Tag Archives: Project Management

How writing an ebook was less of a learning curve and more like a cliff dive

  By Jennifer Stakes Roberts | January 30, 2012 - 8:44 pm | The Freelancers Guide to Managing Projects
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(No laptops were harmed in the making of this ebook)

It seemed like such a natural progression: several people who enjoyed my blog (in its former incarnation as a project management blog to help freelancers organize their work) mentioned to me that it would be a good idea to put out an ebook. I agreed, it would be a good idea.

Being a good little project manager, I worked out that it would take about 8 weeks, plus 2 weeks of editing and general tweaking. I thought squeezing in a section a week on top of my normal work sounded do-able, with some nice photos, charts and worksheets. After all, I already had all the information at my fingertips, I knew the topic backwards, forwards and upside-down. No problem!

That was last May. It is now January, and I have just finished putting together a sales page and uploading the finished product.

BAD project manager.

What went wrong? And why have I developed several new nervous ticks?

The rationale behind project management is that you should a) Use your own experience to estimate how long tasks will take, or b) Get advice from experts if you don’t have that experience yourself. My reasoning was that my day job is being a freelance writer, so I should have no difficulties estimating how long it takes to put an ebook together.

You may smile at the over-confidence of the innocent.

To be fair, the actual text took about 8 weeks. Things started to slip producing the images, but not too badly. I sent the Word document around several trusted freelancers and writers to get their feedback and waited. We are now at August, when I was hoping it would already be flying through cyberspace, delighting readers and bringing order and organization to their schedules. “Thanks to you I now have a detailed and reliable project plan, rather than a pile of post-it notes stuck around my computer!”

Oh, the irony.

Of course, you can’t rush people who have generously agreed to read through a draft of your book. You forget that they are just not as excited as you to get it out there, righting what once went wrong, to infinity and beyond.

October. Drafts came back, edits were made. Time for the layout. Maybe over a weekend?

I won’t tell you the name of the software I used for the layout. I have done a little desktop publishing in my time, and thought I should be able to do it myself. Looking back, this reminds me of the handymen who (we discovered after a waterfall appeared one day in our kitchen) fixed our water pipe with duct tape, or the double-glazing company who filled in the hole in the solid brick supporting wall with insulation foam and plastered over it.

There are experts on this beautiful planet of ours, they are experts for a reason. Pay them money.

It did not take a weekend to do the layout, it took about two months. It shouldn’t have even taken that long but I came to the point that I couldn’t even click on the software icon on my desktop without also opening a self-help breathing exercises website. In with fury and frustration, out with peace, 4, 5, 6.

Thanks to a little break I can now step back from the swirling abyss, and even laugh (a little maniacally)

Things I learned from writing an ebook:

  • Stick with your strengths
  • Factor in that no-one else is quite as overwhelmingly enthusiastic about your ebook as you are
  • Don’t do your own layout in fancy desktop publishing software unless a) That is your job, or b) You enjoy pleading with your computer at 1am
  • There are a lot of companies that want to help you sell your ebook. Not all are created equal. Some are not your friend.

The ‘Choosing an Ebook Seller Website’ might have to wait for another day: I still have a few twitches that have appeared at the very thought.

But I am very, very proud of the beautiful ebook I have created. I am, at last, happy with it and the way it turned out.

Thank you to everyone who helped me with drafts, offered feedback, gave detailed edits, wrote reviews, or untangled me from wires and tear-stained leads at ungodly hours in the morning. I couldn’t have got here quite so intact without you.

The Freelancers’ Guide To Managing Projects is now available, priced $9.99. I hope it helps you in your work and takes some of the stress from your schedule.

 

Image by Flickr user Abeeeer

 

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Time management: How scheduling when to start a task is more important than when you finish it

  By Jennifer Stakes Roberts | December 12, 2011 - 2:21 pm | Organizing your projects
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I’ve been playing around with some different project management software recently and one thing that has struck me has been the emphasis on finishing a task. Finishing tasks or projects is obviously very important – we freelancers don’t get paid for half-finished work – but scheduling when you start tasks is as important, or even more important, than when you finish them.

Scheduling tasks

The great thing about using project management software is that it can really help when you are scheduling tasks within projects, or scheduling whole projects. This can really help you keep in control of your workload, and is far more effective than an endless to-do list. To-do lists are fine for short-term things, like making a note of things you are meant to get done in a day:

Call plumber, contact client, file bank statements…

But for large projects you can get totally disorganised, plus you tend to put off the tasks you like doing the least and tick off the ones you like most first.

Scheduling your tasks means that you have to work through them in a logical order, and that’s a good start to getting your projects completed on time.

Starting vs finishing

Scheduling tasks by finish date is all very well, but there are problems with it:

  • You might not leave yourself enough time
  • You might have too many tasks scheduled to finish on the same date, so how do you prioritise?

With a little bit of thought you can schedule tasks by start date instead. You can still have an end date, but having to organise yourself like this will make you think, OK, so when do I have to start this to finish by the deadline? You are far more likely to give yourself a head start and actually finish on time, rather than discovering you have four things scheduled and not enough time to do any of them.

Putting just a little bit more thought into organising your tasks means that you are more likely to notice a few deadlines that coincide, so you will leave yourself enough time to get each one of them done by the deadline, even if it means starting way earlier than you ever thought you needed to.

And if you finish early, that’s no bad thing either. You never know, you may even get round to that ‘exercise’ thing you’ve heard so much about, or call your mum.

So if you’re looking at new project management systems for your freelance business (check out my post on 12 Free Project Management Applications), be sure to look at flexibility of scheduling tasks – will it let you organise tasks by start date as well as by deadline?

 

Image by Flickr user magnetbox – CC

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Freelance headaches: 4 strategies to avoid hassling

  By Jennifer Stakes Roberts | October 6, 2011 - 9:08 am | Organizing your projects
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You’re a freelancer and you love what you do. That’s why you went freelance: to get away from office politics and focus on what you love. In your head it would just be you, in a beautiful place, creating wonderful things.

 

Looming deadlines

But somehow you still have a long list of people you’re putting off getting in contact with, dreading those phone calls. Your deadlines are fast approaching and you’ve no idea whether or not you’re going to meet them.

With a bit of organization you can avoidmany of these situations and smooth down confrontations before they get prickly.

1/ Your client hasn’t got back to you with feedback from the initial draft

‘Pre-hassling’ is the key here. Agree with your client when you hand over your draft how long it will take them to give feedback. It’s much easier to be assertive earlier rather than later in the project. If you’re both clear on the date, usually just a polite query is enough.

2/ You haven’t heard from a team member in a while

By agreeing a communications schedule with your whole team you can keep on track of everyone’s progress. This could involve something like a weekly Skype meeting or regular progress update email. That way, if a team member hasn’t checked in on schedule you can follow up with them without seeming pushy.

3/ Your client hasn’t paid you

Even if your payment due date is written on your invoice, your client might simply forget to check. By making it clear when you take on the project, then again when you complete it, you have done all you politely can and if the client still hasn’t paid you are justified in getting in contact without seeming rude. Plenty of freelancers ask for half up front and half when the job is complete.

4/ You sent out queries and haven’t heard a thing

Is it rude to chase up a query?

Not at all, if you have left it a decent length of time. Less than two weeks might feel like you’re hassling, though. Giving a good reason to chase up queries can help if you’re not sure: maybe you have a special promotion or an offer that your potential client might be interested in.

 

By communicating with your client and team early on in the project, before these issues have chance to arise, you can avoid all sorts of headaches and get back to your freelancing ‘happy place’.

 

 

 

Photo by Flickr user h.koppdelaney

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Freelancers: Boost your income with effective project management

  By Jennifer Stakes Roberts | September 28, 2011 - 5:29 pm | Organizing your projects
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There has never been a better time to be a freelancer.

A recent study by PCG (a UK-based freelancers’ association) showed that an incredible 84% ‘believed that business opportunities would stay the same or increase in the months to come.’

The 2011 Freelance Industry Report found that ‘Fifty-four percent of freelancers wouldn’t even consider working as an employee again’ and ‘The majority of freelancers (52%) either have not been impacted by the economy or have faced only a very minor impact.’

There’s a whole lot of optimism out there in the global freelance community. Recession? What recession?

That doesn’t mean we can sit back and rest on our laurels. If anything, we need to solidify our position as the buoyant sector of the economy and keep working on our gains.

“But I already work every waking hour!”

That’s where effective project management comes in. You’re working hard to meet those deadlines, now let’s turn things around and make those deadlines work for you.

Your deadlines give you structure

With effective project planning you can work back from each deadline to create a project plan that allows you to focus on the tasks in hand and not worry about upcoming ones. This takes a lot of the stress out of your day-to-day work.

Structure helps you plan your work

Effective project planning means that you can break your work down into manageable chunks, called tasks. Work out how long each task will take and use a calendar or spreadsheet to plot out which tasks you will do on which days. This is your project plan. Then, all you have to do each day is look at your plan to see what you are working on today.

Planning your work lets you take on projects you didn’t think you could

Once you have plotted out which tasks you need to do on which days, you can see where there is slack – days or weeks when you might not have as much work on as usual. This means you may be able to take on extra projects you didn’t think you had time for.

More projects in the same time means your income rises as your stress levels fall

With good project management you can stop worrying about your seemingly endless to-do list and focus on the tasks in hand. A manageable daily task list can help reduce procrastination and boost your output – you know that future tasks have all got their allotted space and you’ll come to them in good time. This leaves you free to enjoy doing what you do best: freelancing!

What you can do right now

  • Take one project you are working on
  • Brainstorm all the things that you need to do to hit the deadline
  • Put that list in the order you need to do them: this is your task list
  • On a calendar or spreadsheet, plot what tasks you need to do each day

Congratulations! You have now made a simple project plan you can work through day by day.

You can repeat the process for each project you are working on. You can either plot them on the same calendar or spreadsheet, or start a new one for each project. Just remember not to double-book yourself when you are setting your daily tasks.

 

Money image by Flickr user epSos.de

 

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Keeping it simple: 5 reasons to use a spreadsheet to plan your project

  By Jennifer Stakes Roberts | September 21, 2011 - 12:23 pm | Organizing your projects
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Don't go reinventing the wheel

Many freelancers would say they don’t have the time, the inclination or the need to learn to use specialist project management software. But there are alternatives – you don’t have to give up on trying to organize your projects altogether.  You can very easily use a spreadsheet to plan your projects and keep track of your work if you don’t want to use specialist software.

 

 

1. Sharing

One problem with dedicated project management software is that if you want to send your plan around your team they will also have to download the same software.  You can save the plan as a pdf, but that does mean it is static and can’t be altered by anyone but you.  Most of your team members should be able to open a spreadsheet and even change things if needed.

 2. Learning curve

Learning new software can be time-consuming.

If you already know how to use spreadsheets competently you should find it fairly quick to create one for a new project.  Once you’ve got a template you’re happy with you can add new projects in a fraction of the time.

 3. Overkill

Using project management software for keeping track of simple projects can be overkill.  Spreadsheets are often fine for keeping track of multiple simple projects.

 4. Planning exercise

A bit like with exercise, getting into the habit of sitting down and planning your projects can be more important than the details of what your plan actually looks like.  Your spreadsheet plan might look simple, but the fact that you have been through the process of thinking through the steps involved can be worth any number of fancy whistles and bells.

5. The wheel has already been invented

There are countless templates out there, many of them for free.  Here is a list of just a few that you may find useful:

Excel spreadsheet from TechRepublic
Project Management Schedule By Google
Project Timeline (Marine Theme) By Google
Project Management – Marketing Example By Smartsheettemplates
Vertex42 Excel Project Management Templates (Several examples)

 

So if the idea of sitting down and getting your head around new software is what is putting you off planning your projects, then you can stop worrying and get planning!

 

 

 

Example of a simple project plan for a writing project.

 

(Wheel photo credit by Flickr user Jasmic)

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Go Team! Building motivation into your project management

  By Jennifer Stakes Roberts | September 13, 2011 - 4:51 pm | Organizing your projects
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Whether you’ve been brought into an organization to manage a project or you’ve put together your own team for a client, a freelancer faces some unique problems with team motivation.

Your team might be scattered, working remotely, living in different time zones, even on different continents. Maybe they’ve never worked together before, and maybe this is the first time you’ve worked with them.

Almost certainly, you’ll have no direct authority. You aren’t their line manager and aren’t responsible for appraisals.

So what can you do to keep your team motivated and your project on track?

Understanding your team

What are each of your team members’ goals? What makes them tick? If you understand what they want out of this project (money, exposure, portfolio building, networking opportunities, a vested interest in the project’s success etc) you can take a more individual approach to motivating each team member, rather than using a one-size-fits all approach. A volunteer working for a charity project will be encouraged by different incentives than a freelancer.

Bridge the distance

What problems do your team members face? Whether it’s working in a different time zone or juggling a family and a full-time job, if you meet their problems half-way and offer solutions early on, they’ll appreciate it. Whether it’s scheduling conference calls at a time convenient to everyone or asking how they’d like to receive project updates (by phone or by email?), a happy team is a motivated team

A problem shared…

When you run into a problem, you don’t have to struggle through it on your own. Being part of a team is a two-way process and if you involve them in coming up with solutions to project hiccups, they’ll understand the whole process better and be more likely to feel included.

Offering carrots

While most people work for the money, you can offer extra incentives for a job well done for free. Consider giving:

  • testimonials for their website
  • passing on their name to another client
  • giving positive feedback
  • promoting their work in your own publications

as ways of motivating them to go the extra distance.

…and sticks

You might not have any direct authority over your team but you can still use other methods to bring them into line if you feel they are not pulling their weight. Remember a freelancer’s reputation is hugely important and most people will want to avoid bad feedback and negative opinion.

And finally, avoid micromanagement

This team are involved because they can do their jobs. Trust them to get on with their roles and don’t bother them every five minutes. Use a pre-agreed feedback system such as weekly status updates by email to let them share their progress. Treat them with respect and they’ll most likely so the same to you!

 

Photo by Flickr user kennymatic

 

Even the Dark Side needs motivation

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Twelve Free Project Management Software Applications

  By Jennifer Stakes Roberts | August 15, 2011 - 12:55 pm | Organizing your projects
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I’ve been going through some of my lists of free Project Management software applications, checking that they are still free and still available.  I currently have twelve on my list but I would be delighted to hear from you if you have any other open-source software you think I should add.

Clocking IT
ClockingIT is a free hosted application, keeping track of all your tasks and the time you spend on them.

DotProject

dotProject is a web-based project management application, designed to provide project layout and control functions.

 

GanttProject
GanttProject is a cross-platform desktop tool for project scheduling and management.

 

 

JxProject
JxProject is a free project management software package: a version without adverts is available for $20.

 

Open Atrium
Open Atrium is an open source team collaboration tool and includes a blog, a wiki, a calendar, a to do list, a shoutbox, and a dashboard to manage it.

 

OpenProj
OpenProj is an open-source desktop project management application similar to Microsoft Project. OpenProj opens existing MS Project files and is interoperable with Project, Gantt Charts and PERT charts.

 

Project HQ
Project HQ is a collaborative open source project management tool, similar to Basecamp and activeCollab.  Project HQ uses a structured workflow to assist you in managing your projects.

 

ProjectPier
ProjectPier is a free, open-source, PHP application for managing tasks, projects and teams through a web interface.

 

 

ProjectStat.us
ProjectStat.us is a service that can help you manage your customers’ project info and allow your customers to see up-to-date project information at any time.

 

SugarCRM
CRM-focused software. There is a free Community Edition but other software is not open source and is not free.

 

TaskJuggler
Free and open source software project management tool that covers most project management tasks.

 

Teambox
Teambox is a mix of social collaboration tool and online project management for sharing tasks and projects with a team.  Only free for the first three projects, then a pricing plan comes into effect.

 

 

Added:

Another 2 free packages:

Project in a Box
The free Community Edition of Project in a Box uses PRINCE2 materials and templates.

Tree.io
Tree.io is a cloud-based service with unlimited projects and storage.  The first 3 users are free – after that you pay $15 per user per month.

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Don’t just Duck and Cover: Risk Management for Freelancers

  By Jennifer Stakes Roberts | May 25, 2011 - 5:25 pm | Organizing your projects
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Sometimes, things go wrong with projects. That’s life. If you are taking on a new project you can take one of two approaches when dealing with the risks that might cause your project to veer off track:

1/ Stick your head in the sand, your fingers in your ears, hum loudly and wish for the magic pixies to make them all go away, or

2/ Put together a plan for factors that could derail your project and decide what steps you can take to protect from them.

If you pick the first strategy stop reading now and Google ‘magic pixies will fix my project’ instead. If you think the second would be more appropriate for your project, read on.

Your risk management plan does not have to be fancy. The most important thing is that you are going through the process of identifying risks early on in your project planning and considering contingencies. If you get used to thinking in this way before problems arise, the battle is already half won.

Going through the following simple 4-step process with each new project should help to identify threats, decide how likely they are to occur and create a contingency plan.

Step 1: Brainstorming

Sit down, either alone or with others who will be working on this project (your project team) and take some time to think of all the reasons why your project might run into difficulties. These could be anything from

  • team members who are inexperienced in this kind of project
  • using technology that some of your team might be unfamiliar with
  • bad weather in a project that relies on outdoor work
  • a new client you haven’t worked with before
  • funding difficulties

to other, more unlikely ones such as

  • tornadoes, snowstorms or volcanic ash clouds
  • several of your team all getting sick at once
  • your client going bust

The main thing is to get them all down at this point.

Try to be specific. For example, rather than saying that the task of producing invitations to a launch party might overrun, say that producing invitations to the launch party might overrun because the outside company you are relying on to produce them might not be used to such a large order. It is much easier to come up with contingencies if you are specific.

Step 2: Ranking your risks

If you are feeling overwhelmed with disasters at this point, don’t worry!  The next step is to rank the likelihood of these risks actually happening, putting the most likely at the top.

For example, it might be very likely for a wedding photographer to experience bad weather on the day. The threat of the wedding being cancelled might be much further down on his list, with the risk of a snowstorm in July in Florida would be right down at the bottom.

Step 3: Contingency planning

This is the stage when you can start thinking of what you might do in the event that one of these risk factors starts to affect your project. Now you have ranked your risks you can decide

  • how far down the list you will look to make contingency plans
  • whether you will start that planning now or wait until the event of it actually happening.

You may decide that only the top risk factors are ever likely to happen, so you will only develop a plan for those eventualities.

Example:

Your project is to organise an event to launch a new brand of perfume. You have five people in your project team, one of whom has never worked on a launch event before. The event is in January in Boston.

You risk management strategy might look something like this:

Risk Contingency
The inexperienced staff member might underestimate how long each of their tasks will take, resulting in project delays Set up a thorough reporting schedule so that the team can track their progress against the project plan and report back frequently
Bad weather might cause transport problems on the night of the event Send out transport options with the invitations so that guests are aware of the alternatives
The client has had some funding issues so cash flow could become a problem Agree with client to be paid in stages, at each significant milestone
The catering company might be unable to meet the order Choose a second catering company to supply the drinks
Sickness may affect more than one member of the team resulting in delays to tasks Have other freelancers on standby in case of serious illness

In this instance, the team decide that the first three risks are very likely, so work on actually implementing the contingencies, but that the fourth and fifth are less likely as they have worked with the caterer before with no problems and they consider it unlikely that more than one team member will get seriously ill. They will only deal with those eventualities if they arise, rather than spending time on it now.

Step 4: Communication

It is no good in having a risk management plan if nobody knows about it. Make sure you communicate your plan with the rest of your team, and with other parties such as your client if you think it is necessary. After all, it could be you that is unable to work and your team needs to know what to do!

Photo by Flickr user Zolierdos

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Keeping your eye on the ball: how to stay focused on your project goals

  By Jennifer Stakes Roberts | May 4, 2011 - 5:36 pm | Organizing your projects
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It’s all too easy to get sidetracked by the things that need to be done day-to-day: emails to send, invoices to pay, phone calls, thinking up new ways to market your business… Twitter…

Freelancers have to organise so many aspects of their businesses that it’s easy to lose sight of the bigger picture.  All these things are important, but so is the reason we set up our businesses in the first place: our freelance projects.  There’s not much point in being a freelance writer, event planner or designer if you don’t ever get time to do the writing, planning or designing!

There are four simple strategies you can adopt in order to keep your goals clear and your mind on the result.

1/ Define your project’s scope

It is much easier to keep your goals in mind if you know what they are!  Write down the goals of your project at the outset, and make sure you have agreed them with your client: you could both have very different ideas about what constitutes a successful project.  For more information, have a look at this previous post about the project scope.

2/ Track tasks

I have written previously about breaking your work down into tasks; once your project has been divided into bite-sized chunks it is much easier to keep track of your progress.  You can use a low-tech approach such as Post-it notes and a wall planner to keep track of your tasks, or use one of the multitude of software packages specifically designed for project management.

3/ Set milestones

If you have a larger project you can divide it into phases before breaking it down into tasks.  The end of each phase is denoted by a milestone, which might be something like submitting a piece of work, a website going live, your design being approved or moving from a planning to an implementation stage.

Reaching a milestone can give you a good sense of achievement and a reason to celebrate.  It helps to have smaller goals to focus on within your project when the end is too far away to see right now.

4/ Schedule in time-outs

It can be helpful at various points in your project to have a time-out to review your progress so far and look ahead at what is to come.  Reaching a milestone is an obvious point to do this, although you can do it at any time, especially if you feel that you have hit a wall.

Your time-out can be used to evaluate:

  • What is going well
  • What could be going better
  • What problems you have faced and how you overcame them
  • What you could change as you enter the next stage

By taking the time out to assess your progress you can avoid repeating mistakes and get yourself out of any ruts you might find yourself in.  You can monitor your work and consider whether you are still on track to meeting your goals or whether you are getting diverted or sidetracked.

Photo by Flickr user chispita_666

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What to do if your project falls behind schedule: A 5-Point Plan

  By Jennifer Stakes Roberts | April 20, 2011 - 3:34 pm | Organizing your projects
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Sometimes no matter how well you plan, estimate and schedule, a project can fall behind schedule.  It may be because of something out of your control, lack of experience in that particular field or just plain old life getting in the way.So once you have found yourself in this situation, what should you do?

1/ Don’t Panic!

The first thing to remember is not to panic.  You are behind schedule, but this is why you have a project plan: so that you recognise situations before they become problems and do something about them.

2/ Assess the situation

Take a look at your project plan and ask yourself:

  • What is the new finish date of your project if everything continues on this track?
  • What resources would be needed to bring your project back on schedule?

3/ Communication, communication, communication

It might be tempting to stick your head in the sand and hope that everything works out okay, but you will probably need to communicate with your client at this point to make some decisions.This is why you have already assessed the situation: you can go to your client with solutions, not problems.  You may have already agreed project priorities with your client, which should help you make decisions about how to proceed, but if not the questions you need to be asking at this point are how to prioritise.

4/ Prioritise

There are three variables to a project:

  • Time
  • Quality
  • Cost

At this point, the time frame has slipped.  You need to decide which is the most important variable at this point, if you haven’t already done so.

Time

How important is the time frame?If the project isn’t time critical, your client may appreciate an update about the new deadline but decide not to act.If the deadline is key and cannot be moved, you and your client may choose to prioritise this over quality or cost.

Quality

The client may choose to let the quality slip in order to get the project completed on time.An example of this might be a project to create decorations for a launch party.  Clearly the date of the party cannot be moved, but the client may choose to have fewer banners or to use pre-printed posters rather than custom-made ones in order to complete on schedule.  (Of course, you may have to take a reduced fee to compensate for the loss in quality).

Cost

Your client may decide to allocate a higher budget in order to complete the project by the deadline.  This is why you went through the assessment stage: you are now able to go to your client with an idea of what resources you will need to complete on time.  This may be anything from extra hours to hiring extra staff, more equipment or other resources.

5/ Consequences

If you are working on multiple projects, you now need to assess what the knock-on effects are for your other projects.  Are you allocating more hours to get this project completed on time, and what does that mean for your other project plans?Remember: Don’t Panic!Photo by Flickr user Patrick Hoesly

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