The Digital Project Manager is the home of digital project management inspiration, how-to guides, tips, tricks, tools, funnies, and jobs. We provide project management guidance for the digital wild west where demanding stakeholders, tiny budgets and stupid deadlines reign supreme.
Planning a vacation? In order to step away from work without having to answer emails during your time off, you need a successful project handoff. In this episode, PM Mackenzie Dysart walks you through the steps to make project transitions a breeze so you can enjoy your vacation and ensure you don’t return to chaos!
When requirements are too loose, your results are undefined and unpredictable. Too tight, and you end up with blind spots. In this episode, PM expert Kelly Suter tell us how to nail the requirements gathering process so your clients know what’s being delivered and your teams know exactly what they’re delivering.
If you ask just about any PM how their work is going, how do you think they'll respond? 'Sorry, I've got no time to talk right now, I'm totally slammed! Maybe we can touch base next week? ' My own experience of PM'ing is that it's a demanding role, we carry the responsibility of delivering a project to our best ability and we desperately want our projects to succeed. So we run around as though our pants were on fire, trying to herd cats, and doing things that we think will make our project succe...
Scope creep can be very costly and very hard to identify—and, luckily, very manageable. In this episode, we talk about scope creep, what causes it, and ways to manage scope creep with Suze Haworth, a Senior Digital Project Manager with over a decade worth of experience in web builds, social campaigns, and digital media.
How do you draw the line between project management and becoming everyone else’s personal admin? As a PM, do you find yourself doing the “project dirty work?” In this episode, PM expert Patrice Embry dishes out valuable advice for PMs who suspect that they’re taking on too much admin work and want to get back to doing what they do best—being a PM!
“Oh, I love being managed!”, said no one ever. How do we manage our teams effectively without being micromanager? How do we manage agile teams who don’t want to be managed? In this episode, Sarah Hoban, a PMP-certified Project and Program Manager, talks about how to do your job effectively as a project manager on the sly.
Are you delivering projects on budget, on time, and in scope? You want your team to be able to hit their milestones—and it’s your job to guide the process with project controls. In today’s DPM podcast with project manager expert Maik Stettner you’ll learn how to use project control documents like status reports and RAID logs in order to keep your projects on track.
Triumph over the contracting madness: Alexa Huston explains how an agile contract can benefit your project—and how to get buy-in from clients. This episode offers welcome advice for anyone struggling with the awkward space between fixed scope and agile projects, discussing the challenges, benefits, and drawbacks of working with different types of agile contracts.
If we don't end our projects right, we can end up going over budget, delivering late, annoying our team, and the client. Ben chats with Patrice to discuss how we can end projects better with a checklist of what to do, and what not to do.
Leading remote teams can be tough - but is it because our teams suck, or because we're not leading our remote teams well? Find out as Ben talks to Wayne, simple rules you can apply to be a better remote leader.
One way to do optimize your agile approach is to make your meetings or ceremonies more effective. Ben Aston talks to Alexa Huston about sprint planning, daily standups, sprint reviews and sprint retrospectives to give you the inside track on how you can do them better.
Sometimes projects go off the rails simply because we jump into them too fast. Ben Aston talks to Maik Stettner about how we can use a project initiation document, or project brief to get everyone on the same page at the start of the project to make project kickoffs more effective.
Projects are tricky often because we're working with teams that can be inconsistent, egotistical, and unreliable. So how on earth do we manage a project when we've got all that to contend with along with delivering the project? Ben Aston talks to Suze Haworth to discuss how we can use RACI charts to clearly define roles and responsibilities, stop things falling through the cracks, and prevent misunderstandings on our projects.
Are you an average project manager or one that's destined for greatness? The difference is not so much about what you do, it's all about how you do it. Ben Aston talks to Patrice Embry to discuss how we can take those everyday responsibilities of a project manager and do them better. Find out what you should really be doing to separate yourself from the pack, and accelerate your PM career.
If you've ever got yourself in a pickle on your projects because you didn't have written evidence of your discussions with your clients, then this episode is for you! Ben Aston talks to Robyn Reynolds about the often forgotten status report and how they can save your bacon. Find out what you should put in it, how you can make them less of a pain to create and make them useful for you, the client and your project team.
We all know communication is a massively important part of our project manager role. But what are the tools we can use to be better at it? One of them is a communications plan. Ben talks to Natalie about how you can use a communication plan to manage expectations better - keep listening to find out how you can stop clients badgering you for information, and get the things you need from your clients!
Do you feel like your team is making the same mistakes over and over again? It's probably because they are - and it's probably because you're not helping them change! Ben and Alexa talk about how we can use sprint retrospectives to highlight opportunities for change, generate process improvements, and move the team in the right direction. Listen to discover some practical applications to making sprint retrospectives as productive as possible.
Being productive isn't about doing more, it's about being smarter. Ben talks to Tucker to discuss how - the time management hacks we can use to be (nearly) as productive as Beyoncé! Listen up for for really practical tips and simple hacks that are going to save you stacks of time and get you back on top of your PM game.
Starting new projects can be incredibly daunting, particularly if you're working on a new client, new in the agency, or on the receiving end of a shoddy handover. Ben Aston talks to Joanna Leigh Simon to discuss the questions to ask about the project plan, team, client and work to get your bearings and get a project in order. Listen up to learn how you can make your own project onboarding experience a whole lot less stressful.
As project managers, we're in the business of managing teams. But are we managing them, and leading them well? Ben Aston chats with Karl Sakas, author of, 'Made To Lead', to discuss how can we lead our teams be more effective, cast vision better, and manage with strategies that are effective for delivery.
Project managers are masters of getting stuff done. But what are the tricks for getting more stuff done, better? Ben Aston chats with Cédric Waldburger, founder of SendTask, to discuss everything from crypto currencies to founding companies, and how we can get more done by making our lives simpler.
Are you actually good at what do you do? Deep down, do you sometimes wonder if you're actually a project manager charlatan, or in the wrong career altogether? Ben Aston chats with Lina Calin to discuss how we can know if we're really doing a good job of this project management thing.
The pressure to do the right thing and be seen to do the right thing is immense. But should we be doing all those project management things, all the time? Ben Aston talks to Patrice Embry to discuss how you can save yourself time by cutting the extraneous things from your PM routine.
Beyond managing projects, how can we use our emotional intelligence to be project leaders? Ben Aston talks to Colin Ellis, author of The Conscious Project Leader to discuss building a positive project culture and leading our projects so that our teams are engaged and motivated to succeed.
Ben Aston and Robyn Reynolds introduce an anonymous advice column for digital PM's to ask awkward questions and share their own stories of managing tricky situations in the life as a digital project manager.
Ben discusses the life of a 'remoter' project manager with Natalie Semczuk, and her new DPM(ish) newsletter. After a tragic internet malfunction, the conversation pivots to unpacking typical project problem areas, why and how it's important to document lessons learned, and what to do with those lessons, to stop making the same mistakes.
How you can make Scrum work in an agency, and how do you make any process change effectively? In this podcast, Ben Aston talks to Alexa Huston about her introduction of Scrum at the agency Crema and you can make process changes with your team and tools work for everyone.
The relationship between a project manager and their development team can often be a tricky one - so how can we make it better? Kelly Suter joins Ben Aston to discuss techniques you can use to build a better dynamic with your development team and tools she's using to run projects.
Solid relationships are crucial to the success of projects - but how do you put that into practice? Lina Calin joins Ben Aston to discuss the techniques you can use to build a stronger, more dynamic and successful team.
Will our jobs as project managers be taken over by artificial intelligent PM bots? Discover in this podcast with Dennis Kayser from Forecast.it and learn about how they're using artificial intelligence and machine learning to help project managers make better decisions and automate repetitive PM tasks.
