Good communication leads to better collaboration, happier teams and more successful projects. But it can take real work to get people on the same page, especially when you’re dealing with competing priorities, personalities and job titles. With the help of solid tools—project plans, status reports and meeting guidelines—you can improve stakeholder communication and make things easier for everyone involved.
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As companies grow, scaling teams and delivery becomes a little—or a lot—more difficult. In the Bureau community, the general consensus is that systems thinking can help set people up for success. Looking back on Design Leadership Days, we gleaned operations insights from a wide range of different viewpoints. Some of the many highlights focused on org and design maturity, scaling delivery and aligning teams around OKRs.
What is the most important design skill? The answer may surprise you. Aarron Walter, VP of Design Education at InVision, shares what the research tells us, as well as six tips to make the greatest impact possible.
The little things seem so basic, yet they’re vital to the success of our projects, teams and organizations. Looking forward to this year’s Digital PM Summit, we were reminded of a thought-provoking session delivered by Sam Barnes, Senior Development Manager at Marks and Spence. As Sam illustrated, the little things make all the difference. Here are 10 basics that every effective leader gets right.
If you’re a fan of hands-on classroom-style training, you’re in luck. We’re hosting a series of workshops this year to help you improve how you run your operations, process, projects, team collaboration and more. Join us to uncover best practices and tried-and-true tactics. You’ll leave with new strategies and ideas to implement right away.
As the “leadership” part of the design leadership equation grows, many are grappling with new roles, responsibilities and challenges. Design leaders are pressed to prove the business value of design, determine organizational structures, manage DesignOps and much more. Join us for our first-ever Design Leadership Days, an opportunity to connect with fellow design leaders to share, network and grow together.
After months of review and scouting game-changing speakers and content, we’re excited to release this year’s agenda. With workshops, keynotes, presentations, breakout discussions, interactive sessions, lightning talks, networking and more, this year’s summit offers inspiration, actionable tactics and hands-on learning to help DPMs working at both agencies and in-house teams. So what can you expect to gain by joining us in October? Let’s walk through six DPM truths and some can’t-miss sessions from the agenda.
In digital project management, there’s no shortage of ways to go about organizing your teams, priorities and projects, and just as many tools to help you do it. Jira is becoming increasingly popular as DPMs discover its flexibility, usefulness and reporting capabilities. David Harned, Director, PMO at Monotype, is a leading Agile thinker who wrote the book on Jira—literally. Looking forward to his DPM Summit session, we caught up with David to learn more about his background and the content of his session, “Managing Internal Projects & Agile Teams using JIRA.”
Light switches, lever door handles, touch screens…many products that make our lives easier were created because of a disability need. Do these solutions work for everyone? Yes. As Yvette Pegues, Corporate Disability and Diversity Consultant and former IBM Networking/Cloud Engineer, points out, that’s the purpose of inclusion. Six years ago, Yvette’s brain fell into her spinal column, the result of a genetic condition. Yvette underwent brain surgery that resulted in the total loss of use of both legs. Tune in to Yvette’s Digital PM Summit session to learn how digital project managers determine the culture of a project, and how that culture impacts the entire project, client relationships and the end user experience.
Can Agile help you to become a better leader, spouse, parent and overall human? Dave Prior, Certified Scrum Trainer at LeadingAgile, and Mika Trottier, Partner Acceleration Lead at Shopify, say yes. Catch their first-hand account of running Agile experiments on themselves to better their work and home lives, and learn how you can do the same.
It takes cash to make your company run and grow, and to safeguard against surprises or setbacks. So how do you keep your cash flow strong? Jody Grunden, CEO and Co-founder of Summit CPA Group, shares tools and strategies to avoid five common cash flow mistakes. Learn how to stretch every dollar so you have access to your money when you need it.
At work, we often enjoy one another’s friendship, but not a lot of attention is paid to the art of becoming a great team or a great leader. Traci Barrett, Co-Founder of Navigate the Journey, has some recommendations to remedy that. Working as a leadership and strategic consultant, she has helped leaders and teams to improve, and has proven recommendations to help others who would like to do the same.
Many agencies struggle to get a grip on what the future holds. Without knowing what tomorrow will bring, it’s easy to make poor decisions or suffer course corrects. What if you could predict the future using data you already have or can begin gathering? With forecasting, you can. Once mastered, forecasting unlocks a wide range of business insights. It’s something of a skeleton key that can help you gain control of nearly every aspect of your business. Looking forward to our first-ever Forecasting Workshop, we caught up with Rob Harr, Vice President of Sparkbox and the workshop facilitator, for a quick intro on what forecasting is, why it’s a worthwhile investment and the basic steps to get started.
When your team is small, and your shop is growing, it seems there’s never enough time or people to do it all. As an owner, you may take on the lion’s share of admin tasks, managing everything from invoicing to payroll, HR and more. How do you know when it’s time to start handing things off? When it comes to things like payroll, HR and benefits, many shops turn to a PEO (Professional Employer Organization). Learn more about what a PEO is, and how it could help your business.
A lot of digital shops devote a good amount of time to R&D. Working on new code, new products or new processes not directly related to billable client work. Crafting solutions that don’t yet exist…trying, failing and trying some more…promoting a culture of learning and innovation along the lines of Google’s “20 percent time.” If this sounds like your business, Uncle Sam may have something extra for you come tax time.
What does it take to get the work you want, and charge what it’s worth? Dan Mall, Founder of SuperFriendly, Co-founder / CEO of SuperBooked and author of Pricing Design, believes success lies in positioning and pricing. To get the work you want, it’s important to narrow your focus to attract the right clients, price yourself appropriately and speak confidently about the value you deliver. Like anything worth doing, the process isn’t easy. It takes real work and commitment to see results. Curious how to get started?
It’s a common story: You start a shop because you love the work. Design, development, strategy, PR, copywriting or what have you. As more clients come in, you hire a person…and then another. Suddenly, you’re running a business: handling sales, client services, recruiting, operations and other tasks. You’re earning your MBA by fire. Your agency is growing, but at a price. So how do you take control of your agency before it takes control of you?
Digital projects are unique, and take a special sort of someone to see them through. When you’re orchestrating sites, apps, interactive experiences and such, you have your hands in all the pots: strategy, content, UX, design, tech, QA, et al. DPMs are natural leaders…but they’re not always seen as such. What gives? Meghan McInerny, Chief Operating Officer at Clockwork, has a theory. Tune in to discover the eight features of a leader, and how to lead with influence, rather than your title.
Some people are born to do a job. Others are meant to define it, then spill the secrets on how you can master it. Enter, Rachel Gertz. All the clues are there: a background in education, time served as a DPM, strategist and writer. A quick wit, contagious laughter and no-holds-barred commitment to make project management—and the digital world—a better place. Looking forward to the Digital PM Summit, we caught up with Rachel for some Q&A on how she got started, where she sees digital project management headed and what advice and resources she’d lend to DPMs.
If you’re experiencing pain in your business—feeling stuck, frustrated or out of sync with your team, it could be a signal that your business operating system needs a reboot. But how do you know what’s working and what’s not—and what to do about it? It can be hard to define your strengths, weaknesses and next steps, especially if you don’t know what you’re looking for. Luckily, peers, experts and business frameworks such as EOS® can help show you the way. We caught up with Tom Barrett, a Bureau of Digital subject matter expert and Professional EOS Implementer™, for an inside look at the Entrepreneurial Operating System®.