How to Leverage Your Project Management Methodoloy to Set Yourself Apart from Your Competition: Version 2

Beth Livingston – Project Management coaching

• First you must have a project management methodology
  • Set of guiding principles and processes
  • Random processes almost always result in project overruns
  • Repeatable Processes help increase efficiency, expectations are clear

Triple Threat

• Design
• Code
• Project Management

Project Management

• guiding principles and processes that define how to work…

Development

• …

Agile

• …

Six Productivity Principles for WordPress Project Management Success

• Define the job in detail with content first approach
• Get the right resources involved
• Estimate the time and cost often
• Break the job down
• Establish and stick to a change procedure
• Establish Interim and final acceptance criteria

Elements of a Good Project Management Methodology

• Proper estimating
• Resource management
• Work Breakdown structure
  • Activities
  • Phases
  • Tasks
• Approach to content collection
  • advice — content first: no content / stop working on website
• Acceptance management

Proper Estimating

• Abandon the crystal ball approach
• Don’t to and estimate what you don’t know
• Get rid of the “pad” as “charge control”
• Never provide a precise estimate

Resource Management

• People, plugins, hosting, blocks, other…

Work Breakdown Structure

• Phases, activities, tasks
• milestones
• 80 hour rule (what is this rule?)
• incremental approvals

Approach to Content Collection

• Content first?
• Define how you will determine content requirements
  • estimate content
  • set client expectations regarding …

Change Management

• Acknoldege change as inevitable
• Plan for it
• Manage it
• Use a change budget
• Implement change control without exception
• change at next payment interval — invoice tip

PM Methodology as a UVP

• detailed two step approach saves money
• cheaper to make changes early before its in production

designing around content increases efficiency

to do items

• Research 80 hour rule — project sprint deliverable at 80 hours… it can be flexible to your needs.
• Look up “Change Budget” (what is this?)
• Estimating gets better with experience
• don’t penalize clients for change
• Get slides form Rock High Development
• visit wproadmaps.com/wordcamp
• advice — 20-30% of full budget for change budget