What are projects and project management? | Sajed Khan

1. What are projects and project management? Sajed khan

2. Plan for session What are projects and project management? Common pitfalls and how to avoid them To define up front or not to define up front? Roles and split brain Thinking that process rules all! Communication Wordpress plugins Over to you… Please ask questions as we go – I like the interruptions and it’s more interesting for everyone!

3. Hello! A quick bit about me… Degree in Computer Science After Uni a variety of management roles in Software development SMEs Large government organisations Now working as a freelance web developer, project manager and business analyst WordPress Other CMSs – Joomla, Magento, Shopify Mobile app front-end development - Ionic

4. And now… a quick bit about you too… How many of you do projects where there is no project manager role? How many of you do the project manager role as well as something else? Any common pitfalls you want me to cover?

5. What is the difference between projects and business as usual? Run your business Carry out known processes and procedures, do business as usual Identify potential for improvement Embed changes Change your business Run projects, programmes and portfolios

6. What are projects and project management? A project is usually defined as: • Having fixed time scales with start and end dates and milestones • Having a team temporarily formed to produce specific outcomes and products • Creating something new that has not been made before Let’s start with the definition of a project… By its very nature a project will consist of a lot of unknowns. Successful projects are those that can adapt to unknowns as they arise and turn them to their advantage.

7. What are projects and project management? Project management is the application of processes, methods, knowledge, skills and experience to achieve the project objectives. APM – Association of Project Management Now let’s have a go at defining what project management is…

8. Common pitfalls and how to avoid them To define up front or not to define up front? Roles and split brain Thinking that process rules all! Communication

9. To define up front or not to define up front? There are a few different approaches to project management out there: Waterfall project management, Agile, Six Sigmaand Kanban. Today’s talk isn’t going to go into details about these methods (but if pressed I would say Agile is the most helpful for a typical Wordpress project). But I will give some thoughts on one of the big questions: how much do you define what is needed before you start a project?

10. To define up front or not to define up front? Defining things takes time, if done proportionately it usually pays off. Resist the urge to dive in straight away. Resist the urge to nail all the details down up front. It’s a balance. Help your client articulate what they want users to do on the site -> call to actions Their ideas will often be centered around what makes their business’s life easier and not what a user really needs. Usually it will come back to simple things like sell something or get them to sign up to something.

11. To define up front or not to define up front? Mock-up some wireframes to clarify content and layout before you start. At a min draw a picture on a piece of paper, send a photo to them and say this is what you mean? Build a quick prototype using an off-the-shelf theme to illustrate how the layout and content will behave before putting time into theming. Involve your client often in what you’re doing (more on this later) Whatever you define, it will probably change. Roll with it!!!

12. To define up front or not to define up front? And try and get the answers to these bonus questions: What is the most important thing to you, time, cost or quality? What are your critical success factors? TIME QUALITY COST

13. Thank You