos for The Information Lab. My only previous experience making YouTube videos is from creating showreels to send off on Spotlight, Mandy & backstage.
I want to preface this blog by stating that I thoroughly enjoyed being PM and that my group worked immensely well and produced fantastic content. I quite enjoy speaking with people in general & managing people - so it was something particularly in my wheelhouse.
As the 6th project manager, I had the prior experience of witnessing how my peers managed the cohort & as a result I knew how each member in my cohort likes to be managed. Some need structure, some don't want to be watched over & some do. You need to manage people in the way that matches your personality whilst also contouring your leadership to each person in your group. Or you can simply be a dictator and tell them exactly what you want - but that wasn't really for me and I fear neglects:
- The consultancy aspect
- Removes the creators ownership of their work, and thus potentially their care about it. If you get to create something yourself, naturally you care more about it than something you've been instructed to create.
Based on the brief I'd received I'd made a fairly detailed plan on what I wanted to do; but with the above thoughts in my mind didn't implement all of them or share them all, as I didn’t want to overwhelm everyone on Monday morning - or make them feel like they didn’t need to contribute / come up with ideas for what was quite a fun task to brainstorm for.
Rather than speak in detail about the actual work created etc, I'll mention things that I found particularly effective considering my cohorts availability was incredibly shaky due to extraneous reasons. The most important of which for me was communication: to the client, to my coach, to my cohort. All of this paved the way for a smooth project.
Keeping your coach for the week aware of the environment and the project is mandatory anyway, but I made a specific effort to ask for my coach's thoughts on how the things were currently proceeding, and any improvements that could be made early on - this allowed the group & I to optimize the way we communicated information to the client.
The expectations for the client needed to be managed clearly, as the group's general output shifted fairly rapidly each day with each extraneous constraint that emerged. The client does not need to be made aware of the intricacies of these constraints, but does need to be notified that the expectation of work will be affected as a result. Managing that expectation was vital - as the expectation from the Monday through to the Friday had changed, but not negatively because of how clearly and consistently I had communicated throughout the week.
Piggybacking from the above point, I made sure that I knew the current state of affairs for everyone in my cohort. How their work was going, if they were struggling, were they mentally checked in with the work, did they need help? Luckily I'm frighteningly open to dialogue so they knew they could approach me whenever - but recognizing if somebody has been struggling with something for 10 minutes or more in silence & continuing to let them suffer isn’t the quality of a good PM.
Two additional smaller qualities that helped me; not appearing to be stressed/keeping the energy of the group high & Google Slides. An innovative product I created, for sure. Something our cohort really struggled with was compiling our notes together and the structuring of our presentations. Having a shared Google Slides that I ensured we all used for documentation and our first call back following the debrief, cemented a very detailed plan and shell for our presentation by the end of Monday.
Overall I thoroughly enjoyed being PM for my cohort & I'd do it again (with hope that those words won’t haunt me).