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Brett Harned, Founder of the Digital PM Summit & Director of Education at TeamGantt
When you’re busy, it’s easy to let things like project plans, status reports and well-planned meetings fall by the wayside. But when these things slip, so does communication and trust with stakeholders.
No matter how you work—agile, waterfall, hybrid, etc.—you have a plan in place. There are a series of steps that you will take to get the work done. And to keep things moving, you’ll need stakeholders to be involved and in the loop. They need to know when and where to plug in so you can negotiate risks, get feedback and meet deadlines.
Brett Harned, Founder of the Digital PM Summit and Director of Education at TeamGantt, outlines three solid PM tools that can help foster better communication, more trusting relationships and a brighter future for your projects. Listen in.
Carl: Please welcome to The Bureau Briefing, my colleague, my good friend, and somebody who's been on the show more than once, Mr. Brett Harned. How are you Brett?
Brett: Hey, I'm doing great. How are you?
Carl: I'm good. I reached out because I was reading the blog on The Bureau Briefing... The Bureau briefing. Here we go. I was reading the blog on the Bureau website and there was a recap, kind of a webinar you had done all about improving communication with stakeholders and it reminded me of a lot of things that I need to do when I'm communicating, and I just wanted to get this information out to everybody listening to the podcast.
Carl: So, what I would love is if you can just kind of kick it off talking about one of the things I did not expect when I was reading the blog, which was you started off talking about project plans in terms of improving communication. So, talk about how that works.
Brett: Yeah. I think to take it back one step before I get into plans. I think a lot of us enter projects with the kind of right intentions. Everybody wants to do the right thing. We have some solid communication channels and ways of doing things but a lot of times on projects things go sideways and that can be just because we're not paying attention about the way that we're communicating. And I think it's important to remember that communication isn't just phone calls, and email, and Slack messages, right? It's a lot bigger than that. And that's where I think project plans come in.
Brett: So, me with a PM background, I'm the person to say that I think a project plan can be the most critical form of communication on a project, right? Because it truly does set the expectation for what is going to happen, when, and kind of how, right? And kind of the pacing of those things. So I always recommend starting with a plan. Now there are people out there who are probably saying, "Well, we're agile and we don't have a plan. That's not the way we work." Got to love that.
Carl: I thought you were going to say we're agile and we don't have a clue but please continue.
Brett: No it's not that they don't have a clue. No. Not saying that. Don't put words in my mouth. No. So, what I'm saying is there is a process and there is a structure for how you work, so that can be considered a plan. There also are things like actual project plans that are line by line and showing kind of what's happening day to day on a project, and those are great. And I think that no matter the way that you're working, you do have to have some semblance of a plan. So that plan could be the line-by-line project plan or a Gantt chart. It could also be just an overall review of process and how you work together, and so let's think about agile, right?
Brett: Within agile you've got a series of ceremonies or if you're using Scrum, you're doing your sprint planning, your sprint reviews. You have to have a way of communicating things like deliverables and when people will need to review things, deadlines, and timing, and just constraints around getting things done because let's face it, without a plan, you're probably going to go off track. Your timeline is going to fall apart, you're going to miss deadlines. You need a way to kind of rally the team and your stakeholders around a set of information that says how we're going to get this thing done and when it's going to be done.
Carl: So, it really establishes the guidelines for the stakeholder on what to expect.
Brett: Absolutely.
Carl: Do you find any difficulty in getting a stakeholder to pay attention to a project plan?
Brett: Oh, of course. I say it all the time. No client or stakeholder is created equally. Some people just get it, and are cool and easy to work with, but most don't. Right? If you're working in a consulting organization, like an agency, you have to do a lot of work to make sure that you know that stakeholders are understanding what the heck you're talking about, right? And they understand how and why you're doing things and that's where our plan really helps. When you're in-house, same difference, right?
Brett: A stakeholder is a stakeholder. They want your team to develop a thing or produce a thing. Sometimes they don't care about how you do it, and that's sometimes even more problematic than anything else because if they don't care, that means they're going to check out on your process and not step in when you need them. And we all know that projects require partnership, right? So, the beginning of that partnership is rallying people around the details and making sure they know what the expectations are around how they'll participate and how they'll help to make the project a success. I can't speak.
Carl: I was in for the other version as well. I was like, "Oh, we have something new." I'm just thinking. Now say stakeholders, this is always something, it feels like these projects that are going on seem to be kind of bolted onto their day. They've got other things going on, so how do you kind of crack that code? How do you get them to pay attention?
Brett: Yeah. That's a really, really good question. I think first of all it is sitting down at the beginning of a project just to talk about how you'll work, what the plan will look like even if you haven't created that plan yet. How you'll communicate, right? What channels are you using?
Carl: Right.
Brett: How do they prefer to communicate? How are they working with their team? And then I think once you get into the project, it's about creating some routines that kind of force people to stay in the loop. And my favorite one, so like the second thing that I always recommend is doing regular status reports, which I understand and recognize that the stuff I'm talking about is like super basic and elementary, but a lot of people don't do this stuff. And I think a status report, if you can put it on a weekly or biweekly routine depending on your scope and how your team and stakeholders want to communicate.
Brett: It's going to do you a favor by communicating a lot of things. It's going to communicate what's happened on the project within the last time that you delivered a report, what's coming up next. So, it's rallying everyone around what is happening now. What we will not revisit, so if a stakeholder has approved something, you included in that status report to say, "Hey. This is 100% done, we are not going back on that decision." It'll provide an update on your percent complete or how you feel you're making progress on the project, and maybe even kind of an update on where you stand with a budget, so you can be really clear about that stuff. And then you'll detail upcoming tasks and assignments or milestones or meetings that are going to happen. And then any action items, like the things that are kind of a part of the project that aren't necessarily tasks per se. There things that you might need from a client or a stakeholder, like if they're providing content, or if they need to help you schedule a meeting, that kind of thing.
Brett: And then when you pull all of that stuff together, you're able to look at your project as a whole and where it is at that moment. And think through, "Hmm. Am I seeing any issues? Are there potential risks with what's coming up?" So that then you can have a conversation with your stakeholders about it. So, if you have that stakeholder who isn't necessarily keyed into what's happening on the project at all times, then you have this regular status report where you can keep them into it, right?
Brett: So, you can deliver, I usually deliver our written status report and I recommend setting up a routine call that goes along with it. And the reason that I do that is because I know how project management it is and I know how it's really easy to push that kind of admin type paperwork stuff to the side and focus on the people, because that's what we really want to do. But if you put it on that schedule and you have a call, then you have to take the time in advance of that call to set up the report and make sure that your communications are actually landing on a call with people. Because otherwise, let's face it, if you get an email with a status report, you're probably not even going to open the email or read it because you've got a lot of other things going on as a stakeholder.
Carl: Right. You want to go home on time and you've got these other things that are screaming louder than somebody saying this is what we got done.
Brett: You also kind of want to trust the people who are doing the work. But in the back of your mind as a stakeholder, you probably don't have 100% of that trust with another team or a project manager. So when you get that status report, I feel like it helps to build that trust and confidence.
Carl: I would totally agree with that. And I think you're right, most stakeholders are a little fragile. I mean for myself, if I'm ever a stakeholder in a project or as a leader or whatever, it's one of those where it's like I just want to trust it but I also don't trust myself.
Brett: Yep.
Carl: So, I've fallen into my own patterns. And what I really like about some of the stuff you just said is you're looking for their preferences. How do you want to communicate? How often do you want to communicate? How do you want us to deliver things? I love the way that you said, "This is 100% complete. We will not revisit it." Because that is an alarm that should sound, right. All right. Like if, if I do this now I'm going to screw something up.
Carl: One thing I'm curious about is when you go in, I'm sure you do this, but finding what is the pain point for the stakeholder? Is it time, is it cost, is it exposure? What kind of things are going to be most important to them? And then craft the messaging to reinforce that as well. Because one of the things you mentioned was you know, timeline and, and if it is, that's the most important thing. Figuring out how to lead with that.
Brett: Yeah. So I think the way that I've always done that as a PM in an agency, and I even recommend this for in-house teams, you know, I would be a part of stakeholder interviews and I would contribute to the questions that are in that stakeholder interview, right? So you get a really well-rounded understanding of what every stakeholder is bringing to the table, and then you can kind of craft your messaging or your meetings or whatever it might be around that so that you know that your message is landing for those people.
Brett: So yeah, it could be that some people you know, are really focused on a plan and talking about steps and milestones. It could be that they really only want to be involved when you need their input. So you kind of have to figure that out. And that's one of the hardest parts I think about being a PM because you do have to kind of absorb a lot of information and personalities and behaviors and then figure out the best way to craft your messages and get them out to them in a way that's going to land and stick. And that's really tough.
Carl: No, that's just as you were saying it, I was thinking that's probably the characteristic that a lot of people don't think about with project managers, is the need to be a little bit of a chameleon, right? To be able to work with people in different ways and be a therapist and be-
Brett: Absolutely. Absolutely. That's why I wrote my book. Right? Project Management for Humans. The whole idea is that, you know, people think that PMs are really rigid and strict, and I think that's because there is kind of a precedent that's been set by the Project Management Institute that everything is really tactical, right? PMs make plans, they work in spreadsheets, they work on budgets. Like that is just one part of the job. To me, the more interesting part of the is the human aspect and building relationships, getting to know people, understanding motivations and helping those people to guide projects to really good decisions. A sound strategy, you know, a successful completion.
Brett: And that's where things like plans and a status report, those real technical things come in and help and those things are kind of the backbone. A plan is absolutely the backbone of your project, but really what you want to do is put yourself out front and build trust and get to know people, be a good communicator, and hopefully everything else falls into place or at least helps to guide you.
Carl: Yeah, that makes so much sense. And we used to talk about this back when I was an engine about the ideal project manager is somebody who cares enough that you care.
Brett: Yeah.
Carl: But also is able to talk to you in a real way about the impact that's going to happen if something's not done. And it doesn't cause you friction, it causes you to act.
Brett: Right. Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, the motivation of a PM shouldn't just to be to complete the project on time and on budget, right? Like it's much bigger than that. It's more personal than that. But unfortunately that's kind of where traditional project management sits. I'm seeing, you know, I've been doing a lot of research and attending some PMI conferences just to see what's outside of our digital PM sphere and I'm excited. Like I went to their PMI global conference here in Philly in October of last year and saw that there's much more of a focus on people and communications and all of this stuff that we've been talking about in DPM for like seven, eight years now.
Brett: So that's cool to see that kind of moving forward. And I'm hoping that like what we've been talking about with digital PM starts to kind of gain a little bit more traction within those circles, and really at the end of the day kind of transforms the project manager role to one that is more strategic and more personal, and really critical to organizations. Because I think that if it's treated the right way it can be.
Carl: And project managers, digital project managers especially, are leaders.
Brett: Absolutely.
Carl: I mean they are leaders and it's not always recognized that they are sometimes seen as task masters. And I think the biggest challenge, and you talked about this also in the webinar and on the blog, but when you get different personalities, right? If you've got multiple stakeholders and you're in a meeting, what are some of the like best practices when a project manager is having to get people through those meetings?
Brett: Yeah. So meetings are, that's a fun topic because let's face it, everybody hates meetings. You know, in the consulting work I did, the biggest problem that every organization in house and agency face was meetings. We have too many of them and we hate them. So my kind of answer to that is, okay, well meetings are a critical part of any business. Any project, right? And you've got to do them, but maybe you're approaching them the wrong way. Right? To me the biggest issue is that someone will have like a request. It'll be a request for, let's say, to discuss a deliverable, you know, just something just kind of pulling something out of there and right away a PM will be like, all right, let me schedule a meeting, right? They'll get into calendar and you'll find the first slot where they can get everybody available.
Brett: Not thinking about the fact that maybe you don't even need a meeting for that conversation, and maybe you don't even need the entire team for it either. Right? Like I'll just sit down, go to the calendar and schedule something. And I understand that in some cases you do have to just schedule something, but before you do like think about what the goal is for the meeting, right? How are you going to accomplish that goal in a meeting? And that's going to help you figure out if that goal could be accomplished in an email, a Slack chat, or like a quick conversation between three people and not 10 right? Save money, save time, make people happy. But then the next problem is that people will always just schedule an hour long meeting, right? So just because your Google calendar sets up a 30 minute or an hour long meeting doesn't mean that that's how much time you need to take.
Brett: So again, look back at those goals, look back at who needs to be a part of that meeting and then figure out how much time that you need. And then the biggest thing, and so I will say that this happened to me when I was managing a team of PMs and also had to manage a few projects of my own. I would get invited to every meeting, right? I would get meeting requests that would just have the name of the meeting and the meeting room, or the dial in number, with no context. And I was in a position where I had so much work, I didn't know what to do. And attending another meeting that felt like I didn't even know what it was about was just obnoxious to me.
Brett: So I made a rule. It was like, if you don't have an agenda in your meeting, I'm declining it. And that kind of made me realize that, oh well everybody doesn't know what goes into a good meeting agenda. Right? So basic meeting agenda, like list the goal list, the time and what's kind of in the agenda or the discussion points, along with who's responsible for it. And if there's stuff that I need to prepare for that meeting, like if it's a scope document or a deliverable, or something I need to look at and speak intelligently about, share that with me in advance, and give me time to prepare for the meeting.
Brett: Otherwise, it's just a waste of time. So when I did that, it actually started to work. So I would decline meetings and I would hear from the person right away, well why can't you make my meeting? This is really important. Like why should I go to the meeting? You're not even telling me what it's about. You know, you have to prepare people and if you don't prepare people it's their right to say no, I've got other things to do. Bigger priorities. So that kind of started to shift behavior a little bit in terms of meetings. And I think that's kind of helpful if you want to be seen as a rigid jerk like me.
Carl: No, but it's not just you. I mean you are a rigid jerk, but it's not just you. No, coming out of Design Leadership Camp last week, people started talking about death by meetings, calendar fatigue, all of these types of things, and one person said, you know, well, we have a rule. If there's not an agenda, we decline the meeting and somebody else said, we take that a little bit further if there's not an agenda and I don't know my role I decline the meeting.
Brett: Yeah, good point.
Carl: I think that's huge. I love the trifecta though. Save money, save time, make people happy. I think the ultimate meeting goals, but I just love the idea that it's going to make that person rethink the meeting as well, because if I don't have a role or my role is to be informed, there's another way that can happen. Or if my role is to help make a decision, okay, that's a little bit of a role, right? If my role is to actually act on a decision or execute something, I'm going to be in that meeting, right?
Carl: Because now I've got skin in it and it's way too important. So I really appreciate all of the things that you laid out there and, and I think it goes beyond project managers when we start talking about the calendar situation. I think that's a bigger issue because it's so easy now.
Brett: Absolutely.
Carl: I don't share my calendar. I don't think you share yours and, and it's one of those things that if you make it easy for people, they will fill it up. Like it's a goddamn coloring book, right?
Brett: Yeah, absolutely. I think the other thing is, it's important to know that if someone feels like they're not going to be valuable to a meeting after looking at your goal and agenda, it's absolutely fine for them to tap out, right? Don't expect everyone to come to a meeting if they don't feel like they're going to add value.
Brett: Now sometimes you might have to convince someone of why you think they're going to add value to a conversation. But in general you kind of have to trust people and know that they need to use the time, their own time at work wisely and sometimes meetings just isn't the best way for them to use their time.
Carl: I think that is so true. Especially you start looking at department wide or company wide meetings, depending on the organization, and you see people that are just zoned out knowing they got stuff to get done but they have to listen to what other people are doing. There's a way to get people plugged in with what the company is doing without taking that time away from them.
Brett: I agree. And I think one of the ways you can get people plugged in and kind of bought in to the meetings, aside from you know, being really explicit about what the meeting is about and what the agenda is, is setting some kind of team norms around how you do handle meetings. So I was in a situation once where I was leading a team, and the team was I think eight people total, and I think we had a standing kind of status update meeting that was like 15 minutes to 30 minutes a week. But then we had all kinds of other meetings too, right, where people would come and probably not always be necessary if I'm being honest, but I would, I would notice that we'd be in the meeting and the same people would be furiously typing on their laptops, looking at their phone or their iPad.
Brett: I actually caught somebody on eBay one time and I thought my head was going to explode. Not even kidding. So I made a rule. I was like, you know what, from here on out in this meeting, there are no devices allowed unless you have a laptop and you're taking notes or you're presenting information. Don't be on your phone, don't be on your iPad. Let's focus. Because when we focus we can get the work done faster. And people who are actually doing the work and paying attention in the meeting won't be annoyed by the people who are sitting here not doing the work and paying attention. And that shifted just a little bit of the team culture, in that they realized that we are all looking out for each other's time and we all recognize that not everybody has to be a part of every conversation. So you know, another rule that kind of came along with that was, hey, if you're not talking in this meeting, if you're here and you don't feel like you're necessary to the conversation, then you can go, you can leave the meeting.
Brett: Or I can say, "Hey, it seems like you're not really needed here. Feel free to go." And that frees up their time. And again, I feel like that builds trust among team members. But I also think we kind of started this conversation by talking about stakeholders.
Carl: Yeah.
Brett: And I think that all of this stuff applies to stakeholders too, right? Especially if you're working in separate organizations with completely different values and ways of working. So sorting through this kind of stuff with them at the very beginning or at least after the first meeting to do just a quick ketchup that says, "Hey, how did you feel about the way that meeting went and are there any things that we could change about it?" Again, it builds trust and that's what's most important, I think, in project management because when you don't have that trust, then you miss critical conversations or things become kind of the status quo and that's the last thing that you want.
Carl: Definitely. And I completely agree with what you're saying. Like we start off with stakeholders and we get into meetings, we talk about communication. All of this stuff is connected. It's all got to be there for a project to succeed. Now speaking of being there, nice transition, May 8th you have got the Digital PM and Operations Workshop, we're going to do that in New York, and our good friends at Harvest are letting us use their space. So what can people expect if they show up for that workshop, Brett?
Brett: Yeah, so a full day of learning, and really my part of the workshop is truly a workshop. It's interactive. There are exercises that I've developed where first we're kind of doing an exercise that'll help you to essentially look at your process and find where there's waste in that process and how you can kind of improve it. So I run through this entire exercise that I then encourage people to take back to their own teams, and then start a conversation about it. And from what I've heard, it's helping people to transform and cut out the waste and get things done faster.
Brett: Then we talk about collaboration and communications,, and types of communicators and we do a few exercises and group discussion around that as well. So it's really interactive. I think there's lots of really tangible takeaways for people who are not only new to project management, digital project management, but people who are experienced as well. And that that was really the goal for me was to come up with a workshop that people could leave feeling like, okay, I've got at least five things that I can start exploring or doing right away when I go back to work.
Brett: And then the second half of that is operations for project managers with Rob, Rob [Harr 00:25:40] . And I think the idea there is this is a little bit more advanced, right? Like what is the career path of the digital PM? And operations is certainly one pathway out of your digital PM career if that's what you're looking to do. So and even if it isn't, understanding what operations does and how it impacts projects and vice versa is really important. So I think that the two topics and workshops combined create this well-rounded day that that helps you to not only improve your process and improve your communications, but also improve the operations and profitability as well. So it sounds like a winner to me.
Carl: Yeah, I agree. And we have no stake in this at all.
Brett: Not at all.
Carl: Just our livelihood.
Brett: Yeah.
Carl: Well, Brett, thank you so much, and honestly, if you don't see that you have a role in this podcast, you're free to go now.
Brett: Oh, okay. I'm out of here.
Carl: Seriously, thank you so much. And everybody listening, thank you. And we'll be back next week with another episode. All the best.
