net - UK (2020-01)

Q&As

Project management
REQUIRED SKILLS
How much technical knowledge/expertise
should digital project managers have?
Simon Minter, Oxford, UK
BH: First and foremost, the expertise
a digital project manager brings to a
project is a solid strategy and execution
for delivering a project on time and
under budget. In order to be a digital
project management expert, you need
a solid understanding of how your
project’s tech can impact on estimates,
timing, process and even people.
I’d never expect a project manager
to be a trained developer or technical
expert but I would expect them to ask
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they don’t know and be able to translate
the details to clients or stakeholders.
It’s absolutely acceptable to have a high-
level understanding of the technology
involved in a project as long as you can
assess challenges and communicate
with technical experts to determine
what’s feasible.
That said, I always say that a great
project manager knows enough to be
dangerous, meaning they get how the
tech on their project works and might
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time but you’d never task them with

execution (for obvious reasons). That

kind of curiosity is truly the sign of a

great leader.

User research

THE BENEFIT OF RESEARCH

Do you think user research is always

necessary? Isn’t ‘failing fast’ kind of a

version of user research in the wild?

Yusha Mccarty, Singapore

DB: Insight and intelligence is always

going to be valuable. How that

intelligence is obtained is up for grabs.

Quick and dirty guerrilla testing can

be good for low-budget projects with

small teams that want quick results,

especially when it comes to highlighting

showstopping obstacles in the user

journey. More structured agile sprints

can be useful for intensive improvements

if you have a tight-knit team of experts

collaborating closely and want continual

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casually checking Google Analytics once

every couple of months for anomalies is a

form of user research.

Regardless of the method, being

armed with these insights will always

enable you to tighten up and improve

your user experience.

What resources can help

me wrap my head around

project management?

Name supplied

BH: With project management, there truly

is no right or wrong way to work. Sure,

there are best practices but it’ll be up to

you to adapt them to the project, team,

scope and timeline you’re managing. The

best way to learn those things is to sit

down with your team and figure out what

will work best for your projects.

Conferences

When you have spare time, check

out conferences like Deliver or the

Digital PM Summit or hunt down your

local DPM meetup.

Online training

Trainings online include an

apprenticeship through Louder

Than Ten and a free video series at

TeamGantt called The Art & Science of

Leading Projects.

Reading matter

Check out The Digital Project

Manager blogs for regular posts

from a variety of smart project managers.

If you’re looking for a book about DPM,

check out my book: Project Management

for Humans.

Project management is about understanding the technology enough to ask the right questions

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3 SIMPLE STEPS