Transcript for:
Project Management Basics - Part 2

hi there if you've gone through our previous courses you've spent a lot of time digging into the intricacies and significance of setting up a project for success and now we're at the project execution stage where all of that hard work comes together if you haven't gone through our previous courses yet we recommend checking them out before we get started let me introduce myself my name is Elita and I'll be your instructor for this course I work as a senior engineering program manager at Google where I currently lead the team behind routing and navigation on Google Maps I joined the company in 2007 working on teams across Google's engineering organization in New York London and Seattle and in 2013 I joined the Google Maps team and launched popular features like holiday hours and attributes on businesses while leading Global teams from New York to Sydney to Hyderabad generally I like solving problems and learning new things every new project and team allows me to do both I'm excited to lead you through this course and demonstrate how to put a project plan into action first up you'll learn more about risks and unforeseen changes to the project if you've taken our previous courses you might recall that change is inevitable and to combat that we've covered the concept of risk mitigation during the planning phase and now we'll take it one step further and discuss what to do when a risk actually materializes next I'll discuss tracking and quality you'll learn how to track and measure your Project's progress and you'll learn how to use continuous Improvement and quality management techniques to keep the project on track and running smoothly these best practices are valuable to just about any role and I'm looking forward to taking you through them other big aspects of running a project include decision making you'll learn to both use and analyze data to inform your decision making and then in turn use that data to explore and explain Key aspects of your project I'll also discuss team management and the fundamentals of influencing so much of the success of a project relies on teamwork and you'll learn more about how you as a project manager can effectively lead your team to the Finish Line speaking of teamwork I'll share some of the tools that provide effective team communication along with tips for organizing and facilitating meetings and then we'll wrap up by discussing how to close a project you'll learn the steps required to finish a project and the importance of celebrating a job well done with your team sounds kind of fun right after all that planning this is the point in the Project Life Cycle where work gets done and everything comes together ready to get started meet me in the next video where you'll learn about the importance of tracking and measuring project progress hi again in previous courses we've discussed the importance of breaking your project down into milestones and tasks and assigning those tasks to different members of your team we've also discussed setting a schedule and budget but once the project execution phase gets going how do you actually know that the work is getting done well you can do this in a few ways but primarily you can keep tabs on Project progress by tracking and measurement this is actually a big part of project management tracking by definition is a method of following the progress of a Project's activities measuring project performance regularly to identify deviations from the project plan can help ensure that the project stays on track a deviation is anything that alters your original course of action deviations from the project plan can be positive or negative are you ahead of schedule because a technical problem is less complex than you estimated thumbs up did a natural disaster shut down your testing team big thumbs down both of these are examples of deviations they're also examples of why tracking is such a crucial part of your role during the project execution phase let's examine some of the ways that tracking is beneficial for your Project's success to start tracking makes key project information transparent and transparency is essential for accurate decision making even the strongest project managers make poor decisions when they lack information or context tracking centralizes project information so that everyone can understand the status of each part of the project which can then help you identify gaps in your knowledge also projects have so many little details it's hard to keep everything straight tracking helps ensure that you don't risk forgetting something second tracking helps keep all team members and stakeholders in touch with deadlines and goals to ensure that everyone has visibility into project progress you should have a project plan that works both for you and your team this way you're all on the same page about how the project is progressing you'll learn about different ways to track a project later in this module tracking is also crucial for recognizing risks and issues that can derail your progress with effective tracking you'll be able to identify issues in a timely fashion and work with your team to take corrective action by providing visibility into the various parts of the project tracking helps you and your team identify and focus on areas at risk and finally tracking helps build confidence that the project is set to be delivered on time in scope and within budget having a clear up-to-date picture of the overall project status keeps the team motivated and focused on staying the course so to recap tracking is important for a few key reasons like transparency risk management and keeping the project on track coming up we'll take you through some of the key items to track during project execution meet you there so we've discussed that tracking monitors the progress of project activities but you may still be wondering what specifically should you be tracking I'll take you through a few of the most commonly tracked items that I found helpful when managing projects at Google first you should always track the Project's schedule this is made up of tasks and activities that ensure that the project is effectively heading toward its completion date after all your ultimate goal is to complete your deliverables on time equally important is tracking the status of action items key tasks and activities to ensure that that work is actually getting done tracking tasks also helps to track your team's progress toward milestones we learned a bit more about tracking progress toward Milestones earlier in the course and we stress the importance of creating tasks and Milestones to keep everyone on track when you're in the middle of a project new tasks will come up all the time in order to avoid missing deadlines it's imperative to track tasks as they progress and as you approach key Milestones next you'll also need to track costs to ensure that you don't overspend or underspend on Project tasks as I mentioned earlier all projects have budgets and whether or not you're overseeing the entire budget you may be overseeing tasks and resources that have budget implications and finally you'll need to track key decisions changes dependencies and risks to the project including any agreed upon scope changes this way your team and stakeholders are aligned on what needs to be done for the project to succeed we will cover this in more detail throughout the course since it's a big part of running the project to recap the items that are helpful to track throughout the project execution phase include the project schedule which contain the key tasks and activities the status of action items progress toward Milestones costs and key decisions and changes there are many moving parts to be aware of once a project is underway tracking them closely benefits you and your team as you head toward the project goal I've taken you through an introduction to tracking and coming up we'll discuss project management tools and templates you can use to track project activities meet me in the next video to expand your toolkit welcome back now that you understand how essential tracking is let's explore and compare various types of tracking methods the purpose of your project plan is to guide you through the execution of your project therefore it will always include at least one type of tracking method and sometimes you might use more than one depending on what your team needs the tracking methods we'll discuss in this video are a Gantt chart a road map and a burn down chart there are many others but these are the few that I'm going to focus on whichever type you choose depends on what you deem suitable for your project it's important to remember to select something that the entire team can easily understand reference and keep up to date let's compare the tracking methods I mentioned perhaps the most common tracking method of all is the Gantt chart it's a tried and true tool to keep your project on track a Gantt chart measures tasks Against Time and includes useful information like who will own each task and what the order of the tasks should be for this reason it's a useful chart for staying on schedule and for projects with many dependencies or tasks or activities or Milestones that are reliant on one another it's also a helpful chart for teams with a lot of people because ownership and responsibilities are explicitly laid out visually as you track and move along sequentially over time this starts to look like a waterfall hence why Gantt charts are commonly used in waterfall project management each task is represented by a horizontal progress bar and the length of the bar is dependent on how much time is allotted to the task the bars are stacked on top of each other to denote that the task at the top must be completed before the next one below it can be completed Gantt charts typically live in your project plan and are updated as the project progresses another common tracking method we have here at Google is a roadmap a roadmap is best suited for when you need a way to track big milestones in your project it's useful for illustrating how a project should evolve over time to a team and key stakeholders here's an example a roadmap might list your Project's goals at the top and a description of the approach you'll be taking to meet those goals in this example the goals are to increase online business to Consumer sales by 20 year over year and to increase holiday sales to existing customers by eight percent over last year the approach details the main tactics your team will use to reach your goal a roadmap also includes a high-level project overview high level in this context means a concise summary usually three to four sentences to clearly State the objectives and priorities for your project below the goals approach and overview is a table that Maps out what the process will entail in this example our table is divided into quarters that reflect the project timeline a quarter is a three-month period on a company's Financial calendar key Milestones are listed for each quarter then there are tasks that each team member or department needs to complete most tasks May map to a milestone due within the same quarter in our example the project as a whole has a key milestone in q1 to finalize inventory for the holiday season the work of product testing and finalizing suggestions for offerings mainly falls to the marketing and sales teams however sometimes the tasks may need to be completed in advance to unblock another team or milestone in future quarters the product and engineering team is working on tasks in q1 and in Q2 that lead up to the launch of the refreshed online store in Q3 in order to reach that Milestone each department needs to complete specific tasks and the roadmap tracks both individual and project progress toward milestones finally there's the burn down chart the most granular of the three tracking methods a burn down chart measures time against the amount of work done and the amount of work remaining their main uses are to keep the project team on top of targeted completion dates and to keep the team aware of scope creep as it occurs burn down charts are best suited for projects that require a detailed broken down review of each task associated with a project and they're great for projects where finishing on time is the top priority the y-axis or the vertical axis symbolizes the number of tasks left to complete and the x-axis or the horizontal axis signifies time progress gets tracked from the upper left hand corner of the chart as the project goes along you'll track down working your way towards zero remaining tasks and to the right working your way toward your end date there's typically a dotted line for your expected or projected progress based on the rate your team is expected to close tasks and a solid line representing your actual progress before you continue on with your project you'll need to decide which tracker makes the most sense if you need to communicate Milestones to a large team you might choose a roadmap if you have a project with multiple dependencies you might choose a Gantt chart if tracking tasks against your deadline is especially important then the burn down chart might be your best option and you may even decide to use more than one because the tracking method will be determined by the type of project you're working on your resources and the project scope you'll probably end up using several types of tracking Methods at some point in your career in my time at Google I've regularly combined methods and used a few different types together for example using a Gantt chart to scope work at the beginning of a project then switching to a burn down chart in the weeks before a launch to make sure we're good to go now you know a bit more about the various types of tracking methods including a roadmap Gantt chart and burn down chart next up we'll focus on understanding continuous Improvement and process Improvement hi my name is pranjal and I work as a program manager in the site reliability engineering orc you can also call it SRE what SRE does is they are primarily responsible for all the critical services within Google and in case something goes wrong we are the first line of defense I think I can talk about the first big project I managed at Google my tech lead and I co-founded this project about three years ago and I continue to work on it as of right now so the project what we wanted to do in terms of ambition was we wanted to generalize some tooling to help mobile apps be reliable in production so what that means is let's say you're using a mobile app we want to make sure that in case something goes wrong we detect it before the user does and we take action before the user even knows that something's wrong behind the scenes right so we started out with this project and my biggest fear in terms of working on this project was managing a trade-off between ambition and project quality so when we did our brainstorming sessions and we wrote out a road map it just seemed a bit too overwhelming the scale at which we were planning to work I think I would be really thankful to my manager at the time she said she gave me some really good advice she said in case you have let's say five different tracks going on in a very big project not all five tracks have to be worked on every single day you could probably take out a quarter and make super good progress on maybe track 3 and track 5 whereas you can bootstrap the other tracks to make progress on it in the next quarter so that gave me a bit of peace of mind and she also empowered me to think in terms of I'm in a position as a program manager to push and pull on those priorities as long as people are aware of what we're working on what risks need to be identified and mitigated and if everything is being tracked properly it's okay to maybe accelerate sometimes and pause sometimes in fact I learned that zooming out and pausing sometimes can result in original ideas and then also gives people a little bit of a breather welcome back in an earlier video we learned about how to identify risks when planning projects in this module we'll learn why risks and changes might occur during a project and how that can impact your Project's scope you may remember that a risk is a potential event that might occur and could impact your project when you think about risks in the context of project management you'll think about them as hypothetical in other words these might not be events that will definitely happen but because there's a possibility that they could happen it's your responsibility as a project manager to identify and plan for those risks let's revisit some examples of risks a project risk might be a contractor missing a deadline or introducing a tool that may lead to Communication Breakdown within your team or unexpected additional work because of an unforeseen policy being put in place when any risk occurs the consequence is a change to the project plan A change is anything that alters or impacts the tasks structures or processes within a project changes are typically unexpected more often than not they have a negative impact on the project and you'll have to learn to navigate that but sometimes and I'm placing a heavy emphasis on sometimes changes can have a positive impact changes can Encompass any variance from the original project plan in regards to the triple constraint this may entail changing priorities in scope budget and resources or changes to the project timeline we'll discuss how the internal and external dependencies of a project impact each other and bring about change let's go through a few types of changes that can affect your project some examples of changes may include new or changing dependencies dependencies are tasks activities or Milestones that are reliant on one another so if one task isn't completed on time it may put your other tasks behind you might be in charge of Renovations on a home where there are dependencies in a bathroom remodel for instance a new sink cannot be installed until the vanity and plumbing are in place next is changing priorities the scope of the remodel changes if your client's in-laws suddenly have to move in and you have to move up planned work on the spare bedroom before completing the bathroom remodel next up the capacity and people available could change maybe you have to replace the plumber because you had issues on the job site another type of change could include a new limitation on your budget or resources for example you need to reduce design costs in the new bathroom by 10 because your quotes for electrical work come in higher than expected another change could be scope creep scope creep is when changes growth and other factors affect the Project's scope for instance your clients are so happy with the tile in the new bathroom that they'd like to replace the tile in all of their bathrooms and finally Force measure this is another change that could occur due to a national or International crisis if you aren't familiar with this term it means an unforeseen circumstance that prevents someone from fulfilling the contract due to a major crisis Force measure is pretty uncommon but for instance if a union goes on strike certain vendors won't be able to fulfill their contracts if there's a pandemic all production on your new product might be halted changes should be measured against the Baseline estimates of scope budget and time allotted for your project given the original requirements be mindful that when you change any one of those things there may be knock-on effects which could be positive or negative for instance your clients May believe they have beautiful hardwood floors hiding underneath old living room carpet and want to pull up the old carpet and use the original hardwood floors underneath you the project manager on this particular construction job you've budgeted to have the carpet removed and the old floor is sanded and stained bad news you pull up the carpet and find that the floors are in bad shape and rotting they'll need to be replaced or repaired which could be costly so your timeline and budget are likely to take a hit when it comes to who takes on the responsibility of managing the changing scope it'll be you the project manager but depending on the project you probably won't do it alone in order to properly manage changes you'll want to refer to documents like your statement of work and the racy chart but you might also have to create some new documentation you'll want to create or familiarize yourself with the processes for requesting changes for your team or organization these processes might include a change request form let's discuss change request forms you and your stakeholders will use these forms in order to stay on top of and adequately manage any changes since a lot of people with different roles on the project can fill out these forms it's important for the forms to be self-explanatory and very thorough in the provided template which uses a 2 by 10 table you will need to include information in the cells such as the project name the discussion owner who's taking the lead on this discussion from the team discussion type you'll want to let your audience know if you'll be discussing a risk opportunity or anything else you'll want to identify the teams involved and the expected outcome of the discussion which might be a change in priorities schedule change or an official call on how to proceed with an issue add the target date for discussion and identify which Milestones or goals might be impacted provide a short description of the current situation the change and any difference you expect to make to the plan of record like a snapshot of the before and after then go into in-depth proposal for the necessary changes and address any trade-offs and finally provide any background information so that everyone shares the same context you can also refer to your statement of work or sow for more information about who needs to be involved in that conversation if you find that one or more of your Milestones are at risk of not being completed then you'll need to get a customer sign off before the scope deadline or budget are changed and all parties involved need to be informed great work we've reviewed how to define risk and know more about how to identify the reasons why risks and changes might occur during a project and now we can explain the impact of increasing a project scope in the next video we're going to discuss the role dependencies play and how to properly manage them we'll meet you there so we've covered risks and how they affect a project but we haven't fully discussed dependencies arguably one of the biggest factors in a project in this video we'll discuss dependencies both internal and external how to identify and track them as well as their importance there are a few different types of dependencies and we'll discuss a few examples of each one so what exactly are dependencies dependencies are the links that connect one project task to another and as we mentioned they're often the greatest source of risk to a project two or more project tasks may have a relationship with one another in which the completion of one task is reliant on the initiation of another task and vice versa think of these tasks like a line of dominoes toppling each other over one by one if one Domino Falls it'll knock the next one over and so on and so on for instance a construction company may have a number of jobs across the city each project requires a foreman and a project manager to be chosen before the requirements timeline and budget get sign off and the crew is chosen you wouldn't choose a crew and tell them to get to work before the work has been clearly scoped and the contracts were signed that's an example of an internal dependency which describes the relationship between two tasks within the same project external dependencies on the other hand refer to tasks that are reliant on outside factors like regulatory agencies or other projects for instance if a construction company is scheduled to demolish a building site they'll have to wait until their project is approved by the city external dependencies aren't always in the project manager's control but it's important to be aware of them so that the project stays on track mandatory dependencies are tasks that are legally or contractually required for instance when that construction company finishes the Demolition and starts the rebuild they'll first have to pour a concrete foundation and then have it inspected by the city to ensure it meets their standards before the construction company can continue to build lastly discretionary dependencies are defined by the project team these are dependencies that could occur on their own but the team saw a need to make those dependencies reliant on one another for instance the construction company may be using concrete from a new supplier and want to run a test pouring a portion of the foundation to get a better estimate of the total amount of product they'll need to complete the foundation rather than buying too much or too little product up front the task of pouring a portion of the foundation comes first because the team needed more information before making a decision a project manager has to work diligently to incorporate dependency management dependency management is the process of managing all of these interrelated tasks and resources within the project to ensure that your overall project is completed successfully on time and in budget to pursue effective dependency management there are four important steps that a project manager can take proper identification recording dependencies continuous monitoring and control and efficient communication the first step is proper identification a project manager will have to brainstorm all possible project dependencies with their team and categorize them accordingly next up is recording dependencies after all dependencies are identified a risk register should be created a risk register is a table or chart that contains your list of risks and dependencies the risk register should include a description of the dependency the date and all activities are tasks that may be impacted by the dependency then a project manager will want to maintain continuous monitoring and control this means you will want to schedule regular meetings to check in on the interrelated tasks staying up to date on any progress being made and double checking for changes that will impact other tasks last step is efficient communication keeping the project team and stakeholders updated can help resolve dependencies and keep the project going strong to recap we just discussed how to define dependencies both internal and external and we learn the importance of managing and tracking dependencies we also discussed the importance of clearly defining dependencies at the project outset like in our foundation example and learned about dependency management in the next video we'll give you concrete techniques to manage the risks in your project I'll meet you there earlier we talked at length about identifying and managing risks risk management is absolutely critical to a Project's success so in this video we'll introduce additional techniques for managing risks let's start with a reminder of the definition of risk management risk management is the process of identifying potential risks and issues which could impact a project then evaluating and applying steps to address the effects of the identified risks and issues one way to manage risks and hopefully prevent any risks from materializing is to focus on managing the changes in dependencies as well as any skill creep in your project if you can manage those two things both changes and dependencies and scope creep other types of risks become much easier to manage if your dependencies are met on time your team is less likely to fall behind schedule if your scope is tightly managed you're less likely to incur changes to your budget or be forced to extend your timeline brainstorming with your team is one of the most effective techniques for identifying risks in a project your teammates likely bring skills and experience from previous projects which can help suss out similarities and keep you from repeating any issues as we brainstorm with our team it's best to create a risk register as a refresher a risk register is a table or chart that contains your team's list of risks you'll want to pose questions to your team like what could improve the outcome of the project or what could hurt or hinder it you'll list them all as if then statements for example if a given event happens then here's how the project is impacted to help prioritize risks within your risk register you can calculate your risk exposure risk exposure is a way to measure the potential future loss resulting from a specific activity or event a good method to calculate risk exposure is to build a matrix like this one when building out your Matrix you'll use two variables risk impact and probability right risk impact at the top horizontal axis and write probability on the side vertical axis Mark high medium and low along each axis as well across the top from left to right and down the side from top to bottom because that's how you're going to chart risk exposure add each risk to the chart at the cross section of the impact the risk might have on your project and probability or likelihood of the risk coming to pass this is one technique but whatever strategy you use to examine your risk exposure your risks will need to be prioritized so that you know and your team knows which ones to give immediate attention to for anything that has a high impact on your project even if it has a low probability of occurring make sure to have a mitigation plan in place how will you handle this risk if it actually materializes while a risk register is a great tool it's still likely that some unforeseen risk will arise it's almost impossible to account for every single risk over the course of a project that's where the roam technique can help the roam technique which stands for resolved owned accepted and mitigated is used to help manage actions after risks arise once a risk has materialized you need to decide what to do with it if a risk has been eliminated and will not be a problem it goes into your resolved category if you give a team member ownership over a certain risk and entrust them to handle it that risk goes into the owned category and is monitored through to completion if the risk has been accepted it has been agreed that nothing will be done about it finally if some action has been taken such that the risk has been mitigated either reducing the likelihood of it occurring or reducing the impact to the project it goes into the mitigated category after each risk is placed into a category the team will discuss each risk and decide which should be prioritized awesome now you've learned a bit more about how to differentiate risks and issues as well as some new techniques to manage various risks next we'll learn about how to share these risks with your stakeholders in a technique called escalation sound intriguing head to the next video to learn more hi again in this video we're going to learn about a common strategy used to resolve problems in a project on top of several other tasks it's a project manager's responsibility to resolve problems and remove constraints that are a detriment to the Project's success one way to do this is to escalate escalation is the process of enlisting the help of higher level project leadership or management to remove an obstacle clarify or reinforce priorities and validate next steps escalation may seem to have a negative connotation but that's not the case in project management in project management escalation should be encouraged used often and even celebrated escalations are healthy and act as a kind of checks and balances tool to make sure appropriate action is being taken they can result in Speedy decision making and generally the quicker a problem is resolved the better off a project will be instead of going back and forth between two team members who can't agree an objective third party might help make the call and reduce frustrations within the team finally escalations encourage participation encouraging others to participate in solving or owning problems can promote trust and shared responsibility among teammates which are signs of a healthy functional team before starting work on a project the project manager the team and the project sponsor should establish escalation standards and practices this means they'll specify who the issues will be raised to how issues are raised and the forum for discussion a little upfront work will help escalations run smoothly when and if they are needed so you know what an escalation is and when to set the framework for managing escalations but how do you know when to escalate a project manager should escalate an issue at the first sign of critical problems in the project critical problems are issues that may cause a delay to a major project Milestone issues that cause budget overruns issues that can result in the loss of a customer and issues that push back the estimated project completion date basically anything that will affect your triple constraint time budget and scope is something that should be escalated escalation is great for preventing two common issues within a project Trend tours and bad compromises trench Wars occur when two peers or groups can't seem to come to an agreement and neither party is willing to give in this leads to a standstill of the project and will likely delay certain aspects of the Project's progress typically we think of compromises as a positive way to resolve issues but there is such a thing as a bad compromise a bad compromise occurs when two parties settle on a so-called solution but the end product still suffers when it comes to compromising on important project goals it's not productive for either party to settle simply because it's a means to an end yes compromise while also keeping the larger project goals in mind and working towards those together you may have to help your team or stakeholders make hard choices for the greater good so now we've defined escalation how to use the triple constraints model when communicating to stakeholders and negotiating changes and we learned about trench Wars and bad compromises which are two common issues on a project in the next video we'll explain some more techniques for communicating with your team including timeouts and retrospectives I'll meet you there in the last video we defined escalations and their benefits and went over when to execute them in this video we're going to cover how to communicate change to your project team you've probably come to an understanding that effective communication leads to positive outcomes in every aspect of your life the same is true for communicating changes in projects communicating change to project team members and stakeholders isn't just a matter of keeping your tracking documents up to date even the smallest changes will be meaningful to someone on your team and should be communicated it's also true that you'll need to tailor your communication tactics based on the subject matter and recipient as a project manager sometimes you're going to want to have a meeting with your whole team while other times an email might suffice personally I prefer having a quick coffee or hallway chat with my teammates and then following it up with an email noting what we agreed upon this is particularly useful when you need quick agreement or if the subject is a little sensitive how will you know which communication tactic is appropriate ultimately you'll have to use your own judgment but here are some ways you can decide which route to take as a project manager when communicating a small change that will affect an individual it's a good idea to send an email be sure to avoid emotional topics or anything that needs to be discussed in depth just give them a heads up and set a meeting time weekly meetings may not be necessary particularly if your agenda is short if you set a meeting and then decide against it you can either pivot to an email or move the topic to a different Forum when there's a big change within your project that impacts more than one person and is likely to change the budget deadline or scope of the project you'll probably want to have a team meeting one useful tactic to keep in mind when navigating these changes in your project is called a timeout a timeout means taking a moment away from the project in order to take a breath regroup and adjust the game plan a timeout May temporarily disrupt your momentum but it may be absolutely necessary to set you up for success in the long run you may want to take a timeout when the client wants to redefine the scope of the project or if team members get reassigned to other projects and you need a plan to backfill them this timeout is a chance for the project team to evaluate the changes so they can adjust the plan as needed throughout the process you'll want to hold meetings in order to discuss successes setbacks and possible future improvements to the project these meetings are called retrospectives retrospectives are held throughout the Project's life cycle a retrospective focuses on identifying the contributing causes of an instant or pattern of incidents without blaming one individual while conducting a retrospective you should always assume that everyone has good intentions and did the right thing with the information they had whether or not it worked out well in the end there's always a chance to learn and do better as a project manager it's important to identify effective techniques for communicating changes to an individual teammate or to your whole team you now know a bit more about taking a timeout and the idea of a retrospective to have productive conversations about incidents that arise during your project and we will discuss this more towards the end of the course all of these things will help you on your journey to become a successful project manager let's keep going congrats you've reached the end of this section we've covered some really important aspects of implementation tracking and quality in this course we discuss why the tracking process is essential to building confidence in your team and how important knowing the progress of a project is to communicate this you learned how to use various types of tracking methods like Gantt charts roadmaps and burn down charts you also learn that roadmaps are suitable for tracking high-level Milestones Gantt charts are useful for projects with many dependencies and burn down charts are better for more granular task-oriented projects that are on a tight schedule you learn which items to track using these charts including costs the status of key tasks progress toward Milestones incoming action items and important decisions we explored risks and dependencies including techniques like brainstorming to create risk registers and we took you through the Rome technique which stands for resolved owned accepted and mitigated you also learned about changes and dependencies and how they impact a project we also discussed managing and communicating those risks changes and dependencies that was a lot well done coming up we'll take you through managing quality and continuous Improvement meet you there welcome back you're cruising right along into your next Topic in this section of the course we'll teach you all about how to manage quality and meet quality standards you'll also learn about quality assurance and quality control we'll take a look at continuous Improvement and how to use data-driven Frameworks such as demacy and pdca in order to work toward continuous improvements you'll also learn how to conduct retrospectives these will help you reflect on the successes and setbacks of a project finally you'll learn about the importance of maintaining a positive blameless tone throughout the process are you ready to jump right in let's start with quality management I'll meet you in the next video hi again in this program we've discussed that when you're managing a project you always have to consider the triple constraint time scope and budget each of these three elements will impact the project and if any one of them suffers the overall quality of the project suffers too there's an important distinction between quality and done simply finishing a project isn't enough the project must meet the customer's standards of quality rather than just be completed like all things in project management the more effectively you communicate with your team the more likely your team will produce high quality deliverables so how do we Define quality in a project management sense quality is when you fulfill the outline requirements for the deliverable and meet or exceed the needs or expectations of your customers when it comes to Quality it's important to deliver a product or service that meets your customers needs to meet their needs you have to know important quality management Concepts and oversee the implementation of a project management quality plan to set yourself up for Success you should consider the four main concepts of quality management which are quality standards quality planning quality assurance and quality control the quality process begins with setting quality standards quality standards provide requirements specifications or guidelines that can be used to ensure that products processes or services are fit for achieving the desired outcome set quality standards with your team and your customer at the beginning of your project take the time to define the quality standards and criteria for your current work so that your team members and stakeholders understand exactly what they are after you set those well-defined quality standards you'll want to check in periodically and make sure everything looks okay and the requirements are met remember that well-defined standards and requirements lead to less rework and schedule delays let's put this in an example using the scenario we've been using throughout the program you're a project manager at office Green a company that specializes in plant decor for offices and other businesses and you're leading a project called plant Pals a new service that will provide top clients with desk friendly plants here's an example of a few quality standards for this project reliability standards each planter arrives by the agreed upon time and in good condition ready to be placed at a desk and the suppliers have enough plants in their warehouses to fulfill the customer Demand on time usability standards Planters won't cause customers allergic reactions or illness and will be suitable for all people and animals if necessary similarly you may have product standards the supplier should meet your Brand's look and feel use the specified materials and be delivered intact you should adhere to quality standards across all products and processes for instance you may have usability standards implemented in the website development process by stating that the website must be easy to navigate whether from a phone computer or tablet next up quality planning quality planning refers specifically to the actions of a project manager or the team to establish and conduct a process for identifying and determining exactly which standards of quality are in fact relevant to the project as a whole and how to satisfy them to steer that discussion you can ask yourself what outcome do my customers want at the end of this project what does quality look like for them how can I meet their expectations and how will I determine if the quality measures will lead to project success this is where you'll plan the procedures to achieve the quality standards recall that one of the project plant Pals quality standards is reliability the expectation that each plant arrives on time and in good condition so as a quality planning measure you'll need to make plans with your plant provider to test the durability of your Planters before you decide to use them the third concept of quality management is quality assurance quality assurance often shortened to QA is all about evaluating if your project is moving towards delivering a high quality service or product unlike quality standards and quality planning QA spans the whole Project Life Cycle rather than taking place at a specific phase your quality plan should include regular audits to confirm that everything is going to plan and the necessary procedures are being followed regular check-ins and reporting to stakeholders will help boost their confidence and yours along the way quality assurance is where you'll make sure that you and your clients are getting the exact product you contracted for so at project plan Pals this is where your team will inspect options for Planters and perhaps sit in on the durability testing if you make plans for your plant provider to handle the durability testing on their own make sure you are tracking their progress and checking in regularly the final concept of quality management is quality control often Jordan to QC here techniques are used in order to ensure quality standards when a problem is identified or if the quality plan is not executed in the desired Manner and corrective actions should be affected quality control involves monitoring project results and delivery to determine if they're meeting desired results or not if not then alternative actions should be taken quality control is also integral to creating a more successful Landing for the next project after the plants are placed throughout the customer's offices quality control may look like you or your team member taking a final walk-through of the offices where the plants were delivered you'd be checking for things like broken Planters or plants that were damaged in transit and swapping them out when necessary you may not do this for every customer but it's a good idea to do it as you're starting out in case you spot issues to improve upon when you're back in the office if you've stuck to your quality plan checking on quality throughout the life cycle of your project QA and of course correcting as needed QC the likelihood of meeting your quality standards is high resulting in a high quality deliverable at the end of your project that satisfies your organizational goals and exceeds the customers expectations and there you have it quality management great so now we've learned more about how to identify and explain the concept of quality management which include quality standards quality planning quality assurance and quality control in the next video we'll discuss how to use soft skills like negotiating and practicing empathy to meet customers needs in terms of quality meet you there by now you probably understand that communication is Paramount to a Project's successful Landing it's the lifeblood of the whole project communication starts before the project even begins and Carries On steadily throughout the remainder of the project in this video I'm going to explain how using soft skills like negotiation delivering messages with empathy and asking questions for clarity helps to Foster and strengthen communication we'll also discuss feedback as a foundation for iterating on a product according to the project management Institute it's been found that most projects experience a communication breakdown of some kind even though project managers spend about 90 percent of their time working on communication alone it's in a project manager's best interest to communicate tactfully not only with the members of their own organization but also with customers and vendors when done well strategic communication with a customer or client can instill a sense of confidence that you're doing a good job and that you're a trustworthy partner so how should a project manager approach communication with a customer using soft skills like negotiation empathetic listening and Trust building will help Foster a good relationship between you and your customers and a good project manager knows how and when to apply these skills a key practice for negotiation empathetic listening and Trust building is asking questions it's important to ask open-ended questions and actively listen to understand the customer's current state versus their desired State and what might help them get from here to there if you ask open-ended questions you'll find out where you can make your customers feel more secure you'll be able to negotiate to ensure both of your needs are met and you'll build the necessary trust to have a successful partnership High performing project managers set clear expectations about when they'll communicate certain things to their customers for example you might want to set an expectation that you'll provide weekly progress updates to keep clients informed rather than expecting them to come to you with questions when troubleshooting an issue with the product it might not be necessary to fill the customer in on an issue that won't affect the outcome let's say a designer on your team quit and you had to replace them you may be able to replace that Designer with a new one fairly quickly and not even skip a beat in your Project's progress you can complete the task at hand without giving the customer any additional worry the level of visibility between customers and clients on a given project may vary and you'll have to use your judgment regarding what's important to communicate to your client sometimes you'll want to tell your client if there's an issue if you reach a point in the project where you can't possibly move forward without their help and input you'll have to communicate the issue to them calmly and with empathy let's put this into project plant plow's context where we're troubleshooting an issue with broken planters maybe when we were putting together our quality standards we left some room for supplier error and accounted for some broken planters we'll say we figured an acceptable number of broken Planters was two out of every 50. but let's imagine that the customer received a shipment and there were five broken planters at that point we'll need to meet with the customer and ask important negotiation questions we'll need to decide if the five broken planters out of every 50 is an acceptable outcome or we'll need to discuss whether the customer would consider investing in a higher tier of planters that may be less prone to breaking presenting a solution like using sturdier Planters will affect their budget and they'll need to adjust accordingly is the customer okay with that change would that lead to another trade-off keeping in mind that the main goal here is customer satisfaction throughout the negotiation process you'll want to be considerate of their feelings and limitations you can do this by exhibiting empathy understanding their frustrations addressing them and finding a solution that's beneficial for both of you you may have held a customer facing role in the past whether that's in a call center as a retail associate as a server in a restaurant or any number of positions even if you haven't you've probably been an advocate for yourself while conversing with a customer service representative because of this you'll probably have a good idea of what good customer service looks like good customer service results in choosing to go back to the same hair salon bakery or coffee shop because you like the way that you're treated and the service you received even if you had an issue versus choosing not to go back to those places if you don't receive that level of care your past experiences have taught you to manage relationships and to avoid delivering something that's low quality it doesn't feel great when you're on the receiving end in order to yield better results in future projects it's necessary to get feedback from customers sometimes this feedback will come during the process and sometimes it'll come after the project is completed depending on how you map it out in the initiation phase the matter of when you receive feedback may come down to what you actually want to accomplish in your project if your business is launching an e-commerce site you will want user feedback so you can make adjustments to optimize the customer's shopping experience if your business is an on-demand cookie delivery service you may want to deliver the cookies and then get their user feedback to know how your customers felt about the cookies and the delivery experience as a whole user feedback helps to close any gaps in understanding between the customers expectation and the Project's needs so to summarize very briefly soft skills like negotiation empathetic listening and Trust building will help create a good relationship between you and your customers and getting feedback from those customers will help you to iterate on a product or service that's a lot of information great job taking it all in we'll get a little more specific with user testing and feedback in the next video I'll meet you there hi again as promised we're going to discuss user testing and feedback if the end goal of our project is to have a great quality product or service for both our own organization and our customer we need to get an idea of what the customer wants we already learned how to make sure something is high quality on our end now let's find out how to measure what clients want so we can meet their needs expectations and standards the best way to get an idea of what customers and users want is to ask them but we don't mean calling each of them up on the phone and literally asking them that might not be the best use of our time fortunately there are a few ways we can streamline that information we can conduct a series of surveys or tests with customers and users some common ones are feedback surveys and user acceptance tests let's start with feedback surveys feedback surveys are a survey in which users provide feedback on features of your product that they like or dislike these surveys can take place as you design before you launch in order to find out if people like and understand the product or after you've launched if you want to make sure the user experience is even more satisfying so your users participate in a survey and give you feedback on what features they like or dislike and potentially which aspects they find to be fairly intuitive and which aspects are a little tougher to navigate after you get that feedback you'll either be good to launch if you haven't yet or you'll go back and iterate on the product if it's already on the market alternatively you might conduct user acceptance tests in broader terms a user acceptance test or a uat is a test that helps a business make sure that a product or solution works for its users a uat must meet the agreed-upon requirements and deliver the expected results this test is typically used to assess the end-to-end experience for the user of a new process or product a user acceptance test is incredibly important because it takes place near the end of a product's development and therefore is an overall user experience test of the entire product software or service uats are sometimes referred to as beta tests let's find out what a user acceptance test agenda might look like in a typical uat setting you'll welcome your users and thank them for participating then you'll present the product to them this includes discussing testing guidelines and demonstrating how the product works next you'll start your uat test cases taking your audience through critical user Journeys a critical user journey is the sequence of steps a user follows to accomplish tasks in your product when presenting something you've built you must give users A visual representation or mock-up of your product or have them go through a demo for example if you're working on a construction based project and you intend to replace all appliances and Hardware in the home you'll want to give the user some sort of vision of what that might entail this could include 3D models digital blueprints samples and more your uat demo should focus on a call to action for instance the call to action for your project may be the need to test Hardware in the client's future home maybe the homeowners have requested dishwasher that can be opened and closed with very little force and doesn't make too much noise in that case you'll want to give the client real life scenarios to work with them ask them to load the dishes and start the wash cycle then ask questions like on a scale of 1 to 10 how much force was required to open and close the dishwasher to determine if the washer meets their expectations during your presentation and walkthrough of the uat you should be collecting feedback from the users on their overall experience during this part of testing your users will be able to help you identify edge cases edge cases are rare outliers that the original requirements didn't account for they deal with the extreme maximums and minimums of parameters for example imagine that you created an app that allows for unlimited photo uploads knowing that users will rarely upload more than a thousand photos in a single session how will the system deal with someone who actually does upload thousands of photos or millions in a single upload it's unlikely but it could be disastrous for your software after identifying edge cases the last step of the uat agenda is to recap your findings identify bugs or issues and prioritize which issues need to be addressed first when you've addressed the issue and determined next steps you'll be able to close and conclude your user acceptance testing and there you have it so we've learned a bit more about the importance of listening to feedback from customers and discuss some common methods for measuring customer satisfaction like feedback surveys user acceptance tests and edge cases that's a lot to learn keep it up you're doing great so far in our next video we'll pivot to identifying reasons why risks and changes might occur and how to manage dependencies I'll see you soon hello again I'm Holly if you've been following this program from start to finish you may remember me from an earlier course where I shared a bit about accessibility and why it's so important to keep it in mind as a project manager so far you've learned the importance of managing communicating and measuring quality this is a great opportunity to also think about how to ensure the ways you are collecting feedback and the processes in place to measure quality are fair and accessible first if you are collecting feedback through live interviews be sure to include an offer to provide accommodations in your correspondence when setting up the sessions you may get requests for live captioning or an interpreter other folks such as those with anxiety or on the autism spectrum may ask to see the questions in advance so that they have time to think about and prepare their answers remember what works for one person may not work for another person even if those two people have the same disability if you're conducting an interview on location examine the space with an accessibility lens like ensuring there's an accessible path into the building into the room and that hallways are clear of clutter that could block someone using a wheelchair or Walker or someone with a visual impairment from easily and safely moving through if sending a survey or collecting feedback using technology check that the systems you are using are fully accessible if you're unsure contact the system owner and ask if they are compliant with the latest web content accessibility guidelines or wikag be prepared to provide questions and collect responses in an alternate manner if needed Beyond collecting feedback as a project manager it's important for you to make accessibility part of the conversation from the beginning especially if your project pertains to a process or product oftentimes incorporating accessible features into a product is overlooked or left to the final stages of a project and can lead to Serious implications like launch delays or worse a product that can't be used by a percentage of the population ensure your developers are familiar with accessibility requirements at the start if they're not help connect them with appropriate resources or experts include testers with various disabilities in your usability testing whenever possible and at the very least have the product tested for adherence to accessibility guidelines in summary think about accessibility early and often and encourage others on your project team to do so too coming up you'll practice ways to measure quality and learn more about managing changes risk and so much more keep up the great work foreign manager for Google's support platform a technical program manager is responsible for making sure the team delivers on what it sets out to do that means pulling together a lot of different capabilities and deliverables coming from across many teams to pull together a product that we deliver to our customers without customers there's really no reason to be building anything and what's interesting about building projects and and working with customers and trying to imagine what they want is it puts you in this really unique place where you need to put yourself in their shoes and sort of imagine the world or imagine the product through their eyes in a project management role being able to empathize and understand how different people in the world will interact with your product is really important and gives you this amazing perspective understanding the customer's needs is a very difficult job but it's really important and I believe it's a skill you can develop over time I actually consider a customer just a certain kind of stakeholder so I like to take my stakeholders and group them into buckets so I have customers and they are usually the end users of a product or the ones that are purchasing the product and then I have stakeholders that are sponsors rather the people that are funding the team that's actually building this those two groups of people are very different and I like to treat a sponsor in a very special way they are looking to increase their return on investment and so you always need to be looking for ways to quantify how are you generating a return on that investment there's always this little fear that they're not going to get what they paid for and giving them information frequently and at the right level of detail is a really important skill to have as a project manager sometimes you can overwhelm them with too many details and they cannot see the forest through the trees and sometimes you don't give them enough detail and they don't trust what you're telling them and so striking that balance is is really important I really enjoy seeing a project from the very beginning to the very end when you actually get to show it to a customer and get their acknowledgment and recognition and see their excitement at seeing the product actually working something that when you just started there was nothing just ideas and and maybe some papers and then you know however many months later you actually have a product that you can show off what I love about project management is it puts you in that role so you can really see things from the beginning to the end in this video we'll explore how to advocate for and create continuous improvements in a project by learning about process improvements continuous Improvement is an ongoing effort to improve products or Services it helps ensure that a product steadily makes its way toward the best possible outcome continuous Improvement begins with recognizing when processes and tasks need to be created eliminated or improved then a project manager must plan for and Implement changes to keep the project on track that's where process Improvement comes from process Improvement is the practice of identifying analyzing and improving existing processes to enhance the performance of your team and to develop best practices or to optimize consumer experiences when working through process improvements using a controlled environment in an experiment can help you understand if the changes you're considering fix your problem a control is an experiment or observation designed to minimize the effects of variables control groups are representative samples that help you to determine that the differences between your experimental groups and the norm are due to your changes rather than something else they eliminate alternative explanations for your results if you aren't familiar with this that's okay because I'll break it down for you for example You observe a problem with your process and put forward a hypothesis which is an educated guess about what's causing the problem and how you'd fix it then you change one variable in the system keep in the control group the same and observe your results again let's put this in the context of project plant Pals scenario business is booming for office Green and demand for your team's new plant pal service is rapidly growing to meet the demand suppliers have streamlined their process of packing boxes and putting all plants into a one-size-fits-all box let's say you're using just one box size to ship all of your plants for smaller plants there's more padding added to the box to fill the extra space and the plants usually arrive intact but larger plants have to be squeezed into the boxes and sometimes arise damaged according to customer surveys to fix this problem you hypothesize a potential Solution by posing a question would more of the large plants arrived intact if they were shipped in bigger boxes using the same padding we use for the small plants here's where your control comes in you continue to ship half of the larger plants in the original boxes this is your control group and you experiment by shipping the other half in bigger boxes nothing else is different about the boxes except the size the shape thickness box supplier delivery addresses absolutely everything else stays exactly the same after the larger plants are delivered you conduct a new survey if more larger plants arrived intact your hypothesis is confirmed if the results are the same as they were before the experiment you'll need to try something else to solve the problem of your damaged plants working in a controlled environment isn't the only way to ensure continuous improvements there are various data-driven Improvement Frameworks like demacy and pdca I'll Define those and present them in the context of plant Pals in the next video see you there in the last video I introduced the concept of continuous improvements we explored in depth how working in a controlled environment can optimize your outcomes in this video we're going to keep on that same path of uncovering methods for continuous improvements we'll start with data-driven Improvement Frameworks data driven and proven Frameworks are techniques used to make decisions based on actual data the first data-driven Improvement framework we'll cover may be familiar to you since we discussed it in a previous course recall that DM AIC or demacie stands for Define measure analyze improve and control and it Maps out to five steps that you can take when working toward continuous improvements so when considering how you can improve customer experiences start with the following first you'll need to define the business problem goals resources project scope and project timeline next measure here you'll conduct performance metrics and data collection to establish baselines and measure success then analyze work to find the root causes of problems and understand their impact next improve this means implementing a reasonable solution to the problem lastly control this is where you'll implement the changes and stay on top of monitoring the updated processes you've established another framework you can refer to when working through continuous improvements is pdca pdca is a four-step process that focuses on identifying a problem fixing that issue assessing whether the fix was successful and fine-tuning the Final Fix the steps are as follows first plan here you'll identify the issue in root cause and brainstorm solutions to the problem let's say that one type of plant isn't selling well which means the warehouse is full of a particular species if you don't do something fast the plants may die soon so what are some viable Solutions you propose moving the items from the bottom of the sales page on the website to the top so those plants are front and center you could also send out email marketing campaigns featuring that plant where you offer customers a buy one get one offer on the plan second do or fix the problem in this case your sponsor decided that they didn't feel comfortable giving plants away if they could still profit so you've decided to go with the first option moving the plant to a more prominent part of the website your hypothesis is that the best way to shift older inventory is to put it in a place that customers can't miss the next part of this framework is check compare your results to the goal to find out if the problem is fixed now you wait one week and notice if the sales numbers go up for that plan if they did your hypothesis is correct and you've saved some plant lives and helped office Green avoid Financial loss nice job and finally act or fine-tune the fix to ensure continuous Improvement in our example you decide to reorganize the website in the future all overstocked plans will get a prominent place on the website both pdca and Macy are great problem-solving Frameworks to apply in your day-to-day life and in the workplace these Frameworks help you to identify issues reduce errors and optimize your processes I encourage you to think about these techniques next time you encounter a problem or notice room for improvement within a workflow you'll be surprised at how a simple framework can help set you up for success awesome now you know more about advocating for and creating continuous improvements we also defined and went through some examples of using Frameworks to Macy and pdca for process improvements now that you know the basics of continuous Improvement and process Improvement we'll discuss the differences between projects and programs and how they intersect I'll meet you in the next video by now you know that a project manager interacts with their team members on a daily basis what you may not know is that project managers are also part of a bigger ecosystem within their business or organization projects are not the only Endeavor a project manager May participate in there are also programs and portfolios a project is one single focused Endeavor a program is a collection of projects and a portfolio is a collection of projects and programs across the whole organization think of it this way projects can exist inside of programs which can exist inside of portfolios note that I said can because this won't always be the case projects can also exist as separate unrelated initiatives but if they're a part of something bigger within the organization projects can become a program the collective and separate successes of all of these three rely on continuous improvements so who are the people that manage these various Endeavors and drive success let's think of this organizationally starting with the project manager project manager oversees individual projects and has short-term concrete deliverables the project manager is tasked with continuously improving their assigned project a program manager supervises groups of projects and even other project managers and focuses on long-term business objectives this program manager is tasked with continuously improving their assigned collection of projects a portfolio manager supervises a grouping of projects and programs and provides centralized management to them this portfolio manager is tasked with continuously improving their assigned collection of projects and programs different companies may have slightly different names for these roles but the concept is the same let's examine an instance where these rules directly create continuous Improvement for their organizations a project manager has decided to offer monthly cross-departmental trainings to members of their team their team is small so they figure it's helpful when people from other departments understand their workload and processes this way if someone is out of office there will always be coverage after a couple months of these trainings the project manager realizes they not only improve processes in communication but they act as inadvertent team builders because of the trainings employees have the opportunity to interact and to get to know one another better the project manager takes this info to their program manager and the program manager loves this unexpected insight now the program manager can establish these Traders across all of the projects that they're managing making these continuous improvements program wide rather than just project wide so exactly what would projects programs and portfolios look like at office Green getting the plant pal service launch and running is a project it's short-term and temporary once the service is launched successfully the project ends keeping the service going indefinitely requires the project to become a program the program running the plant pal service becomes one of office Green's long-term business objectives and the company will work on continuously improving the program now plant Pals along with other projects and programs at office Green are included in the company's portfolio as continuous improvements are executed in project plant Pals the program and portfolios at office Green will notice the benefits of that for instance let's refer to the example of overstocked plans from the previous video while using pdca plan do check act you notice a drop in the sales of one of the plant varieties so you decide to reorganize the website so the species that isn't selling is featured at the top giving a small discount this change is so successful that you end up making it a best practice from now on low performing and Overstock plant varieties will be featured at the top of the website this is in fact a new process running it over and over again will drive continuous improvements The Continuous Improvement you made to the project reflected well in your program and portfolio because now that that's been tested the same strategy can be implemented company-wide for all of the company's other sites and products reducing waste and increasing Revenue across the board if many or all of the projects at office Green see the same Improvement that directly benefits the program which is the collective of the projects if the same strategy is applied to programs at office screen the portfolio will directly benefit by having stronger indicators for profitability great so now we've learned how to define a program and how it differs from a project we also discussed the impact of a project that could result in a program and we learned how a project can turn into programs or portfolios now that you know more about how these three concepts work together let's head to the next video I'm Jacob I'm a product operations manager at Google product operations is not that different from a program manager I've had lots of different titles they've been a Solutions consultant I've been a program manager now I'm in product operations as a manager and really it's the same set of skills being able to organize people take really complex ideas make it simple for people to understand so that our teams can then work on those product operations manager is a really diverse role not only do we work with Engineers we work the product we work legal but we're really the voice of the customer and so we have a really unique position where we get to take customer feedback whether that's coming in from a support Channel and then be able to kind of work with product to build a solution process Improvement is looking at data to understand how we can make something more effective or cost efficient when we work on projects we're always taking a look at how we're managing things to see if we can be better one example I can give is just taking notes seems super simple but a lot of times what will happen is notes get taken and we forget to send it out again we forget to send the email after so that people are updated so we're constantly looking at new ways to do things like take notes how do we organize the skills and the projects that we have so that's part of the process Improvement is definitely looking at the tools at our disposal and seeing if there's something new continuous improvements more a mentality that we have on the team of constantly pushing ourselves even if we feel like the product is at a good place to be better you know working with technology things are constantly changing and so we have to have that mindset of being continually trying to improve things you can plan things out perfectly or what you think is perfect and there's always going to be something to come up once you get something out in the wild people will use the product in ways that you didn't even think about and so that's where that idea of continuous Improvement comes in because even when you think it's great you need to be able to look at it let your ego down and be able to solve those problems once you see how people are actually using it it's critical to technology because it moves so fast things change so quickly if we aren't constantly improving the things that we do or looking at the processes that we have we're going to get behind we're always adding new features and so those always make new problems for us to try to solve if you believe that what you're trying to do is really for people and you forget about the numbers you forget about all of that stuff you remember that your product is going to potentially make someone really happy or make someone potentially more successful in their business those are the kinds of things that really make me excited to work and it puts away all of that frustration of the kind of lead up yeah have you ever looked back on an event in your life and wished it went differently well we can't help you go back in time but there are things you can do to ensure you don't experience the same missteps again in the last video we discussed continuous improvements one way to ensure continuous improvements is to conduct a retrospective so let's discuss that a little more in depth a retrospective is a workshop or meeting that gives project teams time to reflect on a project retrospectives sometimes known as Retros should happen throughout the life cycle of a project but mostly are implemented after major Milestones or most commonly after a project is completed retrospectives give you a chance to discuss successes and setbacks that took place within the project or phases you can think of them as a form of process Improvement within your project retrospectives serve three main purposes first they encourage team building because they allow team members to understand differing perspectives within their team second they facilitate improved collaboration on future projects and third they promote positive changes in future procedures and processes let's detail each one retrospectives are great for team building since they enable teams to understand each other better and facilitate better collaboration which improves productivity the emphasis in retrospective is on continuous Improvement and change instead of recycling old and potentially bad habits procedures and processes retrospectives are helpful because even if we plan for every possible risk odds are that something will sneak up on us when something does fall through the cracks and you need to reflect on it with the team you may want to conduct a retrospective some additional reasons that you might want to conduct a retrospective include missed deadlines or expectations or miscommunications between stakeholders you may also want to hold a retrospective at the end of a Sprint as a reminder a Sprint is a series of ordered tasks ending in a goal you could also hold a retrospective after product launches and Landings these are all great opportunities to record key lessons that other people might learn from as they work on their own projects identifying the stumbling blocks and successes in a project helps improve future processes but the way you decide to conduct a retrospective can vary there's no exact formula or template for productive retrospective the way you choose to structure your retrospective will depend on your team and workplace you may decide to conduct a formal in-person retrospective if your team prefers to debrief in that setting you can incorporate sticky notes documents or any other kind of physical tools to help your team debrief or if you find that your team often gets off track during in-person meetings you may decide a virtual or online retrospective is a better option in this case surveys might help to get thoughts organized although there's no one way to conduct retrospectives there are certain best practices to keep in mind as we previously mentioned you'll want your retrospectives to be blameless making sure that everyone feels comfortable giving feedback as candidly as possible will result in the most productive retrospective to navigate through awkward situations or sensitive subjects it may be necessary to encourage Anonymous or private feedback a couple of tactics a project manager can use to ensure the process remains blameless our changing perspective and switching from you language to we language changing perspective means putting yourself in someone else's shoes if your team is quick to blame the delivery company for their plants not arriving at the customer's office on time think about the situation from the delivery company's perspective was the delivery company's route optimized and tested to avoid traffic if not maybe that should have been a task in your project using you language can get you in trouble because it can feel like everyone in the room is judging the person receiving the blame for example telling your project sponsor that you didn't make it clear that we didn't have money for a contingency budget when plants die is not as productive as saying the lack of a contingency budget wasn't made fully clear from the get-go and that's something we can improve upon for next time the project sponsor may feel attacked and wonder why you the project manager didn't ask the right questions in the early stages maybe the fact of the matter is is that both of you could have done a little bit more to include a contingency budget and that's okay make sure you aren't only focusing on the negative retrospectives are about reflecting on the positive aspects of projects too so talk about what went well what was fun what new things will you be able to carry with you into future projects maybe the sales and marketing teams don't work together often but this gave them an opportunity to bond maybe you enjoyed working with the project plan Pal's contracted website designer so much that the team has decided to hire them full time whatever the positives were they're worth celebrating you could even order some dinner or dessert as a thank you to everyone finally you'll want to make sure that you enact the changes you've discussed you'll put the discuss changes in place and decide to handle the project a little differently in the next phase people don't want to participate in retrospectives if they feel their feedback isn't fully taken into consideration and implemented now that you have a general overview for retrospectives we'll build upon this foundation in the next video where we'll demonstrate how to conduct your own retrospective meet you there welcome back remember how I said there wasn't one exact formula or template to follow when conducting retrospectives that's because every team learns adapts and grows differently in this video we'll talk about how to conduct a retrospective different situations call for different tactics and when it comes to receiving potentially sensitive feedback it's best to consider your team's needs there are a couple of things to keep in mind before you begin a retrospective first you'll want to maintain a positive tone throughout the process remember even if there are some tough conversations the objective of a retrospective is to encourage improvements which prepare you for future projects in general the retrospective should be considered a positive experience where team members feel comfortable sharing their feedback next you may need to be considerate of teams outside of your own if there are other teams you partner with regularly they'll need to be involved in the retrospective as well for instance some adjacent teams that were part of the project may feel like they want to voice an opinion about the struggle to maintain communication between teams if they choose not to be involved in the retrospective you'll at least want to share your findings with them after all smoothing cross-team interactions and deliverable handoffs is a frequent topic of discussion in retrospectives as previously mentioned you can use various props and tools to conduct your retrospective here's an example of what a retrospective might entail as you'll notice it's pretty extensive and includes a lot of opportunity for details you'll want to encourage as much feedback as possible from your team this retrospective template is a standard document with room for project managers to fill out and discuss with their teams and use it to guide the conversations go over the chain of events in the same way that they happened in real time what happened during the planning stage what could have gone better where did your team get lucky how about during the execution stage as you do that fill out the lessons learn section which is a space for you to elaborate on things you could do differently the next time around this is a space to include which risks materialize during your project was there a large gap between the original plan and its execution how did the team feel about it maybe several of your project team members commented on the fact that the website launch didn't meet the original deadline because of this sales team members didn't hit their numbers that month the marketing department had to change the date on several pieces of content and ads and the sponsor had to answer to investors who were eager to view the website team members are upset now because if you had prioritized the website's completion and spent less time on less important tasks this may have been avoided it's difficult feedback but it's pertinent for future successes to consider why this risk materialized next time you'll make sure to prioritize a task with so many dependencies now that you've gone over how everything went build a better future for your team by filling out the remaining tables the first one is action items and we'll address the question what actions should we take as a result of our lessons learned you'll start on the left hand side with the action item you want to address then make your way through the cells to the right as you include information like type as in is this a tool a process a team or something else owner who will own this action item and relative links consider where we're tracking this item the next table is all about future considerations are there any risks that could become issues if not addressed in the next quarter do you need to pass off ownership of this project to someone else include those and make sure to fill out the other cells including type is this a process a team or something else contact who can be our resource on this procedure if we need to reference it later and again any links that may seem relevant to this topic that could be relevant documentation if you're passing the project off or it may be a risk register from your project and there you have it now I showed you a pretty standard retrospective as you'd fill it out but if you feel like your team needs something a little more interactive feel free to have fun with it the way you gather this information from your team can be more Innovative than just a list you can use color coding sticky notes columns with Emojis and anything else you feel will suit your team and keep them engaged whatever you do make sure you carry the Lessons Learned into your next projects in the next video we'll recap all of our own Lessons Learned From This module meet you there [Music] and I'm a senior program manager here at Google New York I work for a department called Geo which is responsible for Google Maps and our Maps products on Google search a senior program managers typically responsible for a set of projects and initiatives all the way from the ideation stage all the way through to getting them launched and landed something that happens to any project manager pretty much almost on a daily basis is that there's something unforeseen that happens and projects go off track retrospectives are really important tool in the toolbox that every project manager should have often people say at the end of a project okay now it's time to do a retrospective and you sort of carefully looking at what are the things that happen that went well and that didn't go well and what are some of the learnings that you can apply to Future projects but I really think of this more as a continuous exercise along the way like you really should be continuously checking in on how is the project going one example of where retrospective has helped us get back on track is we were working on the project but we were launching something on Google search halfway along the way we we realized there's actually a better way to do this that would realize much bigger benefits to our users so as a result of that we really got the whole project team together and we really sort of talked through what is what have we done so far what is it that the current state of the project is what are our options to go forward to help us address some of the shortcomings that we've now identified and then collectively replan the rest of the project to make sure we are sort of on a clear path forward and we have a clear understanding of how to get to that new sort of understanding of adjusted success it's incredibly important to be flexible and adjust direction if needed like if you know that there's a change that's needed and you know that the project is going in a bad Direction like continuing in that bad Direction obviously is the worst thing you could do for the project and for the company so it's really important to as quickly as possible sort of initiate that process of analyzing okay what are the options in terms of things that we can do to course correct and make sure the project is off in a good direction and embark on that new direction as quickly as possible obviously while taking enough time to make sure it's a data-driven decision all the stakeholders and sponsors are on board the most important things to keep track of as a project manager really depend a little bit on the project that you're involved in and so really I think tightly managing the scope tightly managing sort of the resources tidally managing against the timeline that you set out and really sort of carefully assessing how things are going as you compare them to the plan that you laid out originally and then and you sort of make course corrections as needed based on the things that you see foreign this module featured a lot of information we Revisited familiar Concepts and introduced so many new ones we discussed quality management where we learn the four steps to ensuring quality which includes setting quality standards quality planning quality assurance and quality control we covered continuous Improvement and how to use data-driven strategies such as demacy which stands for Define measure analyze improve control and pdca which stands for plan do check act in order to work toward continuous improvements we learned how to conduct and use retrospectives as a tool for future improvements and how to facilitate positive conversation and encourage feedback from your team members in order to avoid mistakes later on in future projects I'm really proud of how far you've come and I hope you are too I hope you take a moment to admire your progress and applaud yourself in the next module you'll learn about the importance of gathering data and how to make data-driven decisions I'll meet you there whenever you're ready hi there it's great to have you back so far we've talked about tracking and measuring project progress we've also discussed how to manage quality through different techniques and the benefits of continuous Improvement now I'm going to tell you all about data and data informed decision making you'll learn how data impacts decisions some of which occur during a project Journey you'll get answers to questions like how do I use data in my project which types of data should I search for and how do I determine what stakeholders need to know now more than ever we have access to data at our fingertips on our computers tablets and phones we use data every day to view the stats of our favorite athletes examine our screen time on social media and monitor our health data is a part of our daily lives take for example online job search sites these companies collect basic data you enter like your previous experience location maybe any degrees or certificates you might hold and use that information to determine potential job matches for you jobs that don't fit the criteria of what you entered aren't likely to appear in your suggestions this is just one way data is used to inform and influence our decisions in this module we'll discuss project data and how it informs decision making and helps to prevent both major and minor issues we'll also discuss how project related data can be used to reach success metrics we'll go over common project data such as tasks and issues and discuss how analyzing this data and other metrics impacts project productivity and quality finally we'll demonstrate how data isn't just about numbers you can also tell a unique story using the power of data storytelling offers a memorable way to communicate important aspects of your project pairing storytelling with data can convince stakeholders of ways to resolve problems and ensure a successful outcome so data certainly has its benefits there's a lot to learn about data and we'll lay out some of the basics so you can confidently tackle your projects ready to get started let's get to it in the next video hi there in this video we'll explain the value of data and how it impacts your projects we'll also cover how you'll use data to communicate with stakeholders data is a big business there are 2.5 quintillion bytes of data created each day that's a lot of data and a lot of information let's start by talking about what data is data is a collection of facts or information and through data analysis you'll learn how to use data to draw conclusions and make predictions and decisions we use data daily to help us make decisions and improve performance for example my friend is a runner who participates in annual five kilometer and 10 kilometer runs when she's training for a run she uses the data on her GPS watch to measure her time and distance she can even calculate her Pace by measuring the minutes per kilometer she uses the minutes per kilometer data to track her performance over time so that she can focus on improving for the future similarly companies use data and data analysis to improve and bring value to their organization in a variety of ways for example companies Source data on customer behavior and customer demand to provide better services and create new products Netflix is a great example of a company that uses data intelligence to predict what customers want by observing data points surrounding types of genres ratings and number of repeated viewings Netflix recommends TV shows that they believe customers might like therefore improving the customer's viewing experience in the same way as a project manager you can use data daily to make better decisions solve problems understand performance improve processes and understand your users let's examine how these benefits can impact a project let's talk about how this can play out in our plant Pals project at office Green if you have the data on customer buying patterns and identify that your best-selling products are all tropical plants you'll be able to make better decisions when placing new plant orders with your supplier you'll also be able to better understand your users and their preferences to improve your offerings and performance another daily benefit of data within your project team is the opportunity to improve processes if you have the data from your project tracker of the number of tasks completed the number of escalations or the number of issues that come up surrounding an internal process you'll be able to deduce where the majority of issues are stemming from this data will help inform your decision on where to focus your attention to improve the process while these are simple examples through critical analysis application and execution data becomes a powerful tool to guide any project in the right direction coming up we'll discuss the types of project data you can use to do just that hi again in the previous video you learned about the value of data in this lesson we'll discuss the common types of data that project managers collect and analyze regularly we'll also discuss the tools you'll need to organize this data for your projects ready to get started okay let's go as we discussed earlier data is the collection of facts that can help inform decisions you may start to notice how the project data impacts the team's daily activities and the overall progress and success of the project this is done by using various types of metrics a metric is a quantifiable measurement that is used to track and assess a business objective metrics are based on selected goals they vary per project and serve as a key type of project data there are many types of project data you can use to determine progress and efficiency you can group project metrics into productivity metrics and quality metrics productivity typically measures progress and output over time productivity metrics allow you to track the Effectiveness and efficiency of your project and include metrics like Milestones tasks projections and duration let's break down each metric as you may recall from an earlier course a milestone is an important Point within the Project's schedule that indicates progress and usually signifies completion of a deliverable or phase of the project and a project task is an activity that needs to be accomplished within a set period of time a projection is how you predict an outcome based on the information you have now for example You can predict that with the resources you have at the start of the project the project will be completed in six months the duration of a project is the total time it takes to complete a project from start to finish duration can also be used for milestones and determining if you'll meet project deadlines this data is broken down into hours days weeks months and sometimes years so to recap productivity metrics include Milestones tasks projections and duration now let's discuss quality metrics quality metrics relates to achieving acceptable outcomes and can include metrics such as the number of changes issues and cost variants which all affect quality let's discuss each metric the number of changes during the project or project scope helps to monitor risks changes show any inconsistencies from the initial requirements of the project a series of compounding small changes May indicate a bigger issue and provide early warning signs of these issues using a changelog to keep a record of these changes is a useful tool for communicating with stakeholders about why something is taking a long time or costs more than expected a changelog is a record of all the notable changes on a project an issue is a known and real problem that may affect the ability to complete a task for example an issue might be the delay of legal approval for an advertisement you were hoping to launch or the missing number of confirmed seats to secure a venue for a business conference another quality metric is cost variance it illustrates the difference between the actual cost and the budgeted cost simply put cost variance Compares what you plan to spend versus what you actually spent let's put it in an example if you budgeted to only host 250 attendees at an upcoming business conference but 275 people showed up and the venue charges you for those additional guests the actual cost will be higher than your initial budget or estimate so to recap quality metrics can include things like number of changes issues and cost variance while these data points are commonly tracked by project managers there are dozens more that you can leverage to inform decisions in your project the great news is that there's a lot of sophisticated software and tools dedicated to project management and data analysis so you will have help keeping track of all of these different types of data in one centralized location project management tools like workfront and jira track activity and provide readable results so you can measure the overall health of your project data analysis tools like Tableau are useful for data visualization now you know a bit more about how to identify common types of data you can also ID common project management software and tools that can help you manage and analyze data in the next lesson we'll cover how data helps you to make informed decisions meet you there welcome back let's get back to discussing all things data earlier we learned about what data is its value to the project manager and the different types of data a project manager works with in this lesson we'll discuss how to identify the most important data for your project how to prioritize the data you collect and how to effectively gather priorities from your stakeholders so that you're meeting your goals let's get started did you know that the average temperature for most humans is 98.6 degrees so if your temperature reached 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit or higher there would likely be signals that something's not quite right like a sway forehead muscle aches or even dehydration your brain would begin to receive signals that something is off because it's the brain's job to pay attention to the signals that indicate there's a problem threatening your overall health that's how you should think about data when it comes to managing your project there are all kinds of information and facts that you can gather as a project manager but it's important for you to be aware of the signals that threaten the overall success of the project a signal is an observable change and it can help you to determine the overall health of your project and identify early signs that something isn't quite right being aware of the different types of data you have access to and knowing which signals to respond to are key to deciding what data is most important maybe you're asking yourself how do I determine what data is important great question as a project manager it's up to you to look for signals and to prioritize data to deliver positive results there are a couple of ways you can begin to do this one way is to observe your team's productivity and output identify which tasks contribute most to the overall goal this will help you determine the importance of which data points in this case tasks and activities you should focus on secondly prioritize the data or metrics that are most valuable to stakeholders for example let's say you have an ongoing project at a manufacturing company to release a portable Home Appliance by the third quarter your stakeholder is concerned about whether or not you'll meet the deadline okay start by thinking what data do you have about the project you know that it's the first quarter and you're already two thousand dollars over budget but you also know that you're 30 days ahead of schedule according to your burn down chart which measures time against the amount of work done and the amount of work remaining you may think your project is running a schedule but there are additional things to consider for one the number of tasks has increased by 10 percent over the last three weeks because your stakeholders want to add more features to the Appliance and now your team's productivity is slowing down because they're starting to burn out from the late nights and long hours required to add in those new features now how do you feel about meeting that third quarter deadline not so good right what do you do you might be tempted to focus on the signal that your two thousand dollars over budget but if your stakeholders communicated that they're more concerned with meeting the deadline than they were about being over budget then you'll want to keep an eye on key signals related to time and scope rather than budget and then hone in on those signals to identify and prioritize areas to improve the relevant data tells you you'll be able to meet the deadline provided that stakeholders stop requesting new product features that result in more tasks for your team to complete you can use your productivity metrics to forecast how you'll manage an increase in scope with your team's current productivity rate and communicate this to your stakeholder to avoid having to reset expectations with stakeholders again and again you can keep your project plan up to date with the Project's priorities and ensure that this information is accessible to everyone stakeholders can look to your project plan for a high level overview of answers to important questions success criteria artifacts and the overall health of your project remember there are a lot of data points available to you using signals focusing on the tasks that have the biggest impact on the project goal and aligning to your stakeholders priorities are a good way to help you prioritize the right tasks so now that you identified data and prioritized it so that you're working to meet business needs the next thing to determine is how to use the data to make better decisions we'll cover that when we connect in the next video hi again in this video we'll go into Data analysis and how project managers use it to make informed decisions throughout a project we use data every day to help us make both simple and important decisions in our lives for example imagine that you're saving money for a big purchase maybe you decided that the best way to reach your goals sooner is to create a budget after spending time reviewing your budget perhaps you find that your weekly expenses are higher than your weekly allowances and that many of your expenses are from ordering food and dining out you realize that in order for you to reach your goal you'll need to start spending less money on eating out and find more cost-effective ways to buy food with this new information you found a way to save up for your big purchase similar to how you might create and adjust a budget to reach a desired outcome it's your role as a project manager to select appropriate data to help inform your decision making you can do this using a process called Data analysis data analysis is the process of collecting and organizing information to help draw conclusions it's used to solve problems make informed decisions and support goals businesses use data analysis to reveal important insights and patterns within their data that help inform actions and drive results Gathering data is only part of the process the other part is analyzing the data what you learn from your analysis becomes knowledge that power smart solutions for your project managers will often apply data analysis to look for repeated behaviors and to find a solution Based on data predictions for example let's imagine that a Rideshare company has a group of data analysts working on using patterns in writer Behavior to improve customer support they notice a high demand for drivers midweek during rush hour in one specific City as a result writers are having a hard time getting drivers to pick them up during peak hours as a project manager you've been asked to come up with a solution to help Meet The increased demand for drivers you work with your team to determine which data points would be most appropriate to review you might decide to track Peak traffic times the number of average daily writer requests and the number of available drivers these data points can help inform how to solve for the high demand during rush hour after analyzing the data your team realizes that one solution could be to offer incentives to drivers to pick up riders in the city during peak times the new incentives make drivers feel appreciated and the increase in drivers increases customer satisfaction and you came to the solution thanks to the insights gleaned from data analysis in this example you collected types of data qualitative and quantitative quantitative data includes statistical and numerical facts about the number of writer requests that came in requests in the city increased at specific points over a period of time the other data is qualitative data which describes the subjective qualities or things that can't be measured with numerical data like user feedback about the service or product in project management you will use both qualitative data and quantitative data points to inform decisions make improvements and share insights coming up you'll learn how to tell stories using data and effective ways to present meet you there welcome back in this video we'll discuss how to tell a powerful story using data we'll teach you how to gather and organize your project data to present it to others within your organization presenting is a powerful way to communicate your ideas and support your decisions throughout the project Journey think of presenting as telling the story of your project storytelling is the process of turning facts into narrative to communicate something to your audience storytelling is how you bring data to life and is a useful way to tell stakeholders within your organization about your project in a way we're all storytellers using information and experiences to share our ideas with others stories usually have a beginning middle and end to tell a great story using data we'll go over some best practices to make sure your story is complete accurate and compelling in general there are six main steps to storytelling first Define your audience then collect the data next filter and analyze the data fourth choose a visual representation then shape the story and finally gather your feedback now let's review each one step one Define your audience in this first step it's important to know who you're presenting to are you presenting to project sponsors or Executives or to team members Define your audience and find out what matters most to them Begin by asking yourself qualifying questions like what would my audience want to know about the project or what are their most urgent concerns which key data points influence the story and project outcome this will set you up to know the type of story you want to tell and the type of data you should use to tell it for example years ago I was working on a project for Google Maps our goal was to apply a label to every business in the world restaurants hotels gas stations you name it there are many many many businesses in the world and I only had a small team of Engineers to work with for this project we tailored our storytelling to an audience of vice presidents from Google Maps and Google search both were important to consider because we were helping users find and connect to businesses through the Google Maps app and through Google search I'll return to this example as I take you through the steps of Storytelling next up is step two find the data that connects to the question you want to answer you'll need to begin searching for data from trustworthy resources to support the point you're trying to make Leverage The relevant project resources and documents like your project plan or work management software to download and analyze key data points for my Google Maps project the question we were trying to answer was where should we focus our attention first so to find the right data for this question we turn to the many businesses in our internal database and the available information about what types of businesses users were searching for that brings us to step three filter and analyze the data now that you've collected your data you'll need to vet it for credibility and filter the information for my maps project we use search queries to determine the types of businesses that users search for most often which included restaurants cafes and hotels there were other categories gas stations museums Etc but they collectively made up a much smaller percentage of geospecific search traffic step 4 choose a visual representation visualizations are a great way to help people remember the information you're presenting and on our essential piece of Storytelling you can use data in different ways to tell a story like using dashboards charts infographics and mappings and we'll go over these examples in more detail in the next video for my maps project we decided on a pie chart to help tell our story which brings me to step five shape the story after you've analyzed your data and know how you'd like to visualize it it's time to tie it all together into one cohesive narrative take some time to think about what you're hoping to achieve the points you want to make and the questions and concerns you want to answer for the maps project we use the pie chart to show that most geospecific search queries are covered by a relatively small number of businesses so we built a story about that data we wanted agreement from our VPS to work on improving the data behind this set of categories in a few major markets and needed to illustrate that if we improve the category data we'd succeed in improving the search results for more than 50 percent of Geo searches lastly is Step six gather your feedback similar to how you may ask a friend to practice with you before an interview you want to be sure that before you present you do a trial run try getting feedback from someone who's not connected to the project find out if it was interesting did it make sense what questions did they have their feedback can help you identify areas of your story that were unclear or unmemorable and give you a final chance to make adjustments to recap you want to Define your audience collect the data filter and analyze the data choose a visual representation shape the story and finally gather your feedback the key to effective storytelling is to be organized intentional and prepared coming up we'll talk more about step four effective visualization see you there hi there in this video we'll discuss data visualization and how it helps inform decisions for your project data visualization is the graphical representation of information to facilitate understanding that can include graphs maps and tables to name a few project managers use these visual representations for a few reasons they're useful for communicating data to others because they help filter information by focusing the audience on the most important data points and insights visualizations are also a more efficient way to summarize information because they condense long ideas and facts into a single image or representation and crucially they help the viewer make sense of and remember the information being presented visualizations help aid information processing and enhance memory it plays an active role in the storytelling process by helping communicate project insights to your audience let's go into some familiar types of data visualizations that project managers use throughout the entire life cycle of the project first let's discuss a common data visualization tool used when running the project a dashboard a dashboard is a type of user interface typically a graph or summary chart that provides a snapshot view of your Project's progress or performance it acts as a centralized location for project stakeholders to draw quick insights it can display a tight summary of metrics stats and key performance indicators or kpis a kpi is a measurable value or metric that demonstrates how effective an organization is at achieving key objectives they serve as a great Aid in helping your team and stakeholders understand if you are on the right track in other words they signal if you are making progress to reach your success criteria in your dashboard you may have a summary of your top kpis or metrics and your progress to date for instance if one of your objectives is for your project to reach a 95 customer satisfaction score at the end of a three-month period you may track that goal via thousands of customer satisfaction surveys rather than displaying a spreadsheet of each response a dashboard is a good place to summarize those results and showcase the average customer satisfaction score to see how you are pacing to your goal similarly you could also include other key kpis that signify progress like a countdown that shows the number of days until project launch or the percentage of the number of issues resolved many project dashboards may also summarize project plans documents and reports in one place and provide a visual of the status of each of them for example if your project plan has hundreds of tasks with varying degrees of completion your dashboard May summarize the amount of tasks or Milestones completed at that point in time and the percentage of tasks that are in progress complete or not started as you may start to notice dashboards are great visualizations for efficient status updates because they enable you to group summarize and highlight top project data points another visualization that does this is one that we mentioned earlier a burn down chart a burn down chart is a line chart that measures the time against the amount of work done and the amount of work remaining the outstanding work is usually on the vertical axis with the time visualized horizontally this serves as a strong visualization to help the team picture the amount of tasks left to complete similar to line charts column charts are another popular graph used to Signal project performance and progress column charts are useful for comparing different activities or comparing progress over time for instance you can show different outputs like the number of customers and the number of plants delivered year over year to demonstrate growth and change pie charts are useful when showing the composition of something or the parts to whole relationship all of these simple charts offer visualizations that enable you to draw quick insights and help tell stories there are many more in the following reading that I recommend checking out and practicing before that there is a final visual tool that I want you to know about which is an infographic infographics are visual representations of information such as data or facts and are typically in the form of what we call a Google a one-pager or a one cheater the difference is that they're typically concise summaries of that data this is often done primarily through Graphics or drawings emphasizing the biggest points with added text for further explanation use infographics to present complex information quickly professionally and clearly especially when you may not be present to share all of the details yourself infographics should be able to communicate strong information without the need for extra support and explanation these are just a few examples of data visualization in project management remember you'll want to use visuals to demonstrate and illustrate situations like changes over time frequency relationship correlations and to analyze value and risks another important tip is to make sure that these visualizations are accessible as we mentioned before you'll want to ensure that your data story is understood by everyone check out the resources tab on the some of the best practices for accessible visualizations and Communications nice job now that you're noticing how to use data to effectively tell your story we'll continue on to the final piece of this lesson learning about presentation techniques to present your data meet you in the next video hi you've learned the process of crafting a narrative about your project and you've learned how to visualize key data points that help you to tell that story now it's time to bring it all together in this video we'll highlight some useful presentation techniques think about one of your favorite public speakers and why you enjoy their presentation so much is it their voice their knowledge or the confidence they exude while speaking brene Brown is one of my favorite speakers she's widely known for her 2010 Ted Talk the power of vulnerability which received 60 million views worldwide Brown didn't begin her career as a public speaker but as a research professor at the University of Houston today she uses public speaking as a way to teach Executives and leaders about courage and empathy public speakers spend a lot of time working on their craft speaking to an audience whether to inform entertain or share isn't always easy and data alone isn't enough to convince people that you've made the right decisions or that your project was impactful an effective presentation helps convey the important work that you and your team are accomplishing on your project and throughout the project you'll likely have many opportunities to present from your initial kickoff meeting to your weekly status updates to your final project presentation as you begin to craft your narrative think about your audience ask yourself what do I want my audience to know think or do as a result of this presentation create your presentation around the big picture and keep it simple now let's discuss three ways to help you give an effective presentation those are being precise flexible and memorable first to give an effective presentation you need to be precise about your key points identify the problem you're solving for your audience and remove any content that dilutes your narrative one way I ensure that my slideshow presentations are as precise as they can be is by using a technique called designing for five seconds the idea is that your audience should be able to understand a slide within five seconds so I keep my presentation sides simple including only the most relevant data points to avoid overloading my audience with text they don't have time to read to give an effective presentation you also need to be flexible flexibility is a huge part of your job as a project manager for example it's possible that a stakeholder may have to leave your presentation unexpectedly or that other attendees may arrive late consider the approach you take if you had shorten your presentation from an hour to 30 minutes or even just five know the most important points you want to make and be prepared to share only those points should the unexpected occur preparing ahead of time also helps you to be more flexible when presenting ample preparation helps you to avoid small mistakes that can potentially distract from your narrative like stumbling over sentences or struggling to pull up a slideshow presentation to prepare ahead of time you might practice delivering your presentation to members of your team and invite them to offer feedback ask questions or share concerns preparing ahead of time also gives you space to identify and come up with answers to the types of questions your audience might have about your presentation and it also gives you time to imagine and prepare for possible objections your audience might have to the decisions you want to make lastly be memorable develop a strategy that helps make your narrative Unforgettable think back to effective storytelling this is the point where you'll want to tie in your data analysis effective visualization and put the finishing touches on your narrative to bring it all together use stories or include repetition to help your audience remember the information moving forward another helpful tip is to be aware of your body language when presenting maintain an upright posture and rest your hands at your side when making a point try elevating your tone of voice for emphasis pace yourself by using intentional pauses and speak about half the speed you would normally speak while keeping your sentences short make eye contact with your audience and keep your facial expressions warm and friendly finally have confidence you've done the research and are well prepared so you can set your worries aside if you're precise flexible and memorable you'll give a great presentation now that you've analyzed the data and crafted your story your job is to present your findings effectively use these tips to deliver a presentation worthy of a standing ovation in the next video we'll wrap up and review what we've recently learned I'll meet you over there hello again you just learned a lot about presentation best practices from my colleague just like you need to be strategic prepared and clear about which data you want to share you also need to be intentional about ensuring your presentations are accessible and can be consumed and understood by everyone let's dive into some accessibility tips to set you up for Success starting with the design of your presentation first create clear simple slides avoid using too many Graphics too much text or too much animation visual complexity makes it harder for people to absorb information during your presentation especially for those with a visual or cognitive impairment if your slides use animation make sure that you don't leave people behind by making important content disappear if people read more slowly or rely on an interpreter they might need a bit more time to absorb the content avoid using repetitive animation like flashing or flickering since it can be distracting and can trigger seizures simple doesn't have to mean boring though a simple Sly can still be beautiful and informative just don't try to crowd too much information or activity into a single slide if you generally don't use slides when giving a talk consider giving it a try even if you create just one slide with your main points if you rely only on your voice that is you don't provide any visual accompaniment some people might have difficulty understanding whether because of a language barrier or hearing or cognitive impairment another tip is to include alternative text also called alt text for any images drawings or diagrams doing so describes the information related in a graphic to make it accessible to people who rely on screen readers to add alt text in Google Slides or PowerPoint simply select the object right click and then select alt text the same consideration applies to charts charts can be difficult to decipher especially if they use a small font in order to fit more data if your slide includes data heavy charts or graphs be sure to specify the takeaway either on the slide itself or in the speaker notes next always use text for critical information never rely only on color or other visual formatting to convey critical information on a charter slide relying too heavily on visual formatting excludes anyone who is colorblind or unable to see the screen for example to highlight a new section of a flow chart don't simply use a different color along with the color change add a textual cue such as the word new if your presentation relies heavily on images consider including a written summary at the end of the presentation so that people can read your main points easily in one place another tip is to include captions for video content and in real time provide captions for all audio or video recordings shared in your presentation if you're using a YouTube video check that the YouTube automatic captioning is accurate if it's not request close captioning through a captioning service use real-time captioning for your presentation if available along with helping deaf or hard of hearing audience members real-time captioning is useful if there are diverse accents and languages of the Moon if the presenter speaks too quickly if there are microphone issues or if you have chatty audience members who are distracting their neighbors another thing to remember is for contrast and text size more is better the difference between text and its background color is called contrast ratio a high contrast ratio makes it easier for people to read text or decipher images especially if they're sitting far away or have low vision or color blindness an ideal contrast ratio is seven to one there are contrast Checker tools available online so be sure to check those out recommendations for text size vary bit bigger is usually better before your presentation begins go to the back of the room and make sure you can read your slides also the use of all capital letters makes reading text more difficult for some people such as people with dyslexia when possible avoid using all caps this is a simple change that can go a long way my final tip is to share your content in advance if possible send slides to your audience a few days before your presentation this gives the audience a chance to review the content and if needed make arrangements to accommodate their own needs and preferences for example visually impaired audience members might want to follow along with your slides on their own device with screen reading software if you aren't able to share your size in advance consider sending a document with a bulleted outline of your presentation and if you're using acronyms or technical or obscure terminology include a glossary with definitions this information is especially helpful for sign language interpreters and captioners all of these best practices you just learned will help make your presentations accessible to all of your audience members remember you can't communicate information effectively if your audience can't easily access it for these and other best practices on how to make your documents and presentations more accessible check out the resources tab coming up you will learn about team communication and best practices so good work so far you're making real progress and I'm excited to be a part of your journey congrats on reaching the end of this module so what did we learn we learn that data plays a key part to the success of any organization and it impacts your role as a project manager we've learned what data is the value that data provides for your projects and how it empowers you to achieve your Project's goals you learned about the different types of data like metrics and projections and how to identify and discern what information to watch for and to communicate to stakeholders we also discussed how important data is to help you make informed decisions and showcase areas where you and your team are being most effective flagging potential risks and opportunities to advance we reviewed data visualization and data tools and learned that facts are usually easier to remember when there's a visual alongside it we also discuss ways for you to present all of your insights to stakeholders colleagues and customers so let's pause so you can give yourself a high five for coming this far next up we'll discuss leadership and the fundamentals of teamwork keep up the great work and we'll meet you there when you're ready welcome back in this module you'll learn the value of a high functioning team and how teamwork can help you reach your project goals will also take you through the different stages of team development and you'll learn about managing Team Dynamics we'll discuss motivating project team members to succeed and providing each person with personalized levels of Engagement and we'll take you through techniques you can use to influence others let's get started think of a leader who you admire and respect what qualities do they have that make them a good leader maybe they're an active listener maybe they're great at fostering a sense of community for people around them as a project manager leadership is a big part of the job but being a great project manager is about more than simply leading a team to complete a project it's about supporting the people on your team to do their best work and enabling people to build things they're proud of in this video we'll Define teamwork and explain why it's important for successful project management the best leaders are able to get people to work together that's why a project manager's ability to develop and Lead teams that work well together is so important but before we go further let's pause and consider what exactly is a team though there are many different definitions of the word team here's how we describe it here at Google a team is a group of people who plan solve problems make decisions and review progress in service of a specific project or objective team members rely on each other to get things done for example a software engineering team might be tasked with creating one seamless software experience that meets users needs Beyond coordinating with the project manager members of the software engineering team will also coordinate with one another as they work toward their shared goal teams differ from work groups which we Define as being based on organizational or managerial hierarchy though people within a work group might be working toward a common goal their work is more likely to be coordinated controlled or assigned by a single person or entity for example a work group focused on quality assurance testing might be tasked with running a set of test plans the group manager might split up that work and assign each quality assurance tester a plan to review but unlike a team the testers will work independently of one another to complete their tasks and will coordinate mainly with the manager and the development team of the feature they're testing teams and work groups each have unique benefits within a larger organization but for the purpose of this program we'll focus on teams more specifically we'll discuss how project managers develop and Lead effective teams by fostering a culture of teamwork teamwork is an effective collaborative way of working in which each person is committed to and heading toward a shared goal teamwork maximizes the individual strength of each team member to bring out the best in each person as you might imagine teamwork is a crucial part of successful project management there are a few reasons for this for one teamwork Fosters creativity a team might Leverage The diverse perspectives skills and experiences of their members to devise better Solutions and build products that address more diverse user needs than they might have if they were working independently of each other teamwork also encourages accountability the knowledge that the execution of your tasks directly impacts the tasks of the rest of the team can be a powerful motivator and most importantly teamwork helps you get stuff done big complex projects need smart capable people to complete tasks and to reach Milestones to meet the project goals as the project manager it's your job to encourage others to actively engage in working together as a team to Foster creativity encourage accountability and to get stuff done teamwork is an effective collaborative way of working and when done right it can positively impact both measurable team results and the team culture coming up we'll take you through the Elements of Effective teams meet you there teams are made up of individuals and individuals are driven by different motivators whether that's serving their organization supporting their family or simply working on projects they think are cool you'll need to learn about the people on your team in order to best determine how to motivate everyone at the same time a few years ago researchers here at Google set out to identify the Dynamics of effective teams and through this research they identified five factors that have an impact on team effectiveness in order of importance those five factors are psychological safety dependability structure and Clarity meaning and impact let's break these down let's start with psychological safety which is the number one factor that impacts team effectiveness here's how our researchers Define it psychological safety refers to an individual's perception of the consequences of taking an interpersonal risk in other words they believe it's safe to take risks within their team and they don't risk being labeled as ignorant and competent negative or disruptive on teams with high psychological safety teammates feel comfortable taking risks around fellow team members seeking differing opinions and resolving interpersonal conflict when it comes up for example on my team at Google we like to see be direct and kind we've worked really hard to build a team culture in which we can hold one another accountable while maintaining a shared space that is safe secure and peaceful what I found is that when opportunities to take risks do arise like pitching an out of the box idea to my directors for example this culture of mutual respect has already laid the groundwork to get direct feedback without frustration or worrying that I might embarrass myself and that's been invaluable in maintaining a high level of psychological safety for the team next we have dependability Google's researchers explain it this way undependable teams members are reliable and complete their work on time creating a Dependable team requires a combination of setting negotiating and meeting expectations yes your team needs to meet the expectations set for them at the same time you as the project manager need to establish a two-way relationship with your team you have to be able to clearly communicate expectations and ensure that the team feels comfortable negotiating with you when needed for example it's likely that a person on your team works on two or more projects with competing deadlines if they're afraid to share their own constraints with you then their work on both projects might suffer alternatively if they come to you with their concerns an open understanding and negotiation around priorities could help ease their burden next we have structure and clarity here's how our researchers Define it structure and Clarity refers to an individual's understanding of job expectations knowledge of how to meet those expectations and the consequences of their performance each team member has a clear sense of their individual role plans and goals and they have a sense of how their work affects the group you as the project manager can help Foster a sense of structure and Clarity on the team for example if a project structure and tracking are sloppy unorganized and incohesive then the team's output is likely to be sloppy unorganized and incohesive this can cause tension within the team alternatively if you diligently engage in Project tracking your team will have Clarity feel more United and will be able to effectively collaborate meaning also impacts team Effectiveness Google's researchers Define meeting in this context as finding a sense of purpose either in the work itself or in the results of that work for example your teammates might find meaning in supporting themselves financially helping the team reach its goals or wanting their products to reach a new community of users and finally we have impact our researchers Define impact as the belief that the results of one's work matters and creates change it can be challenging for people to notice how their work can shift an entire ecosystem forward part of your role as the project manager is to help individual teammates identify how they drive impact both within the team and Beyond it project tracking can be a helpful tool for visualizing progress and impact meeting milestones for example demonstrates to the team how their individual tasks contribute to the larger project goals for example my team focuses on routing within Google Maps the big idea is to focus on helping people to get to where they're going on time so everything we do should make that experience incrementally better and that's how we add impact to recap Google's researchers identified psychological safety dependability structure and Clarity meaning and impact as the top five factors that have an impact on team effectiveness coming up we'll discuss how project managers lead teams that reach project goals hi again there are a few key ways that project managers help build high functioning teams who work together to meet project goals they create systems that turn chaos into order they communicate and listen they promote trust and psychological safety they demonstrate empathy and create motivation they delegate responsibility and prioritize and they celebrate team success let's go through each of those points one by one good project managers lead their teams by creating systems that turn chaos into order you can do this by creating implementing and improving standardized measurable repeatable and scalable workflows and processes for your team for example if you find that you're usually chasing down teammates for progress on their work you might set up a process for how and when a teammate should let you know that they've completed a task think of creating systems as a kind of connect the dots puzzle being a project manager is sort of like that but there are no numbers just Dots and a partial image but we don't need the numbers we can notice the dots know their importance and string them together to help everyone visualize the project as a whole you find the system through the chaos and help other people to find it too another way that project managers lead is through communicating and listening as the project manager it's your job to ensure that everyone on your team is on the same page regarding the status of your project for example you might communicate with a team via daily or weekly status update emails and regular team meetings team meetings also provide a space for listening whether you're Gathering feedback on a workflow or process or Fielding questions from the group you can also solicit feedback or questions via status update emails since some people might feel more comfortable speaking in private in addition to communicating and listening to The Wider team it's also your responsibility to regularly connect with individual teammates you do this by gaining an understanding of communication Styles and by asking people on your team how they prefer to communicate what's important to know is that everyone communicates differently for example I might make small talk with colleagues who I know enjoy it or I might get straight to the point with colleagues who prefer not to chat project managers also lead by promoting trust and psychological safety within their team as a reminder psychological safety refers to an individual's perception of the consequences of taking an interpersonal risk team members need to trust that they're safe and speaking up if they have feedback or concerns about the project as a whole or about their individual tasks it's your job to create a team atmosphere where different opinions are welcome and all members remain respectful of one another during challenging conversations for example during weekly status meetings you might schedule time for open thoughtful and inclusive discussions you might model this by asking for help solving a problem that's impacting the team you should encourage contributions from all team members regardless of role or rank by doing this you make clear to your teammates that they should feel comfortable challenging processes and workflows and you make clear that critiques of the project and plans are welcome and valued no matter who they come from while it can feel challenging to provide and accept feedback it's a healthy part of project management and usually makes for a better project outcome on an individual level project managers lead by practicing empathy and creating motivation for their team members it's possible you've heard the phrase there's no I in team and while that's true that teams need to work together to be effective it's also important to remember that teams are made up of individuals with differing motivations and lives outside of work you can demonstrate empathy for your teammates by being present listening and asking questions during one-on-one conversations avoid making assumptions about what the other person is thinking and feeling if you're quiet and curious there's always more to learn in addition to showing empathy for my team I also like to create Motivation by recognizing a job well done through public forums like in a meeting or a group email recognition tells people that they're doing the right things and motivates them to keep up the good work be sure to recognize good work and not just heroic efforts project managers also lead by delegating responsibility and prioritizing most projects will likely have multiple tasks taking place simultaneously and it's your job to keep the team focused and heading toward the project goals and deliverables by delegating responsibility for specific tasks to individuals on your team you provide your teammates with the opportunity to add value using their particular set of skills you also give yourself space to focus on the project as a whole by prioritizing tasks you reduce ambiguity and provide Clarity for your team if you think that a task is important but your team doesn't they might work on whatever tasks they like by prioritizing and making that prioritization known you keep the team focused work with your team to build consensus around priorities explaining your rationale can help you get their buy-in and increase their commitment to the work lastly project managers lead by celebrating team success both at the end of the project and throughout it this includes celebrating big and small wins like reaching a milestone or receiving positive feedback from stakeholders celebrating success is an important tool for motivating the team because it increases morale and boosts the team's engagement you might celebrate the team with a group lunch a small gift or even just a congratulatory email simple gestures like these demonstrate appreciation for the team's hard work and when people feel appreciated they tend to work harder and their teams perform better to recap project managers build high functioning teams in a few key ways creating systems that turn chaos into order communicating and listening promoting trust and psychological safety demonstrating empathy and creating motivation delegating responsibility and prioritizing and celebrating team's success as you grow in your career you'll strengthen your ability to lead bigger and more complex teams but the principles of teamwork will remain the same coming up you'll learn about the stages of team development and how to manage Team Dynamics I'll see you soon I am from Orange County California my mom was a schoolteacher for the majority of my life she also went on to be a assistant principal and then became a principal herself during that entire time as a kid growing up I never had my Summers I actually ended up spending all of my time with my mom at her school helping her with teachers who wanted to restock their shelves or file away papers or shred papers some important advice that my mother told me when I was growing up especially when I would go spend time with her in her schools and saw what her leadership style looked like she had and still has this uncanny ability to connect with people in ways that not only make them feel seen but feel empowered and I think that's a very powerful leadership style and it's something that um I like to bring to my project management role as well because it allows me to make sure that people feel like they can get things done but it's not just for me it's for a collective vision and the advice was deference gives you the experience to be able to lead and it's important because as a project manager as we've said in these courses you're not going to know or you're not going to have a lot of the technical or specific domain expertise that you need in order to create the big meaty things that you're trying to drive but as a program or a project manager you're kind of the leader who's supposed to be making sure things get done and you work with every little piece of the pie so like my mom who was a principal worked with the custodial staff she worked with the PTA she worked with the teachers and the teachers union she worked with the parents and she developed this great network of people that helped her get things done so I would say that was the best advice that I've received my name is Emilio Garcia and I am a responsible Innovation program manager at Google foreign that you're starting a new project with a brand new team of people no one on the team has worked together before so this will be a new experience for everyone to better understand how your team might develop over time let's discuss the psychologist Bruce tuckman's five stages of team development forming storming norming performing and adjoining these stages of development illustrate how teams grow from a disparate group of people into a high functioning unit you might even recognize the characteristics of each stage from previous experiences working on a team tuckman's first stage of Team development is the forming stage at this point Everything feels shiny and new individuals on the team are just getting to know one another and they're eager to make a good impression and typically they're excited for the work to begin during this stage you as the project manager should clarify project goals roles and context about the project people are seeking guidance and it's your job to provide that guidance the second stage of Team development is the storming stage this is where things get a bit trickier as people settle into their roles and the work on the project Begins the people on your team are interacting more and maybe disagreeing a bit this is where feelings of frustration might emerge individuals might take issues with certain processes they feel are inefficient or other teammates they disagree with especially when the team is navigating tasks that are much more complex than they first appeared makes sense right if you're working closely with a new group of people for the first time there's bound to be some interpersonal conflict teammates might disagree on time and effort estimations vary in their levels of Independence or prefer to prioritize certain tasks over other equally important tasks as the project manager it's your job to focus on conflict resolution listen as the team addresses problems to solve and share insights on how the team might better function as a unit after storming comes tuckman's third stage the norming stage at this point the team has resolved some of its internal conflict by establishing new Norms like processes and workflows that make it easier for everyone to get things done team feels better equipped to work together efficiently and effectively you as the project manager should codify the team Norms ensuring that the team is aware of those norms and reinforce them when needed for example if you've agreed to discuss solutions to issues during weekly team meetings ensure that your weekly agenda but it's time for this topic each week tuckman's fourth stage is the Performing stage during this time the team works together relatively seamlessly to complete tasks reach milestones and make progress toward the project goal in the Performing stage you as the project manager should focus on delegating motivating and providing feedback to keep up the team's momentum the fifth and final stage of Team development is the Jordan stage in this stage the project is wrapping up and it's time for the team to disband it can be a Bittersweet time for the team and you might want to Mark the end of the project with a celebration you as the project manager should set up time to celebrate the final milestones and success of the project as a group and be sure each member of your team knows what's next for them okay to recap tuckman's five stages of team development are forming storming norming performing and adjoining these stages of team development come together to form a helpful framework you can use to assess and recognize Team Dynamics and then adjust your management style accordingly Team Dynamics refer to the forces both conscious and unconscious that impact team behavior and performance managing Team Dynamics is a big part of determining how to motivate your team it might be tempting to assume that people can go Full Speed Ahead into a project but in reality it's important to take time to understand the Dynamics of your team overall and how individual team members are fitting in this is especially important during the more precarious forming and storming Sages let's break down why managing Team Dynamics is so important first teams have individuals with different skill sets varying degrees of autonomy and competing priorities it's your job to forge consensus and set clear purposes goals dependencies and accountability when teams function cohesively they can focus on the tasks and objectives at hand another reason why it's important to manage Team Dynamics is that it helps you to create a collaborative and psychologically safe environment when team members feel safe they're willing to help one another and accept help when they need it this benefits the entire project by keeping schedules on track though it can take time to get to the Performing stage using the norming stage as a time to foster a collaborative environment can help you get there quicker understanding and managing Team Dynamics can also help you understand how to motivate your team motivated team members are likely to contribute more to discussions complete their tasks and actively participate in other project activities a positive team atmosphere can help employees feel empowered more comfortable taking calculated risks and more likely to seek out innovative solutions to complex problems remember so much of Team Dynamics happens under the surface identifying and understanding the stages of team development can help you make sense of how Dynamics are playing out on your team this can help you to be a better leader coming up we'll discuss what it means to promote ethical and inclusive leadership in the workplace meet you there hi I'm Rowena a senior program manager in the systems productivity and Reporting team in Google Cloud as a project manager you'll find that you're not actually the direct manager of people in their roles the key soft skill to have here is around influence influencing without Authority it's the ability to be able to communicate with people and make sure that they understand your goals and objectives and take them along on a shared vision and shared Journey so when I first became a project manager one of the mistakes that I often made was trying to do everything for myself and not asking for help over the course of the last couple of years I've really learned how to delegate and work with others as part of a team to make sure that I am effectively managing a project as a project manager regardless of whether I have management or authority over the project team and allowing those smes to really do what they're really good at delegating for me in my day-to-day role kind of looks like this so I try to find subject matter experts or people that really enjoy doing a specific something that may not actually be their role one of the best pieces advices I ever got from a mentor was around finding people in the organization that enjoy doing something and delegating your work to them that way you can focus on overall project or program management without having to get bogged down in the weeds by certain details that actually you might not enjoy doing or someone else really enjoys doing psychological safety is really important in teams because it brings diversity of thought to the table one thing that I'm really working on is making sure that we practice inclusive meetings an example of that could be in a meeting if you notice that one or two participants are usually quiet or don't speak up try to encourage them to be a part of the conversation even better have a coffee with them before and ask them what they think of that upcoming topic encourage them to bring those ideas to the table having diversity of thought in the room is so important otherwise you're going to end up with one person in the room constantly just bringing their thoughts and ideas to the table that's not very diverse so one thing with psychological safety is this kind of partnership with mentorship and sponsorship so to delegate I make sure that I sponsor people so I make sure that I showcase their best quality work across the whole project team it's really important for morale on the other side with mentorship if there's a junior team member on the team that maybe doesn't have the experience or isn't as confident speaking up I usually delegate smaller tasks to them to build up their confidence or delegate something that they might actually consider to be fun that's not in their normal day-to-day work so finding those kind of unique balances is the best way to delegate and prioritize foreign welcome back leading a project team comes with the responsibility to create a psychologically safe environment for the people around you through ethical and inclusive leadership you can create a team culture that works for everyone and motivates the people around you to do their best work in this video you'll learn the definitions of ethical and inclusive leadership you'll also learn about the importance of fostering a culture of respect creating equal opportunity to succeed and ways to invite and integrate diverse perspectives so what do ethical and inclusive leadership entail in a team and organization let's start with ethical leadership ethical leadership is a form of leadership that promotes and values honesty Justice respect community and integrity you promote ethical leadership by defining and aligning values within your team and demonstrating how adhering to those values benefits the mission of the organization for an example of this consider how work culture has evolved in recent years Around the World employees working for organizations of all kinds have been calling on their employers to adopt ethical policy changes and to State their positions on current events companies can demonstrate ethical leadership by creating forums where employees can raise their viewpoints be heard and receive follow-ups from company leaders on employee concerns ethical leadership is closely tied to inclusive leadership if ethical leadership's aim is to create forums where employees concerns can be heard inclusive leadership aims to put what we've heard into action to create an environment that encourages and empowers each and every member of our community that in turn leads to more Innovation and better Solutions here's how we think about inclusion here at Google inclusive leadership is when everyone's unique identity background and experiences are respected valued and integrated into how the team operates these differences improve the team culture collaboration Innovation and output inclusive leadership is related to diversity in that diversity is the set of differences each of us possesses whether visible or invisible that gives us each a unique perspective on the world and our work inclusion is what the team does with that diversity of thought and perspective at Google we've identified three ways that managers can lead inclusively these include fostering a culture of respect creating equal opportunity to succeed and inviting and integrating diverse perspectives to foster a culture of respect it's your job as a project manager to serve as a role model set the tone for the team and take action when needed that means modeling the values of your organization taking appropriate action if misconduct occurs creating an environment in which team members feel comfortable speaking up with concerns and recognizing team contributions regularly to create equal opportunity to succeed you should ensure that each person on the team has access to the information and resources they need to do their best work you do this through regular communication accessible documentation and regular check-ins with the team to listen share information ask and answer questions and provide support as a project manager you're in the perfect spot to identify work that might be a good fit for a person who really wants it but who shies away from asking for it knowing an individual's aspirations will help you highlight these opportunities finally to invite and integrate diverse perspectives It's Your Role to cultivate a culture in which each team member's perspective can be openly shared heard and integrated into work-related decisions you do this by creating a sense of psychological safety on the team and by inviting teammates to share their thoughts ideas and concerns regardless of their role or rank on the team developing ethical and inclusive leadership skills requires regular practice so whether you're leading a project team of 2 or 20 or 200 you should be diligent in building up your inclusive leadership skill set by creating an environment in which your team feels safe heard and values you can do this by fostering a culture of respect creating equal opportunity to succeed and inviting and integrating diverse perspectives in the next lesson we'll discuss the fundamentals of influencing as well as some common mistakes that people make when attempting to influence others meet you in the next video hi again in this video we're going to discuss influencing the people around you I'll describe the four steps of influencing and some common influencing mistakes there are a few techniques that project managers can use to influence the people they work with both within a team and Beyond it but first what do we mean by influencing influencing is the ability to alter another person's thinking or behaviors we'll discuss the concept of influencing in the context of our plant Pals project at office Green let's say that your team would like to partner with a well-known chocolate manufacturer to create a bundle deal with this deal the client could choose to add on a high quality chocolate bar with each plant they purchase you decide to send an initial email to a partnership manager at the chocolate manufacturer to gauge their interest in the idea and ultimately influence them to work with you so how do you go about writing that email that effectively influences your audience to consider your idea well it turns out there are four tried and true steps of effective influencing leadership expert Dr J A Conger identifies the steps to effective influencing as established credibility frame for common ground provide evidence and connect emotionally let's discuss each step the first step to effective influencing is to establish credibility during this step you make the case for why your audience should listen to you according to Dr Conger credibility comes from two sources at expertise and relationships you need to demonstrate to your audience that you're an expert on a given topic whether that's through professional experience extensive research or something else and you need to demonstrate relationship credibility by establishing that your honest trustworthy and someone who they'd want to work with to establish credibility you might kick off your office Green email by greeting the recipient by name then writing something like I'm Elita a lead project manager at office Green your colleague Alex passed on your contact information Alex and I worked together to launch new services at office Green before she joined your organization in these opening lines you've established expertise credibility by introducing Your Role at office Green and by subtly highlighting that you've launched new services in the past and to demonstrate relationship credibility you've established that you and the recipient have a shared contact who has worked closely with you in the past and can vouch for your trustworthiness and emotional intelligence the second step is to frame for common ground in this step you'll make the case for how your idea can benefit your audience to determine this you'll need a strong understanding of your audience and their values in essence what about your idea will appeal to them and how will they stand to benefit from agreeing to your idea in our office Green email you might establish that you've researched their organization extensively and believe that this new service might align with their current offerings for example you might write something like this we're launching a service to provide top clients with desk plans and we'd like to explore a bundle offering to pair high quality chocolate with each plant order I've admired your organization's push in recent years to work with other lifestyle and wellness Brands and I think there may be a great opportunity for us to collaborate in this portion of the email you've established that you've done your research on the organization and that their previous Partnerships indicate that working together might be a great fit the next step is to provide evidence in this step you'll make your case through hard data and persuasive storytelling numbers aren't strong enough on their own they need stories to liven them up in our office Green email you might appeal to your recipient with a line like we recently surveyed clients to gauge interest in this kind of offering and your brand came up again and again in this example you've provided evidence through the results of client surveys which showed overwhelmingly positive brand recognition for our shared audience the last step is to connect emotionally in this step you'll demonstrate to your audience that you're emotionally committed to your idea and you'll do your best to match their emotional state in our office Green email you might demonstrate an emotional connection by tapping into their brand ethos for example you might write something like we've been following your profile on Instagram and love your post on chocolate's connection to living a well and balanced lifestyle perhaps we can discuss combining forces to bring this message to an even wider audience and then you end your note with a friendly closer something like if you're interested I'd love to connect and share what our partner program is all about to recap establishing credibility framing for common ground providing evidence and connecting emotionally are four proven effective steps you can apply when attempting to influence other Dr Conger also identified four common mistakes that people make when attempting to influence others they'll often approach Their audience too aggressively and that tends to put people off ideas entirely they might also resist compromise which is crucial for any kind of mutual agreement they'll Focus too much on developing their argument for the idea and not enough time establishing credibility framing for common ground providing evidence and connecting emotionally and they'll assume that they can work out an agreement through just one conversation these mistakes can jeopardize your attempts to influence others and limit your ability to build relationships so be mindful of these common mistakes when preparing to pitch another person on your big idea great job now you know the four steps of influencing as well as some common mistakes that people make when attempting to influence others coming up you'll learn more about personal and organizational sources of influencing power meet you in the next video welcome back earlier you learned how your approach can impact your ability to influence others but influencing is about more than just your approach in fact so much of your ability to influence others comes from your own sources of power throughout your career you'll rely on your sources of power to influence others to do great work in service of the project goals in his book The Elements of power lessons on leadership and influence the researcher Terry bacon determined that most power sources fall into two buckets organizational and personal from these power sources we picked out the ones we feel are most important to cover here let's start with organizational sources of power which include your role Information Network and reputation first we have your role which refers your position within an organization or team in a project management role you have a certain level of power over the project and therefore more influence information is another source of organizational power which refers to your level of access and control over information as a project manager you possess a huge amount of information about your work and your stakeholders which can work to your benefit now it may be attempting to assume that as a leader you have all of the answers but to be a good influencer you should ask questions and consider all ideas you may even hear new insights and notice issues in a different way share information with your team regularly so that they can provide input on the full picture you can also derive power from your network this refers to people you're connected with professionally and personally strong connections within your organization and Beyond it can boost your ability to influence others and help your project continue on if you demonstrate that you're well connected and have a good chance of getting stakeholder support or budget approval for your plans then you're more likely to get your audience on your side you should use your network to help colleagues make new connections your team's Effectiveness will increase as you take on the responsibility of helping each person develop their skills and expand their Network which in turn increases their own influencing power lastly we have reputation which refers to how others perceive you overall as you might expect people with positive reputations tend to be more influential than those with negative reputations one way I've noticed this play out is through collaboration if you're a good collaborator you can boost your reputation by becoming known for being easy to work with keeping your commitments and helping others achieve their own goals Your Role access to and control of Information Network and reputation are important organizational sources of power to be aware of it's also important to identify power sources that come from you these are referred to as personal sources of power which include knowledge expressiveness history and character I like to think of these as your own personal superpowers knowledge refers to the power that you draw from your expertise in certain subjects your unique abilities and skill sets and even your ability to learn new things what comes to mind when you think about an influential leader typically they have a lot of knowledge in their field and you're more likely to trust their opinion when you're considering how to use your own knowledge as a source of power reflect on the expertise you already have and consider areas where you still want to grow and learn more expressiveness refers to your ability to communicate with others this is a big one as you learned earlier so much of influencing comes down to how you approach your audience maybe you're a great Storyteller or maybe you're really good at connecting emotionally with people strong communication skills like these can significantly increase your ability to influence others the next personal source of power is history history refers to the level of personal history there is between yourself and another person makes sense right strong relationship with the person you hope to influence can go a long way as a project manager you'll be managing Team Dynamics and building team relationships which can help you build up personal history with the people around you and finally character character reference to other people's view of the qualities that make you you like honesty Integrity kindness and so much more character is a huge one you'll derive an enormous amount of power from high estimates of your character what personal characteristics do you value within yourself these are the qualities that have the power to make you a strong supportive leader for the people around you knowledge expressiveness history and character are just four personal sources of power but it's important to remember that there's so much wrapped in each one of these there's trustworthiness authenticity wisdom and on and on there are so many attributes to draw power from I like to think of these elements as personal superpowers I learned early on in my career that my personal superpower is knowledge specifically my innate curiosity when I started at Google I didn't have a background in software engineering but I'm a naturally curious person and I'm not afraid to ask questions when I join a new team I find the engineer who seems to have the most knowledge or experience and I ask them to teach me how everything works most people are genuinely interested in Sharing what they know that initial chat usually leads to conversations over lunch which helps me to build my own knowledge and personal history with my colleague and through these conversations I learned about other teammates to connect with which increases my network as you build your career try to identify your own superpowers find the combination of influencing techniques that best suits your particular circumstances it takes practice to polish your skills and lean into various superpowers when working with others but if you invest time in thinking and troubleshooting your influencing strategy it will pay off in the next video we'll review and wrap up meet you there foreign hi I'm Chris I'm a Diversity Program manager here at Google influencing is a huge component when it comes to program management you might have an incredible idea about where you want a program or project to go and so once you have come up with all these creative ideas and you want to convince someone to sign off on it you have to think about what's in it for them what's the impact that this project or program is going to have on the business on the consumer what have you and so once you're able to distill what that impact is going to be you can really think about how you're going to frame the ask to that executive stakeholder right so influencing everyone has the ability to do it you've done it since you were a kid whether it be trying to go out and play with your friends or get your favorite meal from the favorite restaurant that you have you've always tried to influence someone to give you what you want but you have to think about what the value is for them so different when you're a kid the value is only really for you when I first came into my role as a Diversity Program manager there were a set of programs that had been around for a number of years and I came in had a fresh hit of eyes and I recognized that there's a lot of redundancy with the programs that we had what I did is I came in and I had to influence people that had been running those programs that their programs were all very similar and that if we all worked together we'd be able to build just one program that solves all these needs now that took some time right I had to show examples of why I think the singular program could impact the target population the same way I had to show how each person would have a role in this new found program right I I couldn't just say like all of your programs need to stop it was more so all your programs need to mature into this new uh this new identity so it took some time it really also took a lot of relationship massaging and and maturing because I was a new guy so I had to come and improve myself the impact was shown pretty soon after because it was thought through well in advance my advice is keep it simple so you have all of the background information about why this is important all the steps that'll take to get there but the person who you're trying to influence just needs to know when you're going to get there and basic information on how you're going to get there and so don't try to bring them into the weeds with you keep them at a point that makes sense for the audience that you're in so if you're talking to a researcher they might want to know the data points they're talking to the the marketing team they want to probably know the the more splashy high-level elements in the Target demographics right so keep in mind your audience but keep it simple influencing doesn't need to be a chore once you've done the work you should be excited to talk to someone about it and so if you don't feel excited about the work that you're doing I would take a step back and think about what it is that you are building what it is that you're putting together and if it doesn't excite you it's not going to cite somebody else you made it to the end of this module how are you feeling over the past few videos I've taken you through the many facets of team management and influencing you learn to explain the importance of teamwork in creating a high functioning team that can complete the work of a project on time and you learn how to lead in ways that motivate others to succeed both at the team level and on individual level too you learned about the five stages of team development which is a helpful framework for understanding and managing sometimes challenging Team Dynamics I explained how to apply techniques for effectively influencing the people around you and you learn what not to do when trying to influence others and finally you learned about the sources of power both organizational and personal that contribute to your overall ability to influence your team coming up I'll take you through effective project communication see you soon hi and welcome back in the last section you learned all about Team Management the stages of team development how to motivate team members and setting expectations for your team one thing that is incredibly important to teamwork and managing projects is strong communication over the next few videos we'll discuss the importance of project communication how to effectively communicate and different methods and tools for communicating ready let's get to it by now you should be aware that effective team communication is necessary to help ensure a successful project outcome in this video I'll share more tips for communicating with your team and introduce you to tools that will help you and your team communicate even more effectively as the project manager you are the one who connects your team to the information they need throughout the project you'll serve as the main resource for your team when it comes to communicating and clarifying goals action items progress and updates it's important to make sure that you're carrying information forward consistently and coherently so that everyone understands what the current state of the project is and what happens next teams communicate in a myriad of ways though project managers are constantly communicating through check-ins and meetings project documents such as project plans including schedules trackers or meeting notes there are also hubs for team communication it's your responsibility to be clear about how those documents get used who has access to those documents and how often the documents get updated of course in addition to those responsibilities you'll also have to field emails instant messages and attend meetings all of these things are critical in driving a project forward as a project manager you are the one who coordinates incoming and outgoing information you connect individuals to the necessary details and context and track who needs to receive what information and when you'll need to communicate certain information to your team multiple times and in various ways some people learn by listening some people learn by watching and others learn by doing communicating in various ways ensures that you're sharing knowledge to your team in a format that's digestible and easy for them to take in your team will have a lot of tasks to focus on be proactive and reinforce important information multiple times in multiple ways so that no one is left out of the loop there are many tools for communicating with your team to make it easy to keep in contact and be on the same page throughout the duration of the project some of these include email and messaging in-person meetings video conferencing and work management and collaboration tools your organization might have some of these tools in place already or you might have the opportunity to select some for a project in either case it's good to be familiar with what's out there we'll explore tools that provide effective project team Communication in more detail in the next video meet you there hi again let's explore some of the common tools for effectively communicating with your project team and stakeholders in this video we'll focus on messaging virtual meetings and work management and collaboration tools let's start with messaging an email email is standard for business Communications so it's important to streamline the number of emails that you send out at Google I get tons of emails a day it's a lot of work to figure out which ones I need to read immediately which ones can wait and which ones require a reply right away it's important that you understand how to use email in a professional context a quick internet search will provide you with lots of tips and examples here are some of my key tips for you to keep in mind carefully select who you're sending an email to and most importantly be conscious of why you're sending it make sure the subject field clearly states what the email is about if it's urgent or requires a response add that to the subject and the first line of the email keep your messages as short as possible and stay on topic if there's a lot of information to share consider placing the information into a digital document you can link or attach to the email then summarize what you want readers to focus on if there's a specific action you need from the recipient state it clearly so that they understand what's expected of them and when your language choices matter so avoid slang acronyms and shortcuts for words that might be more appropriate for texts oh and one more thing write an inappropriate tone for the person receiving the email it's generally best practice to be friendly motivating clear and specific as I mentioned earlier most people especially other managers directors and executive get lots of emails with that in mind you may want to consider instant messaging tools like Google meet or slack this can be an alternative to email when you just have a quick question or update or as a way to alert someone to please check their inbox instant messaging helps reduce back and forth emails or phone calls and can quickly clear up miscommunications or let you know if and when you should take an issue to a meeting be mindful of when you decide to use instant messaging this kind of quick communication can lead to distraction and informality it can easily become an outlet to share non-work related information or information that's sensitive or confidential it can also be difficult to track instant messages later on if you need to reference information that you chatted about you might not be able to easily find it with instant messaging it's a good idea to ask people's preferences on how they like to be communicated with even if instant messaging is faster the person might prefer to use email with experience you'll be able to determine the most effective ways to communicate with your team next up we'll discuss some tools for remote meetings virtual meeting tools like Google meet and zoom are great for communicating especially as remote work becomes more standard better yet each of these tools are easy to access and easy to learn how to use well Run online meetings can be extremely effective they allow you and your team to interact in real time which can help boost morale and create a sense of team when it's not possible to be together in person virtual meetings can be highly engaging as attendees can access and share files during the meeting and then there are Work Management and collaboration tools like Google Drive Asana and smartsheet these kinds of tools make it easier to share information among teams even better with work management and collaboration tools information sharing goes both ways team members can easily update their progress without the need for extra meetings or phone calls these tools can accomplish many different things like tracking progress on tasks deliverables and Milestones they can also help you to manage a budget build helpful charts and diagrams manage contracts and licenses and keep stakeholders informed Work Management and collaboration tools allow you to focus your Communications within the context of specific tasks project details and timelines rather than writing an email and linking to the relevant information when you're working and communicating in a tool the information is already there in one place for easy reference and decision making another great aspect of these kinds of tools is that the work gets done in real time these tools allow remote teams to collaborate and communicate as though they're physically working in the same office together encouraging your teams to check in and update their progress regularly helps to maintain the real-time feel of interacting with co-workers there are many different types of work management software that automatically make project planning and tracking a lot easier and they are much more efficient than manual project tracking a quick word of caution before we move on the use access or sharing of confidential or need to know information externally including financial and business data user data and information about our products and services is likely prohibited unless you're given explicit permission when using shared Work Management tools just be mindful of who wants and needs access versus who doesn't need access to do your part in keeping important data safe there are so many different ways to share information to your team whether through meetings emails instant messages spreadsheets and trackers by becoming familiar with some of the more common communication tools you can choose the right one for your project needs now you've learned a bit more about the importance of Team communication and some tools that effectively communicate and Foster collaboration within your team in the next video we'll learn how to organize and facilitate team meetings to ensure project success I'll meet you there welcome back meetings Can Be an Effective method to distribute information communicate with your team and stakeholders and help keep a project on track in this video you'll learn how to organize and facilitate effective team meetings that will lead to a successful project while the size purpose and format of meetings May differ effective meeting always have the following elements in common they are structured intentional collaborative and inclusive let's study these elements in more detail first effective meetings are structured this means they start and end on time the attendees have been carefully selected the meeting topics are prioritized and the designated Note Taker has been assigned managing the meeting time and audience lets participants know that they're valued and appreciated remember that everyone's time is valuable someone's presence is unnecessary you don't need to invite them to the meeting maybe you can share the notes include people who can contribute to the discussion and anyone who will be directly affected by the topics discussed structured meetings also have an agenda with prioritized topics so the most important items are given appropriate attention it's good to think about and set expectations for how long you expect the group to spend on a given topic this is defined as time boxing which just means you're setting a time limit for discussion in a time box you give each topic a buffer of a few minutes to make sure you're not over packing your agenda keep the meeting time in mind and make sure you've scheduled enough time for the topic you need to cover if there are several topics you need to address consider scheduling a few shorter meetings with just one or two topics as their focus after your first few team meetings think about the pacing to know if you need to be more generous with the time given to each topic or if the group has time for a little more if you get through your topics before your time is up don't be afraid to call a meeting early everybody loves having their time back finally a structured meeting should have a designated Note Taker so you or anyone else can refer to the meeting notes later and find out what was discussed the note taker could be you or another meeting attendee for this reason be clear about how when and to whom the meeting's outcomes are shared again this all depends on the type of meeting you're having and who is attending I'll loop back to describe some different types of project meetings in the next video the next point to consider is that effective meetings are also intentional this means they have a clearly stated purpose and expectations which should be in the meeting agenda as well as the meeting invite so everyone understands why they're attending the agenda needs to set clear expectations for what needs to occur before and during a meeting it helps attendees prepare keeps everyone focused on the right topics and clarifies meeting expectations and goals the purpose of your meeting might be to make a decision assign tasks propose and vet an idea or something else your meetings purpose or goal describes the reason you're meeting and what you'd like to achieve a well-designed agenda increases the group's ability to address problems and prevents wasting time for example you may be reviewing last month's business sales and setting goals for the next month maybe your group needs to choose coordinators For an upcoming event or your goal could be to have your supervisor prioritize a list of tasks the purpose might change from meeting to meeting or it could say the same if input is needed by attendees be sure to send any pre-reading materials in advance of the meeting so that everyone shows up prepared to participate depending on the purpose meetings can be formal or informal have as few as two or three group members or have hundreds of attendees whatever it is make sure you state a clear thoughtful purpose and strive to achieve that purpose by the end of the allotted time another element of effective meetings is encouraging a collaborative environment collaboration is when people work together to produce or create something there are lots of ways to make your meetings collaborative even if the purpose is for one person to share important information with the rest of the group one easy way to do this is to be sure the agenda isn't just full of presentations where participants are talked at be sure the agenda is clear about the objectives of the session will a decision be made or is the session for information and discussion second have a digital shared meeting document and encourage participants to write any comments or thoughts directly in the document but more importantly remind them that the notes will be shared this encourages active listening and participation in real time during the meeting last it's important to respect and embrace each individual's preferred communication Style even in meetings especially in collaborative meetings let folks know they're welcome to respond verbally through the chat in the meeting notes or in any other format you'd like to include the final element of an effective meeting is that it's inclusive inclusivity is the practice or policy of including people who might otherwise be excluded or marginalized when it's done well inclusion leads to excellent collaboration ensuring that every participant's contributions are valued as a project manager you play a critical role in ensuring that meeting attendees feel supported and included so offering additional resources for ways to participate is helpful for both in-person and virtual meetings consider appointing a meeting moderator or facilitator this person will guide the meeting and help participants ask questions in real time while someone else is presenting this way the presenter can stay focused on their topic while the moderator pays attention to the participants and can help guide participants on when they can chime in it's also a good idea to leave space in the meeting for participants who've been quiet at the close of a topic or before the meeting ends you might consider going around the room once in a while and asking each person to comment on a particular issue or question I like to call this a final flight check before everyone takes off and goes their separate ways a key component of inclusivity is ensuring that your meetings and presentations are accessible you'll find more information on this in the course resources another thing to consider is the level of internet access when conducting virtual meetings for those without strong internet access provide a phone dialing option most online meeting tools including Google meet and zoom have this option let participants know it's okay to turn off their cameras if they need to improve the connection or adjust the video quality focusing on inclusion helps build a sense of belonging and serves as a reminder that we live in a world with many different kinds of people creating a meeting space where people of different views backgrounds and experiences can do their best work and be there for one another is key these tips aren't exhaustive by any means but hopefully they can be useful to start empowering others to meaningfully join in and contribute when done right meetings can be incredibly useful communication tools that's why it's important to be purposeful when designing meetings that are structured intentional collaborative and inclusive this will earn you a reputation for writing efficient inclusive successful meetings where everyone feels appreciated which is great for your project and your career great job so now we know a bit more about the effective methods to distribute information communicate with your team and stakeholders and keep a project on track we've also learned some of the elements of creating an effective meeting like including a clear agenda attendee list taking detailed notes and more in the next video we'll learn all about the most common types of project meetings hi again now that you've learned the key components for organizing and facilitating an effective team meeting will explore the specifics of some of the most common types of meetings you'll need to have during a project every project has meetings lots of meetings while every meeting is unique being familiar with the most common types of project management meetings will help you better identify the goals structure and activities best suited for each one there are four General types of project management meetings project kickoff status updates stakeholder reviews and project reviews the first one we'll talk about is the project kickoff meeting this is often considered the official beginning of a project and serves as a way to align the team's understanding of the project goals with actual plans and procedures members of your team are the major attendees of your kickoff meeting but the participation of Senior Management and key stakeholders is also required for securing buy-in and ensuring alignment with project goals the next type of meeting we'll discuss are status update meetings status update meetings are one of the most common types of meetings this category includes regular team meetings where the primary goal is to align the team on updates progress challenges and next steps during the meeting the project manager May distribute or present project performance reports and formal status updates on key elements of the project this allows the team and stakeholders to gain visibility into current performance levels and task progress one of the project manager's key responsibilities is to be aware of the status of the project at any given time and to ensure that others are up to speed or know where to find the latest information in order to do that status updates become a critical tool throughout the life cycle of a project to check in on the project typically you'll assess the status of each of the following topics during this meeting first are task updates it is important for the attendees to know what is the status of the most urgent tasks how many tasks have been completed and how many open items remain next is schedule status are we behind schedule ahead of schedule or on Pace with our projections similarly it's common to discuss the budget status and any new items that impact your bottom line then you should discuss current or anticipated issues for example changes risks resource issues vendor issues and so on particularly changes to Quality and scope it's always a good idea to raise these items on a recurring basis so that no one is caught off guard and you can discuss Solutions together lastly you'll want to discuss action items an action item is a task on your list that needs to be completed assigning action items is a great way to wrap up the meeting and make sure the project keeps forging ahead remember every action item has an owner and a due date the status meeting is a fundamental project tool that keeps a project on track most project managers recommend using a relatively fixed agenda and time with this meeting to keep the team engaged follow the agenda and hold the meeting to a tight schedule because the project manager should be able to report up-to-date information to the project sponsors or clients at any time it's important to conduct status meetings regularly status meetings are beneficial because they provide an opportunity for recognizing Milestones sharing information and raising concerns to the team how often you decide to schedule these meetings depends on several factors such as the Project's complexity number of team members and the level of information required by the project sponsor clients or others don't be afraid to change up the Cadence as your project progresses another type of project management meeting is a stakeholder meeting stakeholder engagement is essential for successful project management the goal of a stakeholder meeting is to get buy-in and support stakeholders each have their own set of tools know-how and expertise stakeholder meetings are where these contributions are outlined and utilized you'll need to start by understanding as stakeholder's challenges or problems then respond accordingly and make necessary adjustments to resolve those challenges winning and sustaining the support of your stakeholders is important to your Project's success in some cases you might want to have stakeholder meetings on a one-on-one basis this allows you to dive deeper on relevant details with each stakeholder then you can cover the topics that are most interesting and concerning to that particular person other times you'll need to engage stakeholders in groups if you have a large number of stakeholders to manage Focus the meeting on your Project's most influential stakeholders identify appropriate stakeholders for high-touch communication for example you may Focus the meeting on senior Managers from each of the groups you need to engage other stakeholders can be informed using other methods such as email or meeting notes while there are a number of potential topics to cover when meeting with stakeholders most meetings are limited to communicating critical information you should always be able to present a project update start the meeting with a short overall project status update of two to five minutes the another key reason to meet with stakeholders is to seek out and listen to feedback or you might meet with stakeholders to make a decision or resolve a major issue surrounding your project in this case you'll often meet with senior leaders and the project sponsor decisions could include go or no-go decisions a choice between options or signing off on investments stakeholder meetings are generally more formal it's normal to prepare reading materials and documents to review ahead of time to help get people in the right mindset for the meeting stakeholder meetings can be regular and recurring or just a one-off project meeting the frequency will depend on why the stakeholder is involved in the project are they playing an advisory role such as a consultant in a racy or just someone to inform and keep in the loop does their involvement center around just one activity on the project or do they need to stay involved on a longer term basis you'll need to decide on a case-by-case basis the end of the project or the end of the project phase is an excellent opportunity to review how the project unfolded this is called a retrospective and you'll learn more about this in other sections of this course a typical retrospective meeting agenda includes reviewing lessons learned about what's going well what you should keep doing and what can be improved equally important to reviewing Lessons Learned is taking the opportunity to celebrate the Project's success knowing the difference between these project meeting types allows you to maximize productivity and ensure that you're not wasting time you'll get the right outcome from each type of meeting which will help Drive decisions and lead to proactive positive actions amazing you just learned about the common types of project meetings and how to make them effective for everyone in the room in the next video we'll recap what you've learned in the past few videos I'll meet you there welcome back in this section you learned about some common project management tools that are helpful for communicating with your team you also learned about the importance of effective meetings how to create a meeting agenda and the common types of meetings that you'll organize and facilitate as a project manager and we discussed how you can increase your chances of achieving a Project's goals if you develop successful strategies for keeping everyone informed about the project status and major updates Kudos you've completed this module nice job coming up you'll learn all about the Final Phase of project management closing the project welcome to a new module here we'll be learning about how to close a project in this set of videos you'll learn to explain why closing a project is important determine when a project is complete and outline the project closing process we'll learn that closing serves as an integral aspect of the project and helps avoid unfavorable scenarios we'll also learn that completing a project and closing a project are two very different things we'll talk about how your stakeholders and clients fit into the closing process we'll cover how your team can help you close a project and how you can use retrospective meetings to improve your procedures and processes we've touched on retrospectives a bit in the previous module but you'll learn about them here in a new context you'll also learn that a project isn't fully closed until you've celebrated your team for a job well done then we'll explore how the closing process works specifically for you as a project manager we'll learn what kinds of presentations and documentation are required for project managers to properly close the project there's a lot to cover so let's start with an overview of the closing process meet me in the next video welcome back in this video we're going to discuss project closing we'll answer the questions what does a project closing mean why is it important and when does it occur project closing consists of the process performed to formally complete the project the current phase and contractual obligations the first thing you should know is that completing a project is not the same thing as closing a project just because a project is done doesn't mean it's closed in a restaurant just because you've ordered your meal and finished it doesn't mean your dining experience is over you have to pay the bill before you leave it's the same idea with projects so what does it actually take for a project to be closed there are three criteria that make up a project closing you'll want to assure all work is done ensure that the agreed upon project management processes are executed and get formal recognition from stakeholders that the project is done first you must assure all work is done there's a chance one of your tasks may have been overlooked let's say there was a change made that called for reprioritizing work during the project for instance when your team completed user acceptance testing for project plant Pals everything was finished and wrapped up but months later a customer searches for allergy information about the plants on office Green site but that information is nowhere to be found if you did a review before wrapping the project you might have found that this task creating allergy documentation was overlooked and therefore not completed in doing a review of the project you double and triple check that all work is done to avoid having to revisit the project later on next you must ensure that all agreed upon project management processes are executed sometimes managerial tasks get overlooked if the task itself is finished the procedural or administrative work that needs to take place afterwards might slip your mind an example might be getting contracts signed and processed it might have been months since the project was completed but when you revisit the contract with your plant provider you realize that neither of you ended up actually signing it this is a crucial misstep that leaves both parties vulnerable and it's now taking place way after the new Services official launch finally you'll need formal recognition and agreement that the project is complete by key stakeholders if you don't have formal approval from all stakeholders that a project is over certain stakeholders may still request adjustments to the project because they'll think it's still active this may affect various members of your team for instance if office Green's contracted web developers believe that the project is still active they may still be dedicating time and even billing hours of work on this project which means wasted money for office screen in the same way that all of the previous phases of the process like initiation planning executing monitoring and controlling server purpose closing serves its own equally important purpose closing a project is important because it ensures that nothing has fallen through the cracks if a project isn't closed your team's efforts time and credibility may be negatively impacted to avoid negative impacts to your team there are a couple of different types of projects that you'll want to know about and avoid these are the never-ending project and the abandoned project the never-ending project exists when for whatever reason the project deliverables and tasks cannot be completed this may occur when tasks are delegated to team members who don't have the skills necessary to complete the tasks or when deadlines aren't properly communicated maybe when user acceptance testing yields too many non-launch blocking bugs or when your client is unsatisfied despite meeting their requirements pay special attention to protecting the scope of your project and you're much more likely to close a project successfully if it feels like the customer wants much more from you then this project is slated to deliver maybe the best option is to commit to a follow-up project and close the current one the abandoned project exists when inadequate handoff of the project deliverables occurs basically the final deliverable never makes it to your customer it wouldn't make sense to build a product and then not be able to Market it or sell it making plans to ensure an adequate handoff or transition deliverables is crucial to ensure customers are happy and projects are properly closed in summary you'll want to do everything you can to properly close a project because it may leave you on the hook for incomplete contracts in complete scope or non-compliant practices in the next video we'll discuss the necessary steps included in a comprehensive closing process for clients and stakeholders in the last video we talked about why the closing process is important in general and we'll get more specific in this video as we discuss why closing is important for clients and stakeholders a formal closing process is important not only because improper closing may leave you on the hook for incomplete contracts or incomplete scope but also because you want stakeholders to feel like their needs were met as we mentioned earlier a project team's relationship with customers users vendors and so on can be impacted by Loose Ends if relationships are impacted negatively your team's credibility may be impacted typically stakeholders set the goals and scope of the product alongside the project manager so a good project manager will always want to make sure those stakeholders are satisfied with the quality of deliverables and the end product too so how can you make sure that clients and key stakeholders are happy with the project closing first you'll want to decide if your project warrants a small closing process at the end of each Milestone or a formal and more comprehensive closing phase near the very end you may even decide to do both a small closing process at the end of each Milestone and a more formal closing phase at the very end you'll determine this by asking yourself if a particular Milestone is final meaning the Milestone will not need to be readdressed at a later time in the project if so having a short formal closeout will ensure that everyone is clear on the outcomes of that particular milestone for example let's put this in the context of the project plant Pals website launch ing the website is an official Milestone so having a formal closeout to the website launch might make sense yes there will still be ongoing updates and maintenance to the site but it won't be launched again so the launch is a one-time event so you need to make sure you're handing over deliverables putting together the proper documentation and alerting all stakeholders that you've reached that Milestone and that that portion of the project is now closed if you decide to conduct closing processes after each phase or Milestone here's what that will look like for your team first you'll ensure that the project has satisfied the Strategic goals that it was intended to meet to begin you'll want to refer to Prior documentation such as your statement of work request for proposal risk register and racy chart you'll recall that these documents were discussed in previous sections so feel free to revisit those as a refresher while doing so ask yourself was all of the required work in the elapsed phase done were all identified issues addressed did every team member complete their assigned tasks then you'll put together closing documentation such as creating closeout reports which we'll cover in depth later you'll build and review that documentation with team members to make sure that every aspect of the project has been discussed you'll also review notes from any retrospectives you and your team participated in this way your team members will get a chance to speak about the aspects they liked or didn't like and they'll leave with a sense of closure next you'll conduct administrative closure of the procurement process close any contracts necessary deliver the payments to vendors and retrieve all final deliverables from contracted workers this is really important so that external stakeholders and contracted workers can understand that the phase or the project is officially over then you'll want to formally recognize the completion of the phase if necessary make sure all stakeholders are aware that a phase or project is ending this may be as simple as sending out an email notifying them that you've achieved this Milestone or it may warrant a larger meeting finally you'll complete any necessary follow-up work this includes things like Gathering final feedback and conducting closing surveys this way you'll proactively help stakeholders with future issues by following up and offering support If instead of closing after certain phases or Milestones you've decided to close at the very end of your project your process may be a little bit different here's what that might look like first provide the necessary training tools documentation and capabilities to use your product this includes things like manuals and how-to guides which give your customers and users an understanding of how to use your product or service after the project is closed next ensure that the project has satisfied its goals and desired outcomes review the project to make sure that all tasks and deliverables were completed and nothing is missing did you accomplish what you set out to do is the full scope of work completed you'll also want to document acceptance from all stakeholders like clients and sponsors ensuring that you have written proof that stakeholders are happy with the deliverables and outcomes is very important this could be in retrospectives a project completion document or any other formal sign-off then review all contracts and documentation with your project team this includes things like your sow RFP racy chart risk register and the procurement documents that we discussed earlier including your whole team in this review process will help you make sure that nothing is missed always document your Lessons Learned by conducting a formal retrospective include your team any other teams involved your stakeholders and outside vendors in this meeting we'll go over this in more detail in the next video finally you can disband and thank the project team the next important step in closing a project for the stakeholders is impact reporting impact reporting is a presentation that's given at the end of a project for key stakeholders which typically includes the stakeholders you had in the initial kickoff meeting the purpose of impact reporting is to demonstrate how the project went and discuss the impact of your product or service it's important for the project manager because you'll be able to demonstrate the success of your project on your terms and present the work you did to add value to the business in this presentation we'll cover how the project landed in terms of time scope and budget you'll State when the new service or product launch and discuss any available feedback from users and you'll explain how the desired outcomes were achieved now you know more about how stakeholders and customers can get a clear understanding that your project is closed we've discussed why that's necessary and how your reputation and credibility can be affected if you don't do extensive work to close the project completely in the next video we'll discuss how your team can be impacted by closing a project properly and improperly I'll meet you there hi again in the last video we focused on how to close out a project for your customer and stakeholders in this video we'll discuss the best practices for closing a project with your team you'll also learn to use a retrospective to close your project and celebrate your team's accomplishments I've talked to you about retrospectives quite a bit throughout this program and that's because there really is no better tool for reflection and Improvement retrospectives are such an important aspect of the project and it's important to really emphasize that to you throughout the course I'm referring to the formal practice but a lot of us conduct informal retrospectives daily without even knowing it whether we're talking about our day with our friends or family or thinking about how we can improve past interactions we are constantly reflecting and working toward progress so let's revisit formal retrospectives for a moment to explore how they tie into the formal project losing process you might remember that a retrospective is a meeting aimed to discuss successes failures and possible improvements on the project they can occur after a major Milestone completion and at the end of a project in order to understand the importance of closing a project let's discuss the three main retrospective benefits for your team retrospectives encourage team building because they allow team members to understand differing perspectives retrospectives facilitate improved collaboration on future projects and they promote positive changes in future procedures and processes so it's no surprise that a retrospective is a critical part of closing a project whether your team has chosen to close the project after each phase or comprehensively at the end you'll conduct retrospectives as a part of that process there may be Temptation within your project team to resist reflecting before forging ahead into the next phase but you can't grow and improve if you don't spend time reflecting reflecting is a great way to learn which practices you should keep doing and which ones you can improve upon as a project manager you want to build a culture within your team and Company to aim for constant improvements this means that you'll need to solicit feedback that will help you to do better in your next project this feedback might touch on any aspect of the project from planning scheduling execution communication or Team Dynamics you might receive feedback about processes you let and that's okay working through feedback is crucial to your growth as a project manager it's important to create a safe space for that feedback so that folks can really share what they're thinking and the team can grow together this is a key piece to help improve collaborations on future projects part of encouraging continuous growth is to recognize and celebrate a job well done the way you celebrate will change depending on where you're at in the project and what feels most appropriate to your team taking a moment to reward yourselves with a token of appreciation turns the celebration into a team building exercise being appreciative ensures that the work you're doing feels uplifting and rewarding rather than monotonous and tiring it also fuels positive change so when closing a project don't forget the fun elements make sure to play a game eat some cake and celebrate some quality time together because you've earned it let's review retrospectives encourage team building because they allow team members to understand differing perspectives they facilitate improved collaboration on future projects and they promote positive changes in future procedures and processes and now that you know how to wrap things up for your team let's discuss how to wrap everything up for the project manager foreign and I'm a program manager on the engineering education team at Google as a program manager I manage cross-functional teams on designing launching and growing computer science education programs at Google so right now my primary Rema and my scope is essentially working with organizations in New York City to try to provide more Tech education experiences and growth opportunities to youth in the area during one of our biggest Tech education moments of the year one of the programs that I work on relies on a third parties platform to be able to run our activities and content and during a moment where thousands of students and teachers were getting ready to code online the platform completely broke and so you can imagine that the number of emails and bugs and requests that were coming into our team were plentiful Don't Panic communicate openly and quickly on the latter side of the issue once you've already kind of fixed the problem focus on a retrospective and a clear postmortem that's going to help your team and then future teams be able to prevent and mitigate something like that from happening in the future I love retrospectives I do them all the time at Google just because they're a great way to be able to coalesce your entire team to look at the great impact that you've had but then also reflect on some of the things that you've learned and could potentially do better for the future and particularly at Google what I love about retrospectives is that we have an engineering and then across a lot of other operational roles including project management a culture of blamelessness right you know if something goes wrong and something breaks instead of pointing at your engineering team to say you weren't prepared or to point at your comms team and say there was an error the whole team should be taking responsibility and the whole team can actually look at that as an opportunity to improve and learn for future iterations of what you're working on I've learned everything from Big lessons around the way that you should be building more flexibility into your timeline to very very small tactical changes that you're going to need to make in order to be running your project more more effectively and so I think that it's critical to be capturing not only these very big strategic level changes that you might want to make but some of these small tactical things you might be able to tweak to improve efficiency going forward sometimes when you and you you have assumptions or anticipations about the direction that something's going to go and then they completely shift the other direction or they show something completely different than what you expected welcome back let's discuss what the project closure process means for you the project manager for a project manager it's important to close a project properly for a number of reasons closing provides an opportunity to reflect on how you and your team performed ensure every task is completed and prevent confusion around the project in the future I'll detail the importance of these closing practices as well as the necessary documentation to successfully close a project one of the most important aspects of Thoroughly closing a project is the project closeout report a project closeout report is a document created by project managers for project managers a project closeout report serves three major purposes first it's a blueprint to document what the team did how they did it and what they delivered second it provides an evaluation of the quality of work and third it evaluates the Project's performance with respect to budget and schedule similar to the retrospective the project closeout report can be used to determine best practices when it comes to Future projects think of it as a transfer of Knowledge from you to Future project managers for instance once a project closes there's a chance a similar project or a continuation of that project will come up within the organization and maybe a different project manager is assigned to this new project while you go on to other things if you create an in-depth closeout report it will help the newly assigned project manager immensely to know what happened previously on a similar project your closeout report could include things that worked out well and things that didn't work out so well creating a closeout for Port will also reduce the time you spend answering questions as the new project manager gets up to speed it's safe to assume that the people reading your report in the future will be unfamiliar with the project so be as detailed as possible that way the new project team will be able to form an understanding of the purpose execution and outcome of the Project based on your report alone in your project closeout report you'll want to include the following things an executive summary this means the description of the process and what the purpose of the project was this should be short and concise a few sentences to a paragraph maximum if an executive didn't have time to read the entire document and only had time to read this executive summary would they be able to understand the project highlights a list of key accomplishments think of this as a way to highlight the team's accomplishments as well as the overall impact of the project include any Lessons Learned like what went well and why what went wrong and why what were the major effects of key problem areas such as scope creep and schedule slip any open items this could be things you didn't quite get to or ideas for changes you'd make if you had had the time your next step things like are there expected follow-up projects and is there any ongoing maintenance required you also want to include important information about the schedule and important deadlines like what were your milestones and how did you choose them how long did the project take did the project stay on track and any information about major setbacks be sure to list resources and team members explain who is involved and what their roles were this is also a key way to acknowledge people who contributed to the Project's completion and finally include a resources and project archive section this will include links to things like your original project plan any documented stakeholder communication and feedback like meeting notes any documentation used to track Monitor and report and any technical information related to the project deliverables like user guides and manuals hopefully by now you understand how project closeout reports are beneficial to not only the organization but the project manager as well project closeout reports promote visibility among team members and create more efficient future projects all right we've covered a lot of information great job for sticking with it in the next video we'll revisit the concepts you've learned as we recap the module congratulations on finishing this course making it this far in the program is quite the accomplishment you should be excited about your progress you're this much closer to building the know-how you need to be a project manager in this last set of videos I went over how to formally close a project and explain why closing a project is important I Define what it means for a project to be complete detailed the steps in the closing phase and I demonstrated how to create documentation for closing a project we learned that project closing when applied appropriately is a combination of assurance that the work has been completed confirmation that all agreed upon project management processes have been executed and formal recognition that the project requirements have been met and everyone agrees that the project is in fact done we discuss different aspects of the closing process including conducting retrospectives for your team why impact reporting matters and the purpose of a project closeout report and that was just the end throughout the entire course you learned how to run a project this is no small feed we discussed that tracking a project helps to build and maintain confidence within your team that the project will be delivered on time on budget and in scope we learned about different external factors that impact a project like dependencies Risk and changes we discussed how to communicate those factors to your team members we covered data how to gather it how to use it to inform decision making processes and how to discern and explain project data using effective presentation techniques we discussed how projects programs and portfolios relate to each other and their key differences we also learned about the elements of teamwork and how a successful project manager leads the team to success with positive influence and ethical considerations and at this point you should have a good understanding of how to organize and facilitate meetings to ensure project success and how to communicate effective project status updates to stakeholders the next course is all about agile project management thanks for allowing me to share my knowledge with you hello and welcome to Agile project management so far this program has covered the foundations of project management and what it takes to be a project manager we've explored the phases of the Project Life Cycle initiation planning execution and closing and we've reviewed lots of different tools and techniques for managing and communicating your plans we've also discussed how to handle various challenges risks and issues that come up along the way if you've completed all the courses so far congratulations if you're just now joining welcome either way you're on your way to a new or maybe just improved career in project management now that you have a solid foundation on what it takes to manage a project I'm going to share with you one of the most popular approaches to delivering projects agile in my opinion agile is also the most interesting and flexible approach to project management agile is not a project management methodology in and of itself but more of an overarching approach and philosophy to deliver value to customers which is the goal of most projects despite not being a specific methodology there are lots of Frameworks and methods under the agile umbrella in this course I'll help prepare you for a career in agile project management I'll provide you with a history of agile and introduce you to a specific agile delivery framework called scrum I'll teach you about the core roles that make up a scrum team and finally I'll cover some best practices and real world scenarios where you can use the agile approach to lead your project to success oh and I should probably introduce myself my name is Sue and I'm a senior technical program manager with Google support platform we build the products you use to get user support from nearly all of Google's products I started at Google in 2014 and worked on product reliability making sure Google's products are up and running all the time for billions of people across the world who depend on them before Google I worked at many companies of different types and sizes where I ran and worked on projects using waterfall agile and everything in between I started my career as a software engineer working on cell phone technology but I didn't have a degree in computer science since then I've had many different roles but program management is my passion because it brings all of the disciplines together to deliver amazing outcomes for the customers and equally amazing results for the business I still remember the aha moment I had when I discovered agile and I'm excited to share it with you I hope you're ready to discover agile and experience your own aha moment in the next video we'll start learning the basics of agile meet you there hi again you may remember earlier courses in this program that provided an introduction to waterfall and agile project management methodologies now we're going to get more in-depth and really expand your understanding of these popular approaches in this video I'm going to give you a brief history of agile and introduce you to the agile values and principles and you'll learn that agile can be and is used in lots of different Industries ready let's get started to quickly review waterfall is a popular project management methodology that refers to the sequential or linear ordering of phases you complete one phase at a time not proceeding to the next until it is done then you move down the line like a waterfall starting at the top of a mountain and traveling to the bottom the term agile refers to being able to move quickly and easily it also refers to flexibility and the willingness and ability to change and adapt projects that adopt agile project management take an iterative approach which means that the project processes are repeated often many times during the life cycle of the project in this case the team operates within many shorter blocks of time called iterations individual iterations might get repeated depending on the feedback received during each iteration the team takes a subset of all the Project's activities and does all the work required to complete that subset of activities you can think of it as a lot of mini waterfalls for each activity this iterative approach enables the project to move quickly as well as making it much more adaptive to change so the term agile means flexibility repetition and openness to change but what do we mean by agile project management agile project management is an approach to project and Team Management based on the agile Manifesto the manifesto is a collection of four values and 12 principles that Define the mindset that all agile teams should strive for so in very basic terms waterfall is linear and sequential and does not encourage changing up the process once it is started agile on the other hand is iterative flexible and incorporates necessary changes throughout the process now a bit of a history lesson so you can have a better sense of how and why agile has become such a popular approach to project management agile methodologies emerged organically during the 1990s as the software industry was booming software startups like Google were blazing a trail to get more software products built in less time meanwhile the tech Giants of the time were experimenting with faster ways to build better software and stay competitive and by the way software isn't just the apps and websites that we all use every day software also includes the code behind Innovations in agriculture medical devices manufacturing and more so in this competitive growing environment companies couldn't just create new Innovative products they also needed to innovate the very processes they were using to develop those new products in 2001 the thought leaders and creators of some of these new processes also called methodologies came together to find Common Ground between their methods and solve a problem the problem they agreed was that companies were so focused on planning and documenting their project that they lost sight of what really mattered pleasing their customers so these leaders came up with the agile Manifesto to guide others on what they believed really matters When developing software which is keeping the process flexible and focusing on people both the team and the users over the end products or deliverables now here's where agile gets even more interesting you can still use agile even if you're not planning to work on software projects agile has been so successful in the software industry that its values principles and Frameworks have been applied to nearly every industry in fact the agile methods that you're going to learn also draw heavily on lean manufacturing principles that originated in Toyota's car factories in the 1930s you'll also find agile methods being adopted in the aeronautical Healthcare education Finance Industries and even more cool right agile is everywhere now you know a little bit about the history of agile the origin of the agile Manifesto and some of the industries that use agile for project management coming up next we'll compare more of the differences between waterfall and agile to really familiarize yourself with these project management styles hello in the last video I gave you a brief history lesson of agile and introduced the agile Manifesto which states the agile values and principles we'll get into the manifesto values and principles in more detail coming up but before we do that let's spend some more time comparing agile and waterfall I want to really illustrate the key elements of agile that distinguish it from waterfall then you'll be able to build on this knowledge when we get into the manifesto later on so as I mentioned in the history lesson agile was created in response to the strict linear process of waterfall while waterfall aims for predictability and tries to avoid change agile Embraces the reality that the world markets and users are uncertain and unpredictable for example your customer might say they want feature a but when the final result is delivered they realize they actually wanted feature B agile aims to solve that problem by getting customer feedback more quickly to make sure that the team is building what the customer really wants part of working with an agile mindset is always seeking out ways to work more efficiently we do this by finding ways to streamline processes without reducing product quality or value the key to streamlining is to reduce waste for example unnecessary documentation is a form of waste another form of waste is spending weeks or months working on a feature only to find out that the customers who could also be users or stakeholders don't like the feature after all you could reduce or eliminate both of these forms of waste by increasing team and stakeholder collaboration more collaboration means less documentation and earlier feedback about the product let's consider some more differences between waterfall and agile three important aspects of a project are requirements documentation and deliverables requirements are conditions that must be met or tasks that must be finished to ensure the successful completion of the project think of these as the set of criteria that fall within the scope of your project or a list of specifications that must be met in a waterfall project you'll probably need a product requirements document which lists the scope and requirements of the project you need to have several formally approved project plans and you might have a team of people whose job it is just to write and approve these plans you might also set up a change control board a formal and rigorous process to manage any changes to requirements all this is designed to protect the team from building something that the client or stakeholders don't want and aims to minimize any changes that could lead to scope creep formally approved project plans work well when the desired end product is known and understood an example of this might be leading a project that has clear requirements and goals based on mandated regulation but if that's not the case a waterfall team risks building out an entire deliverable only to find out later that the customer doesn't like the final result in agile requirements are treated as more Dynamic and expected to change as the team receives feedback and new information there is usually an initial set of requirements or feature ideas when the project kicks off but that list of requirements and features is continuously growing and changing throughout the project the team works with stakeholders to prioritize the requirements always moving the most urgent or valuable items to the top of the list then the team goes down the list working on the requirements in iterations by going down the list the team is able to get feedback on their work quickly and frequently at the end of each iteration the team gets feedback and can make necessary adjustments to the requirements before continuing on okay the second aspect is documentation all projects require documentation project plans stakeholder Maps schedules Charters contracts the list goes on and on waterfall projects use lots of documentation because there are lots of handoffs between phases and handoffs among different teams within the project also because the work is done in bigger chunks you'll need to leave behind more pieces of documentation at each stage in the project but in agile there's an emphasis on Real Time person-to-person conversations this doesn't mean that there's zero documentation it's just in a different form instead of big formal documents with a rigorous change management and approval process there are shorter documents that have just enough detail to achieve their purpose these documents are much more focused on what the reader needs to know to get the job done and are written only as needed finally let's explore deliverables a deliverable is a tangible outcome from a project in waterfall projects you often don't release the deliverable until the very end the final product release feels like a big event major announcement lots of hoopla and is often super fun and exciting agile is just as exciting but has smaller more frequent releases so each release has a less formal celebration but it builds up to be just as exciting when there's lots of uncertainty in a project such as in a new emerging industry or Market the steady release of project deliverables enables an agile team to get feedback and learn as they go without regular feedback the team could end up delivering something that the customer doesn't want so now you have a better idea of some key elements of agile that distinguish it from waterfall three differences between these two project management approaches are the way each one deals with requirements documentation and deliverables follow me to the next video where you'll get to know the agile Manifesto up close and personal hi there now that you're more familiar with the history of agile and how it's applied to project management let's discuss the inspiration behind this agile movement the agile Manifesto in this video I'll list the four values of agile and describe how each agile team needs to strike a balance between the four values being familiar with the agile Manifesto will help you understand the core principles and values of agile project management so you can put them into practice on a project the agile Manifesto was written in 2001 and brings together the collective wisdom of the people who developed it from their vast experience and thought leadership in the tech industry if you'd like to find the manifesto it's easy just type in agilemanifesto.org in your search browser we've made it available for you here in the course readings as well let's check it out the manifesto for agile software development States we are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it through this work we have come to Value individuals and interactions over processes and tools working software over comprehensive documentation customer collaboration over contract negotiation responding to change over following a plan that is while there is value in the items on the right we value the items on the left more there you have it the agile Manifesto and the four values of agile it's a short list but it packs a punch the manifesto is saying that it's helpful for every agile team to think about both sides of each statement during the execution of a project but should find ways to ensure that they're always placing more value and emphasis on the things on the left over the things on the right from the four values a set of 12 principles were developed that reinforced the message of the manifesto these values and principles inform the why how and what of agile project management planning and processes let's take it from the top first the manifesto emphasizes individuals and interactions over processes and tools at its core this value stresses people communicating with each other over using lots of processes and tools to force things to happen in a certain way for example have you ever emailed someone with a question and ended up in a long back and forth exchange due to simple follow-up questions or clarifications chances are that you could have gotten the same information in less time with a brief conversation agile wants to ensure that teams work together collaborate and help each other achieve the best outcomes they can agile also values individual perspectives and creativity this does not mean that every team is chaotic the value just means that processes and tools should be used to facilitate and drive good project management and improved collaboration within the team and should never be used as a barrier to teams working well with each other the second value emphasizes working software over comprehensive documentation meaning that teams should prioritize spending time working on things that actually create value and avoid spending any more time than they really need on debating writing and reviewing documents now this value might seem like it only applies to software projects but just replace the term working software with whatever your project is trying to deliver maybe the project is writing a legal brief designing an office layout or preparing a sales presentation whatever your project is trying to deliver is the thing that creates value in other words it's more important to deliver the product the customer wants than to comprehensively document the process that you used on to the third value customer collaboration over contract negotiation in agile projects the customer satisfaction is considered the highest priority of building a high quality and valuable product after all if it's not valuable to the customer then there's little Point spending time on it when the manifesto discusses contracts it refers to the official documents that require sign-off and formal agreement with the customer such as those huge requirement documents or formal change requests agile values having the freedom to collaborate with customers early and often in doing so teams can quickly react and adapt to what customers need rather than waiting out the process of negotiating contract terms just to make a few changes or request resources there will still be contracts with agile project management but the focus is on identifying what's really needed and leaving space for collaborative customer focused work agile teams are encouraged to seek out every opportunity to include the customer or stakeholder during project execution this could be presenting early prototypes asking questions or bringing them in to do some initial product testing and finally we have the fourth value responding to change over following a plan this last value is crucial to an agile project as I explained in the history overview agile grew out of a world that was changing so fast that organizations couldn't adapt and struggle to survive as a result this value stresses that every agile team needs to acknowledge that change is inevitable the larger longer and more complex your project is the more uncertainty there is for many projects finalizing a well-established plan at the beginning of the project will likely lead to an on-time delivery within budget but may run the risk of not meeting customer needs or adding maximum value as a project manager the key takeaway to remember here is that the most successful projects are the ones that are able to smoothly integrate change agile project managers still create and value their plans but they can cope with and are able to adapt if the plans need revising at any time during the project so there you have it the four agile values individuals and interactions over processes and tools working software over comprehensive documentation customer collaboration over contract negotiation and responding to change over following a plan what's great about agile is that it gives us these values and also lets us find the right balance between the two sides you may have to fine tune your project style to meet industry needs Team Dynamics and organizational goals to find the healthy balance that works for you and your team and that's why you're here by familiarizing yourself with different project management approaches values and principles you will be more equipped to manage all types of projects in all types of Industries awesome let's keep going meet me in the next video to learn more about the principles of agile hey there in the last video I introduced the agile Manifesto in the four values of agile next I'm going to tell you about the 12 principles of agile these principles reinforce the message of the four values and provide some additional clarity there's definitely a benefit in studying each of these independently and I've provided supplemental resources for you to study on your own for this course I've grouped the 12 principles into four themes these are different from the four values the four themes of the agile principles are value delivery or how do Agile teams deliver highly valuable products to their customers business collaboration or how to Agile teams collaborate with their business partners and stakeholders to create business value to the organization and their users team culture or how does a team create and maintain the right interpersonal and Team Dynamics to deliver value for the customers and the business and retrospectives or how does the project learn to continuously increase performance of an organization in business as I said I've grouped each of the 12 principles under these themes so they're easier to learn and remember let's Dive In the First theme is value delivery and includes five principles take a few seconds to review them this theme is about delivering the work as quickly as possible and remember why so that we can get feedback and mitigate the risk that we spend too much time building the wrong thing also no one gets any value from your work including your company until you deliver it so the longer you take to deliver the longer you wait to get revenue and maybe the more time the competition has to get ahead of you these may look very software oriented but if you replace the word software with deliverables or Solutions these can apply to almost any project for example deliver Working Solutions frequently see the value theme is also about Simplicity how much time do you think it takes Engineers to add all the buttons and features to products that ultimately end up confusing the user Simplicity allows a team to focus and work on the things that matter the most an example of this theme in action might be prioritizing getting feedback on a product prototype so you know which features really matter or it might mean ensuring the team only works on approved features and doesn't spend time on unnecessary ones another example might be reserving 10 percent of the team's time to work on bug fixing or polishing a process which should help you go faster in future iterations the next theme is business collaboration and includes two more principles quick note one of the principles uses the term business people to refer to those involved with things like sales marketing customer support and account management we'll use the term developers to refer to those who are involved with making and creating products okay so we discussed customer collaboration during the values discussion and here we are again collaborating with your customers helps the team get critical business information immediately allowing them to adjust and adapt to any new information instantly no matter if it's realized early or late in the project customers will get what they want to achieve their business goals you could achieve collaboration by making sure that business people work near the development team ideally in the same office or virtual space if that's not possible maybe co-locating a day a week encouraging instant messaging or blocking off time on your team calendars each day or week to collaborate the goal is to enable easy access between business people and Developers another example might be how you handle feedback and changes and priorities rather than trying to keep the customer away from developers due to concerns about scope Crete create a weekly huddle where customers and business people can explore feedback and new ideas with the team this could be a great way to discover that one really valuable feature is super easy to build whereas another feature of the user's thought would be easy is actually really hard our third theme is Team Dynamics and culture and includes four more principles remember the first agile value stresses individuals and interactions over processes and tools notice that the principles in this theme reflect that value this theme emphasizes creating an effective teen culture that is inclusive supportive and empowering having an effective team culture is essential to a Project's success these principles really boil down to making sure your team is motivated to do the right thing feels trusted to do the right thing has the resources and space to work closely together on their goals and works at a sustainable pace an example of emphasizing effective team culture would be to ask the team what kind of equipment they need to do their job and then giving them those tools another manifestation of this theme is letting teams write their own processes and templates rather than forcing them to use something from headquarters teams work best when they feel like their input is valued so you as the project manager should make space for your team to engage and actively contribute to the team culture you'll build trust and Empower them to approach their work in a way that suits them best which in turn will allow them to work more productively finally the fourth theme is retrospectives and continuous learning the last principle stands alone in this theme Saul read it aloud at regular intervals the team reflects on how to become more effective than tunes and adjusts Its Behavior accordingly this one sits on its own because I want to draw attention to how important it is for agile teams to continuously learn and adapt to what's working and what's not working for them teams should always be figuring out better ways to work and it's really valuable to set this time aside after each iteration to focus entirely on how to improve in these sessions the team can step back and consider questions like how is the team doing are the customers happy are there processes we could optimize are our tools working for us are we following the values are we accumulating any debt and by debt I mean processes or technology that slows us down we've officially finished discussing the agile Manifesto It's amazing to think that these four values and 12 principles are the foundations of so many advances in project management I'll come back to these values and principles throughout the rest of this course to demonstrate how these connect to the day-to-day activities of an agile project in the next video we'll explore what types of Industries benefit the most from an agile approach hi there every project exists within organizations and settings with different cultures business objectives and Industry Dynamics in this video we'll discuss some different scenarios in which you'd want to adopt an agile mindset I'll also introduce you to a concept called vuca that can help you decide which management approach is best for your project remember agile is about delivering value in a world with high degrees of uncertainty risk and competition it sets a team up to react as quickly as possible to new information New Market opportunities and even new technologies as well works best in Industries or projects that are susceptible to or that encourage change and uncertainty what kinds of businesses or Industries besides software come to mind that deal with lots of change a few that I think of are biotechnology with emerging vaccines treatments and Technologies media with endless new ways to share content the food industry with celebrity chefs and the latest food craze and fashion an industry built on keeping up with shifting Trends did any of these surprise you on the flip side here are some industries that you might think of as fairly stable agriculture Aerospace manufacturing and Mining but even these industries with rigorous Supply chains and codes have to adapt to change due to new laws and regulations natural disasters and other unforeseen issues one thing that the year 2020 taught all of us is that no industry is truly immune to change and uncertainty we're going to explore a concept for categorizing and thinking about these forces that shape our world no matter what industry we're in that concept is called vuca and it can help you decide which project management approach is best for you the U.S military war College developed a concept called vuca spelled v u c a vuca is an acronym that defines the conditions that affect organizations in a changing and complex world it was designed to help us factor in the forces of change and uncertainty in our projects and businesses vuca stands for volatility uncertainty complexity and ambiguity I'll explain each one and what that could entail in projects and business settings first up is volatility volatility refers to the rate of change and churn in a business or situation in a volatile project you would discuss how the next disruption to your operations is always right around the corner or it feels like things never have time to settle into a normal rhythm next is uncertainty uncertainty refers to the lack of predictability or high potential for surprise in an uncertain environment it would be difficult to create plans for the future that were not based on a large number of assumptions that could turn out to be incorrect then there's complexity complexity refers to the high number of interrelated forces issues organizations and factors that would influence the project for example if one product being worked on relied on diverse and Global suppliers that would add to the complexity of the project and finally we have ambiguity ambiguity refers to the possibility of misunderstanding the conditions and root causes of events or circumstances a project that suffered from ambiguity would have difficulty pinpointing the causes of project delays making it difficult to design mitigation plans to reduce the risks let's recap vuca stands for volatility uncertainty complexity and ambiguity it's a concept that was developed to deal with these forces in a changing and uncertain world businesses can apply the concept of vuca as a tool for determining how best to approach projects phew that's a lot of info but it's all good stuff having an understanding of these Concepts will help with decision making in all kinds of projects adopting an agile approach increases your chances of success despite this uncertainty and these Concepts apply to the business World At Large not just projects let's take a little break then we'll wrap up this section by checking in with office screen the example business for this course to find out how they can apply these new Concepts from agile and Buca to a new project welcome back in the last video I taught you about Buca can you remember what it stands for volatility uncertainty complexity and ambiguity great in this video we'll examine a project scenario with high vuca parameters and how the office screen team applied an agile approach now let's discuss why it's important to understand vuca as it relates to project management when we get started on a new project it's helpful to examine the environment and conditions in which the project exists before we decide the best approach to use if your project environment has high levels of volatility uncertainty complexity and ambiguity then it's a good sign that you should consider an agile approach while an agile approach is not a perfect solution that will get rid of vuca it will lead to better outcomes by giving you and your team tools and systems to mitigate the risks that vuca presents when you consider agile values and principles it's clear that agile is a proven and well-documented solution to the challenges Buca presents to your project okay let's revisit the office Green scenario we introduced earlier in the program we'll use this scenario throughout this course as well to illustrate the power of an agile approach to project management if you're just joining us now I'll give you a quick recap in previous courses Learners acted as the lead project manager at office Green LLC a Commercial Landscaping Company focused on interior plant design for offices restaurants and hotels for this agile course we'll come back to office screen as they pursue a new business opportunity the office Green Market Research team noticed a major shift to more workers setting up and working from a home office they wanted to react fast to a potentially huge Market opportunity and not lose Revenue if businesses had less need for their previous office service instead of offering indoor Landscaping designs for businesses office Green wants to find a way to capture this new market full of home offices I don't know about you all but I have a hard time keeping plants alive I can't keep a cactus alive but I love all those video conference backgrounds that are so nicely decorated with beautiful live plants this shift to working from home came about suddenly so office Green didn't have any project plans to start from they didn't have time to do a lot of prep work but they wanted to maximize this opportunity before it was too late to do this office Green assigned you to be the project manager of a scrappy new agile team your goal is to deliver their new service called virtual Verde what environment did office green face volatility uncertainty complexity and ambiguity they experienced volatility in the form of a major disruptive change to their business plans uncertainty through a lack of predictability which made it difficult to create concrete plans for the future a high level of complexity due to interrelated factors like suppliers and the economy and they experienced ambiguity by not being able to determine or control what might cause future changes by using an agile approach to their project office Green was able to address High vuca factors that were affecting their business instead of business slowly or quickly eroding due to Market forces office Green embraced the changing market and remained flexible in how they approached their next project we'll follow along with office Green and your work as a project manager of virtual Verde throughout this course and find out how you do welcome back so far we've explored a little bit of agile history the agile Manifesto and some of the types of projects that benefit from an agile approach up next I'll introduce you to some specific methodologies under the agile umbrella the most popular of these by far is Scrum in this video I'll briefly recount the origins of scrum and discuss the basics of scrum methodology so what the heck is Scrum well I'll tell you first that it's not an acronym if any of you have ever played or watched the sport of rugby you may recognize the term for those that aren't familiar with rugby it's similar to American football a full contact sport played on a field with a similar shaped ball scrum refers to a formation in rugby where all of the players on the team Lean Forward lock their heads together and then work as one unit to try and gain precious yards towards the scoring line The Originators of the scrum methodology saw their team as a heads Down group working very closely together to get that ball down the field just like scrum in a rugby match so how does the scrum methodology work as a project management methodology I'll give you a brief overview here and we'll dive into it more throughout this course if you work in agile project management it's highly likely that you'll use scrum or an approach that is based on scrum in the 2019 state of agile report 72 percent of teams using agile methods were using scrum or a hybrid when you use scrum for project management you form a team that will work together to quickly develop and test a deliverable the work is completed in short cycles and the team meets daily to discuss current tasks and clear up anything that's blocking their progress first let's review some terms and Concepts specific to scrum the backlog is the central artifact in scrum where all possible ideas deliverables features or tasks are captured for the team to work on it's prioritized and proactively managed by the team continuously throughout the life of the project the Sprint is the name of the time box period in scrum where work is done the Sprint can be between one and four weeks long but most Sprints are around two weeks this is often called the iteration and then there's a practice called The Daily scrum also called The Stand Up This is where the team meets for 15 minutes or less every day of the Sprint to inspect their progress toward their goal next are the roles the first of which is the scrum Master this role is responsible for ensuring that the team lives agile values and principles follows the processes and practices that the team agreed to sharing information to the larger project team and they also help the team focus on doing their best work the other notable role in scrum is the product owner who is responsible for maximizing the value of the product and the work of the team the product owner owns the inventory of work and has the final say on how to prioritize the work and the development team is responsible for how a team will deliver that product scrum is popular for many reasons first it has clear roles and responsibilities for the folks on the team while continuously emphasizing the power of the team as a whole scrum has very regular and predictable meeting and delivery schedule with predefined agendas and outcomes for the meetings making it easy to teach new team members it supports and reinforces the agile values and principles while adding some structure and foundations that help new agile teams get started and more experienced teams get better and it's all free and open for all to use since it's the most commonly used agile delivery framework there's also a huge amount of guidance and support online as well as scrum specific training and certifications scrum lends itself best to the following types of projects and teams ideally a scrum team should be cross-functional with around three to nine team members some call this a pizza-sized team because it has the same amount of people who could share a large pizza if the team is too small you might not have the diversity of skills to get work done if the team is too large it gets hard to distribute information lastly scrum works best for projects where the team and management are open-minded adaptable and value continuously learning how to be a better team trying to force a team to do scrum will almost always fail note that in all of these examples I never once mentioned the word software although scrum emerged from software projects people have adapted scrum to suit all kinds of projects from wedding planning to house moves to building Rockets great you now know some of the key characteristics of scrum and which types of projects can really benefit from it it's an exciting method and while we have much more to discuss before you can fully Implement scrum we'll first discuss a few other popular agile methodologies learning about these approaches will help you become a well-rounded versatile member of any project team so what are you waiting for meet me in the next video hi again there are many popular agile methodologies that are still around from the 90s when agile was invented these methodologies share agile values and principles but have very specific practices and applications in this video I'll touch on a few of the most popular ones besides scrum which we covered in the last video first one of my personal favorites is kanban this is a methodology that can be applied in a very simple way or it can be used to drive the entire project the kanban name comes from two Japanese words Khan meaning sign and Bon meaning board you may have already used a kanban board because it's the most famous feature adopted by the majority of agile enthusiasts the reason kanban is so popular is that it provides transparent visual feedback to everyone who might be interested about the status of work in progress kanban boards or charts display the progress of a project as to do in progress and done also just so you know there are software tools that create digital kanban boards for you the kanban method ensures that the project team only accepts a sustainable amount of in-progress work this means the amount of in-progress tasks are limited to what the team can actually handle during a certain amount of time this is called the work in progress limit or whip limit the whip limit is decided on by the team this is a reflection of agile in that teams are both self-organizing and empowered and they're operating at a sustainable Pace the team members add new tasks to be completed only after they finish their previous task and are below the whip limit this approach means that once a task has started to be worked on it becomes a priority for the whole team to get it to done by focusing on less work the work gets done faster this goal of trying to maximize efficiency is called flow and is a core principle of kanban another agile methodology is Extreme programming or XP it was named that because it took traditional software development activities to an extreme level but I also believe it's because it emerged at the same time as extreme sports like snowboarding XP is another one of my personal favorites it was the first agile methodology I was introduced to back in my days working on some of the original cell phones at Qualcomm the company behind the radio technology we all use in our phones today since XP came out of the software industry it refers to specific software terms and activities like coding and programming but the XP method can be used in lots of non-software environments as well the XP methodology aims to improve product quality and the ability to respond to changing customer needs it does this by taking best practices for the development process to extreme levels for example one best practice is the idea of test First Development this means testing out parts of the product before building them in full often only the larger features get tested which is still good but means some details might get missed XP takes this practice to the extreme by finding ways to test more and smaller features of the product to get even more feedback there are four basic activities that are performed during the product development process that the XP method tries to enhance designing in software development this is where you write a design document describing the parts of the code or instructions for the product and how it will function in non-software environments this would be describing the various pieces and parts for whatever it is you're trying to deliver for example if you're delivering an ad campaign maybe the main pieces are the artwork the copy and the ad buy Plan XP wants to ensure that all of the pieces of the product will fit together properly so it stresses simplicity so start with a simple design to meet the most basic and important requirements simple designs also take less time to complete once the basic model is designed and has been tested then you can think about adding on other features coding code is the language that's used to write software programs it's the instructions that tell the computer what to do in software development writing clear code is crucial just like clear writing is crucial in any situation where you want to be understood XP demands clear and concise code so that others can easily read and understand the program this makes it easier to troubleshoot problems and come up with Solutions in non-software environments code would be similar to writing clear and concise processes or instructions for how to build or use your product testing like I described earlier means checking the product for Flaws so they don't end up in the final product in XP more is better so if a little bit of testing can eliminate a few flaws lots of testing will eliminate even more the goal is to test for and eliminate any flaws in a feature before building it and continuing on testing also means checking to make sure the product features meet the customer's requirements which leads us to listening which is about listening to the customer and ensuring that the requirements are integrated into the product this relates to Agile in the way that it values customer collaboration frequent communication and regular feedback XP features some other Innovative practices that are used across many agile teams regardless of the specific methodology being used first there's pair programming which is when two team members work together at the same time on one task usually this is done in the same physical location but with the use of digital collaboration tools this can happen remotely too another practice is continuous integration and continuous refactoring this is the practice of merging product changes into a shared version several times a day in order to get quick feedback on the quality of the code or product then there's avoid big design up front this relates to designing and means the design should be just enough to get started and should be continuously improved as the product evolves and finally there's right tests not requirements this means that instead of writing a product requirements document and then later writing a test plan your test plan can serve two purposes by a telling the team what to build and B comparing what they built to what was supposed to be built Okay so we've got scrum kanban and XP let's explore one more for those of you who took the earlier courses in this program you already learned a little bit about this final methodology called lean in the context of lean Six Sigma lean methodology consists of five principles that serve as a recipe for improving project outcomes they are Define value map value stream create flow establish pull and pursue Perfection let's break these down Define value means identifying and focusing on what the customer wants and including the customer in the process a product's value is the sum of all the things the customer wants map value stream means mapping out the process or stream including all the steps involved in producing value for the customer it also means challenging any steps that can be considered wasteful or unnecessary create flow means ensuring the product flows through the value stream efficiently continuing to eliminate waste throughout the cycle work to remove interruptions delays and barriers to the workstream establish pull think of asking someone to pull something off the shelf you want to make sure the customer is pulling on the product or asking for it throughout the value stream they might pull or ask for features and incremental deliveries the idea is to make your process as smooth as possible so that the customer can pull on the product at any time and you'll be able to present what you've been working on or add a feature request finally there's pursue Perfection this means pushing your team to continuously improve the first four process steps so how does this relate to Agile well agile emerged after lean and the inventors of agile were inspired to apply lean manufacturing principles to software development like agile lean is a set of principles and a value system many of the differences are really just in the wording awesome now we know more about some other methodologies that are considered agile there are several more but the reality is that many teams evolve and blend methods to create the tools and processes that work best for them we'll discuss more about how to do this blending in the next video hello in the last video we reviewed a few of the more popular methods for applying agile values and principles to your projects we explored kanban which focuses on visualization and managing flow XP which is concerned with taking product development best practices to an extreme degree and lean which actually predates agile and aims to capture core principles that eliminate waste and deliver value to customers we've also compared agile to Waterfall to form a better understanding of what each approach values or tries to accomplish and what kinds of projects they work best with throughout these videos we've explored agile project management in a couple of different ways first we explored agile as a way of thinking about the project delivery process through the values and principles outlined in the agile Manifesto second we explored agile through different project delivery Frameworks and methods like kanban XP and lean and especially through scrum these two ways of applying agile demonstrate that the real power of agile comes from not only adopting certain processes or strategies but also from adopting a certain kind of mindset one that is necessarily different from the traditional waterfall models this means that you can still get some benefits from thinking in an agile way and seek to apply those agile values and principles from the adult Manifesto even when you need to use a waterfall delivery approach so with all this agile stuff bubbling around your heads let's do a quick recap on some of the key tenets of traditional waterfall project management then we'll explore some of the ways you can blend the methods and approaches you've just learned about to best fit the needs of a specific project as we learned in earlier courses a waterfall Project Life Cycle is made up of the following phases initiation planning executing and completing tasks and closing out the project and all of the tasks within each of these phases like identifying goals and scope scheduling budgeting and risk management agile project management includes most of the same phases and tasks they're just done in different ways so even though these two approaches have clear differences blending them might make a lot of sense depending on the type of project or project team you're working with here are some reasons you might want to blend agile and waterfall styles your stakeholders customers or sponsors are more comfortable with traditional approaches and using workflows or delivering traditional work products is easier for them to understand and follow but your project team is already established in scrum and they wish to continue maybe there are regulatory requirements that insist on certain traditional work processes such as large requirement documents for certifications or it could be that one of the vendors involved in a large project is already following a traditional approach and the integration between the teams requires some blending of methods in these cases a project manager might choose to blend aspects of waterfall and agile so that different parts of the project can be worked on in ways that meet project requirements but don't negatively impact other parts of the project or the project as a whole let's explore some more examples of how to blend methods let's say your project is to develop a software product during the retrospective for the last Sprint a team member says I need to implement a certain feature but I don't have much experience building that particular feature someone else on the team is an expert on that feature so you decide to pair them up so they can work on building the feature together during the next Sprint you've just Blended XP and scrum XP provides the basis for working in pairs from Pair programming and retrospectives are a key component of scrum here's another incredibly common example most scrum teams I know use a kanban board to track their progress through their Sprint one word of warning though watch out for too much change in how you do things teams work best when they can build up some consistency let's come back to office Green as project manager of virtual Verde what types of methods might you want to use to get the project started where would you blend some traditional methods and agile methods here are some factors to consider the existing plant suppliers are used to dealing with the original plant Pals office delivery team some of them might be interested in experimenting with an agile approach but not all in this case you'll want to include those vendors and discussions early on to gain buy-in and address any concerns office Green also needs to really watch their costs so you'll want to use traditional budget management controls to make sure they don't go over budget on their program well that brings us to the end of this video let's review the key points I want you to take with you first agile is a mindset a way of thinking about the project delivery process through the values and principles outlined in the agile Manifesto second agile values and principles can be achieved through certain Frameworks and delivery methods like scrum kanban XP and lean and finally agile and waterfall are both effective ways of approaching project management that add specific value there are times when blending these Styles will add even more value than sticking with just one so don't be afraid to mix things up as long as different parts of the project can benefit from certain processes without negatively impacting the project as a whole go for it coming up I'll teach you all about scrum teams and how to use scrum as a framework for running a successful project it's going to be fun to take you on this journey [Music] hi my name is Dana and I'm a massage reliability manager at Google such reliability managers at Google manage a team of Engineers who take care of the infrastructure that allows Google to serve more and more customers as time goes by so I got started as an engineer in the Israeli Defense Force As I Grew within my unit I basically had to to understand that projects are happening around me all the time so I asked my commanding officer to be sent to a program management course and over time I got to do very very big projects that had multiple units involved and multiple teams from from our customer side and from a unit side and then when I when I left the Army it was a very natural kind of progress for me to go into the industry and just do more of the same so there are a lot of similarities between running projects in a place like the Israeli Defense Force and Google a lot of the teams at Google are spread across sites and have a lot of communication that need to go to make sure that work that we're doing in one team is well coordinated with work that is going on in another team I don't think that before especially in the Army I had to communicate as much with people from abroad but definitely now I find myself talking with my own team that is spreading three different sites with my customers that are all over the globe and I find myself needing to make sure that all of the things that we're doing is are very well communicated to all of these different stakeholders or adjacent teams having the agile environment creates a lot of routines around communication we have bi-weekly stand-ups where everybody in the team that sits in different parts of the world meet together and discuss what they've done what they're planning on doing and raise any blockers so if they have any issues they can use the resources that are right there and then to make sure that they get unlocked that they know who is the next person to talk to that they are able to Loop in somebody who might need to review a document that they wrote up basically it helps the team be more cohesive around the work that we're we're all doing one of the things that I really like about agile is that we have to communicate on an ongoing basis we continuously validate that the work that we're doing is relevant and is going to be used by the customer that we're targeting I love so many things about my job but first and foremost I like it when we solve actual problems when I work with a team of top tier people and we together are able to come up with a solution that satisfies a user need foreign way to go you made it through a whirlwind introductory tour of agile we covered the history of agile the agile Manifesto and the four values and 12 principles of agile we explored when and why to adopt an agile mindset you learned about vuca and how to use the concept to assess which approach to take with your project you also learned some agile-friendly methodologies kanban XP and lean finally you learned how to blend these methods with traditional waterfall practices then you return to office Green as the project manager of a new agile project virtual Verde that's a lot congrats on making it through the first part of your agile journey and there's more fun to be had I'll meet up with you in the next set of videos hi there earlier we gave you an overview of the agile mindset which is based on the agile manifestos four values and 12 principles we covered the agile values principles and a set of agile methodologies that we can use to manage projects in an agile way now we're going to have a deep discussion about scrum the most commonly used agile framework the scrum guide which contains everything you need to know about scrum is a main source of Truth for scrum teams and is available for free at scrumguides.org we've also linked to it in the course resources I'll often refer back to what said in the definitive scrum guide so please bookmark that site for future reference the majority of my agile project management experience is in scrum and fortunately for me scrum is used a lot at Google scrum is so prevalent that people sometimes use the term scrum and agile interchangeably to make this really clear agile is the foundational philosophy and mindset while scrum is a framework that materializes or brings that philosophy to life in fact scrum came before the agile Manifesto and served as an inspiration for the entire agile philosophy for the rest of this course we'll focus on scrum which is the most popular project management framework we also mentioned other Frameworks in the last module which are welcome to revisit anytime as needed okay let's discuss scrum we're going to start by exploring the theory behind scrum which has three pillars and we'll explore the five scrum values I'll tell you why it's important for teams to have a set mission that they follow I'll also introduce the roles within a scrum team the product owner scrum master and the development team lastly I'm going to introduce all of these Concepts to you using our new office Green project you probably remember office Green as a company that handles plants and Greenery for Office Buildings while office Green has a new project in the works called virtual Verde but we'll get into that later you also learned that in scrum projects project managers typically take on the scrum Master role so in this scenario you'll be the scrum Master working with the scrum team and you'll learn about scrum artifacts events and what those entail we're going to start with the three pillars of scrum Theory meet you in the next video just as agile has core values that teams must adhere to scrum has its own set of pillars that act as a foundation for scrum teams I'll go through the three pillars of scrum in this video let's start by looking at the theory behind scrum so that we could learn the various methods and understand why they're effective first what is Scrum the scrum guide defines scrum as a framework for developing delivering and sustaining complex products that means a team can use scrum to create valuable products for their users even when the environment or industry they're in is hard to predict and there are many risks scrum uses an iterative and incremental approach iterative refers to the fact that project processes are repeated we discussed this a bit in the last module but as a reminder iterative means that the project Works in time boxes or iterations incremental refers to the work being divided into smaller chunks that build on each other the product is built over time through work done during each iteration each of these instances of the product is called an increment iterations and increments allow us to keep checking in on our progress throughout the life cycle of the project this helps us become more predictable and manage the uncertainty in our project scrum is founded on a scientific theory called empiricism this is a fancy word for a simple concept that true knowledge comes from actual lived experience the scrum Founders emphasize that we shouldn't try to assume that things will go exactly as planned or try to predict the future in an uncertain world instead if you're using scrum you're ensuring that each decision you make in your project is based on real experience and hard data so each iteration and increment is understood as a mini experiment where we can learn really valuable things to help improve the project empiricism is built on three foundational pillars those pillars are transparency inspection and adaptation and they're also the three pillars of scrum first there's transparency transparency means that we make the most significant aspects of our work visible to those responsible for the outcome everyone must be transparent this includes everyone from scrum team members to senior sponsors and even our users it's easier to be transparent with a small team and luckily scrum teams are deliberately small ranging between three and nine people this way you avoid mixed signals breakdowns of communication and unnecessary complications transparency inside a scrum team is critical to the team's productivity and the Project's completion in terms of transparency outside of the team being transparent with all stakeholders including customers sponsors and management builds a level of trust between everyone involved transparency also encourages more collaboration and fewer mistakes the second pillar of scrum is inspection inspection refers to conducting timely checks towards the outcome of a Sprint goal to detect undesirable variances this means that we're always checking in on our progress and deliverables so that we can detect any undesirable changes when teams work in an agile way a stakeholder review of their work is a necessary opportunity for growth and progress the more inspections that take place the more Improvement a team experiences in their work There's real value to be gained from deliberate inspection while you have a chance to change and improve inspection also propels our next pillar adaptation adaptation means that we're continuously searching for ways to adjust our project product or processes to minimize any further deviation or issues in scrum and in agile as a whole for that matter we Embrace change so that we are always improving so when we adapt we change aspects that do not work or could be better transparency and inspection give scrum teams the information and opportunity they need to identify improvements or changes although adaptation includes immediate fixes to problems it may also be about implementing a change so future projects don't repeat past mistakes now you know the three pillars that act as a foundation to scrum transparency inspection and adaptation in the next video we'll visit the five values that all scrum teams adhere to meet you there hello again in the previous video we discussed scrum Theory and explore the three pillars of scrum in this video we're going to talk about the five values of scrum and how they relate to the three pillars having a value system as a team is great because you'll expect each other to act in a way that is aligned with these values so let's get into it scrum teams work and behave according to five core values commitment courage Focus openness and respect first there's commitment this means personally committing to achieving the goals of the scrum team for example maybe a member of the team is struggling to overcome something that is blocking their work from getting done like a new technology that is proving difficult to learn in this case another team member who is familiar with the technology can put their own work aside to step in and help their teammate learn the technology the second value is courage scrum team members must have the courage to do the right thing and work on tough problems in any project there's a body of work that needs to get done some of the work will be relatively simple and some will be complex with many risks an example of Courage includes taking on a hard task that you know will require you to learn a new skill courage could mean telling your team that you're stuck and you need help it might also mean calling out a negative behavior within the team to openly discuss and address the behavior demonstrating courage when responding to challenging situations can strengthen the team's resilience third there's Focus this refers to everyone focusing on the necessary work within the Sprint and the overall goals of the scrum team for example a team member is working on a solution that involves a new technology and is very difficult allowing that team member to focus on that difficult yet necessary part of the solution is key and their teammates helped get it across the Finish Line they know that focusing on the solution will speed up the team's progress in the long run so it's worth the investment now the scrum Master a role often assumed by the project manager helps the team to focus on Sprint and product goals by facilitating their activities and events on a daily basis the fourth value is openness for scrum to work the team and its stakeholders agree to be open about all the work and the various challenges that come with performing the work openness is essential to a productive scrum team in order to gather data team members must be willing to share their observations and experiences if a team member runs into an issue within the project that they aren't sure how to fix they should share it with the team another team member may have a very quick and easy solution or at least valuable insight into some options on how to handle their issue the fifth and final scrum pillar is respect team members should respect the opinions skills and Independence of their teammates when you respect the independence and contributions of others and feel respected yourself you're more likely to listen and hear any feedback this is crucial in making the product or business as successful as possible in order for a team to bring the three pillars of scrum to life they must act in accordance with the five scrum values for example if a team aims to achieve transparency between themselves and their stakeholders they need to be open to sharing information while still having the focus to share the most relevant information for a team to effectively inspect their work and their processes they must have courage to offer difficult feedback and have the mutual respect to really listen to what others have to say for a team to adapt to their inspection results they must have the courage to make changes and learn from them they must also be committed to the goals of the team and follow through on the adaptation amazing we've now covered the foundational pillars and values behind a scrum team we've also covered how the team supports scrum values as they relate to agile meet me in the next video where we'll discuss specific scrum roles on a team hello again now that we've covered the theory behind scrum the next few videos will focus on the three scrum rolls that make up the scrum team their respective traits and the scrum team's mission if you think of a team in the context of a team sport like soccer in the United States or football for our Global Learners each position plays a certain role you have Strikers Wingers Defenders goalkeepers and more each player has their own responsibilities they must fulfill in order to try to win the game the same is true for scrum teams and just like our scrum name inspiration the sport of rugby the team is working toward a specific objective to win let's start by discussing the team's product vision and Mission remember scrum is an agile methodology so it embodies the values and principles of agile one of the agile principles States build projects around motivated individuals give them the environment and support they need and trust them to get the job done the best way to motivate individuals is to give them a mission and product Vision that they really care about so they can feel good about working towards it in agile a mission is a short statement that stays constant for your team throughout the process and gives them something to work toward in addition to the mission an agile team will also set a product Vision making it clear what outcomes the team is responsible for and where your team's boundaries are this may sound a bit like management speak but I like to think about it this way a mission tells me why we're doing the work a product Vision helps me imagine what the work will be like when we're done let's think about the mission and product Vision with office Green's new virtual Verde project virtual Verde delivers plants to people's home offices office screens Business Development Department came up with a mission for the project virtual Verde improves users health and happiness by bringing their at-home workspace to life a product Vision created by the scrum team might be virtual Verde is a living Marketplace that transforms the home office these two statements are meant to inspire the team to deliver a delightful experience for virtual verde's users now let's discuss scrum team roles every scrum team consists of three defined roles a scrum Master a product owner and the development team these roles work together to achieve the team's objectives and realize the mission and vision the product owner is responsible for what a team builds they also must ensure everyone understands the why for example the virtual Verde team needs a product owner to capture and promote the great ideas coming from the team about the new service which is delivering plants to people who work from home the product owner's job is to build the right thing the development team is responsible for how a team will deliver that product for example creating a new website is next on our to-do list so customers can order plants for their home office the development team is building websites integrating billing systems and fixing issues the development team's job is to build the thing right the scrum Master is responsible for when a team will deliver value to its users this role is roughly equivalent to the project manager role in traditional projects the virtual Verde scrum Master is helping unblock the team from getting things done such as finding out why a vendor was late or helping the team prioritize issues from users or organizing the demo for the CEO the scrum Master's job is to build the thing fast although there are clearly defined rules on a scrum team it's important to note that the entire team works together to achieve its goals in other words although there are specific expectations for each role the development team may still contribute ideas for the what and the when of a project while the product owner May contribute to discussions on the how of the project as a collective scrum teams must exhibit a few specific skills the scrum guide details these skills as follows scrum teams are cross-functional when a scrum team delivers something it's the accomplishment of the entire team no matter what function or organization they're in on your scrum team you may have a software developer a marketing specialist quality assurance and Logistics expert you may remember our soccer team analogy when each player comes together to play their position the end result is you have all you need to get the ball into the goal plus these fresh perspectives add a lot of value to your project and to your users and business scrum teams are self-organizing this may sound radically different from other organizations you've worked at before where your managers dictate your tasks and request frequent updates but because scrum teams rely on those five values commitment courage Focus openness and respect the scrum team is able to work together to deliver amazing results in a more organic and flexible environment although teams are self-organizing high performing scrum teams often have a manager who sits outside of the scrum team and provides strategic leadership and individual Career Development without disrupting the self-organizing nature of scrum in my experience if a manager feels compelled to start telling the team what to do and interferes with this self-organizing nature the benefits of scrum will begin to collapse now that you have a better understanding of what constitutes a scrum team we'll take you through the specifics of each role in the next few videos we'll start with the traits of an effective scrum master welcome back we've already mentioned that in scrum the project manager is most likely playing the role of scrum master so what exactly does the scrum Master role entail in this video I'll further Define what a scrum Master is then I'll explain some of the differences and similarities between a scrum master and a project manager the scrum Master promotes and supports the scrum process by helping everyone understand and Implement scrum this includes its practices rules and values my favorite way to describe the role of a scrum Master is that they're responsible for helping the team be their very best they can achieve this by coaching individuals on the team to manage external forces as well as maximizing the team's internal potential for example let's say that virtual Verde keeps getting error reports about the shopping cart feature on their new website page the scrum Master is there to notice the pattern and help the team find a better solution rather than just fixing one error at a time maybe a special test plan is needed or extra solution reviews for that feature are needed before changes are released the scrum Master's responsibilities include coaching team members on the Agilent scrum practices rules and values and helping to find ways to manage the product backlog effectively the product backlog is the single authoritative source for things that a team works on it contains all of the product features product requirements and activities associated with deliverables to achieve the goal of the project the scrum Master facilitates scrum events such as Sprint retrospectives which happen at the end of every Sprint scrum Master helps the team remove any blockers to their progress such as missing information or access to training or tools the scrum Master also prevents unhelpful interactions or interruptions coming from outside of the team at this point you may be wondering how am I going to do all of that well you probably already have many of the traits that scrum Masters need to execute these tasks a scrum Master is required to be organized and supportive as a lead they're also facilitators coaches and great communicators let's find out how these traits are helpful in a scrum Master's role scrum Masters must have good organizational skills that help them to effectively organize project artifacts and manage scrum events scrum Masters must be supportive leaders who focus on the needs of others and the needs of the team before their individual needs they're not aiming to raise themselves up as a manager of the team who bosses people around rather they're always asking questions like how can I help or what would help the team go forward on this project scrum Masters facilitate productivity and collaboration this is a critical skill to ensuring every team member's voice is heard and that their input is addressed scrum Masters must coach team members on scrum Theory and application coaching is a skill that encourages dialogue and discussion over simply giving the answers directly finally scrum Masters must be great communicators particularly when it comes to stakeholders scrum Masters are experienced in engaging with diverse stakeholders who may have competing perspectives and styles a scrum master who can relate to many different types of people is a powerful and essential teammate to have on a project you're probably wondering if the role of a scrum Master differs from a traditional project manager the answer is yes the two roles can be quite different although they may be played by the same individual and require a similar skill set as their primary responsibility the scrum Master acts as a facilitator and a coach to the scrum team and they need to make sure that they have enough time in the day to do this job first and foremost if the company requires the management of many additional project management activities then the team might hire project managers who own that more traditional project management oriented work that work may include things like budget management risk spreadsheets or Gantt charts but as I've said it's common for traditional project managers to take on the role of a scrum master they rely heavily on things like decision making communicating flexibility organizational skills and more and the position of scrum Master is a natural fit for many of us as project managers now you know a bit more about the pillars and the role of the scrum Master to recap a scrum Master must possess skills like organization leadership the ability to facilitate coach and manage stakeholders and a scrum Master can be quite different from a project manager in terms of their responsibilities but the role may be played by the same individual since they require a similar skill set in the next video we'll learn what a product owner does meet you there [Music] hi my name is Pete and I work as a technical program manager in Google the responsibility of the technical program manager is to see the end-to-end execution of the programs for which they're responsible within the day today we use we use the agile framework as a core part of our deliverance it allows us to iterate on the process and it allows us to deliver products to our users much faster than traditional models and the scrum framework is just a single implementation of the agile methodology scrum focuses on delivering rapid value to the customers and our users by working iteratively over short periods of time to deliver a product to our customers at its core scrum is a self-organizing team which means we bring individuals together so it's important that when we bring these individuals together everyone is clear in the roles and responsibility that they'll lend to this team so it requires that there be a leader scrum master who helps to ensure that we're always working towards the same goal what makes an effective scrum Master is one that has the following qualities first you're a good teacher and Communicator this is important because you need to instill the scrum values throughout the team secondly a skirm master best leads a team when he or she is influential in most cases the scrum Master does not have managerial responsibilities for the rest of the team so it has to be through influence and two key ways of doing this is to ensuring that the team is operating effectively and second ensuring that there's a culture of motivation within the team as a leader you're also expected to give direction to the team and ensure that we're continuing to work towards the goals that we have set out to achieve during the Sprint and by Sprint it's a focus effort towards particular well-defined goals and it's like a burst of energy for the team to get us there and I love the aspects of working with people and trying to come towards a common goal it's not always easy but it's always satisfying for me foreign in the last video we reviewed the role of the scrum master now I'm going to give you an understanding of what the product owner does you'll also begin to notice how the relationship between the product owner and the development team works a product owner is tasked with ensuring that the team is building the right product or service an efficient scrum team isn't useful to anyone if they're creating a product that users don't want the product owner ensures that the team is building the right thing a product owner is responsible for continuously maximizing the value of the product delivered by the scrum team their key activity is acting as the voice of the customer within the team they represent and express this voice through their ownership of the product backlog as a quick reminder the product backlog is the single authoritative source for things that a scrum Team Works on to achieve the project goal the product owner's responsibilities also include helping the scrum team understand why their work matters within the overall goal and Mission they also prioritize the product backlog to optimize the delivery of goals and deliver value to customers the product owner ensures that the product backlog is visible and transparent to all and finally they're responsible for making sure that the product or service fulfills the customer's needs phew that's a lot so how do product owners accomplish all of that they rely on their key character traits a product owner's role requires them to be customer focused so they must understand a customer's needs and the industry of their business extremely well product owners also have to be decisive great communicators and understand both sides of the issue so they can defend their decisions to the team they must be flexible and open to new information that could generate a profitable change for the team they also have to be optimistic and positive especially since they're delivering the product Vision to the team and they must Inspire the team to believe in their mission product owners also have to be available the iterative nature of scrum means that the team needs the product owner to help inspect adapt and plan the next iteration on a regular basis and finally they must be collaborative product owners will have to work with their team to ensure that the customer's needs are met and that will require meeting with and working alongside several stakeholders so as you may have noticed the product owners are responsible for a lot of the project just like the scrum master let's imagine an example of how a product owner will work within virtual Verde for example let's say that the virtual Verde product owner told the development team that they need to work on the following features in this order flower arrangements potted succulents large potted plants and herb gardens when the development team reviews the list they tell the product owner that herb gardens originally sounded difficult to deliver because they're considered regulated food items but in reality the vendor specialist on the development team knows that herb gardens are actually way easier than we thought because our vendor already has many herb gardens in stock so the development team suggests focusing on herb gardens first a product owner who is flexible and customer focused will adjust the priorities based on this new information so to recap we discussed that a product owner acts as the voice of the customer and is customer focused decisive flexible optimistic available and collaborative next up we'll discuss the role and traits of the development team hi again in the previous video we discussed the role of the product owner on the scrum team in this video we'll discuss the development team within a scrum team the development team is made up of the people who do the work to build the product the size of the team ranges from three to nine people this ensures that the team is small enough to remain Nimble but large enough to complete significant work within each Sprint getting the team size just right is important smaller teams can struggle with diversity of skills and ideas while larger teams may run into issues where there are too many opinions and streams of communication the development team should be cross-functional so they're capable of building the product or service in-house since the team has all of the required skills the development team also owns their processes and structures so they have to be self-organizing and can't rely on others to tell them how to organize they continuously operate as a team rather than individuals and they support each other in reaching the team's goals lastly the development team acknowledges that the best products emerge from teams who are customer oriented and focus on the user when building their products many scrum teams prefer to be co-located meaning they work alongside each other in the same physical space many believe the team delivers higher quality work and improves faster if they are co-located but this isn't always possible for every team let's take a look at an example let's say that the virtual Verde team discovers an issue with one of their plant vendors they can't make the Holiday Rush due to some product quality issues the quality assurance specialist on the team can fly across the country and help the vendor but that means they won't be available to complete their assigned tasks if the team is co-located they can quickly huddle in a conference room and write out some ideas to either get the work done or rearrange the work so this doesn't impact the Sprint goals if they don't sit together or work in different time zones this collaboration is a bit harder has to be done over phone or email or you'll have to coordinate the schedules for a meeting and you might have to come up with workarounds that ultimately lead to overall project delays on the flip side we live in a world where working virtually is possible so if the quality assurance specialist needs to be on a call they can dial in or join via video conferencing platform like Zoom or Skype both co-locating and working virtually has its benefits and drawbacks so make sure to use whichever method is best for your team at this point we've covered each role within a scrum team a product owner is responsible for meeting customers needs also known as building the right thing a development team is responsible for creating the product also known as building the thing right the scrum Master is responsible for improving efficiency also known as building the thing fast we know that each role is vitally important to achieving the goals of a scrum project no individual is more or less important than the others they all work together as a team to create value for their users and customers in the next set of videos we'll review what you've learned so far congrats on finishing a new section you're on your way to becoming a scrum expert throughout these videos we've extensively reviewed a theory in the agile framework called scrum as a refresher scrum is the most common framework that uses an agile approach but there are others like kanban or lean we discuss those approaches in previous videos I introduced you to every scrum team member's source of Truth the scrum guide which you can always use as a resource we discussed the scrum Theory which has three pillars transparency inspection and adaptation and we explored the five scrum values commitment courage Focus openness and respect we went over the essential roles on a scrum team you may remember that those roles are the scrum master who ensures the team builds the thing fast the product owner who is in charge of building the right thing and the development team whose role is to ensure the team builds the thing right it's Quite a feat that you've gotten this far in the program so I hope you're really proud of yourself I'll meet you in the next section where we'll discuss how to implement scrum hi there in the previous section we introduced you to scrum we learned about scrum values and explained the roles that are essential for all scrum teams in this video we'll complete our overview of scrum and dive deep into the setup and day-to-day execution of a scrum team we will go beyond what is provided in the official scrum guide and share the most popular tools methods tips and tricks for working with a scrum team I'll discuss how to manage your product backlog which contains all of the features requirements and activities associated with deliverables to achieve the goal of the project once we have a backlog one of the trickiest parts of scrum is estimation we'll learn what t-shirt sizes and story points have to do with scrum as we discuss a technique called relative effort estimation next you'll learn about the five important scrum events those are the Sprint the Sprint planning the daily scrum the Sprint review and finally the Sprint retrospective we'll learn what velocity means and how your team can use tools like burn down charts to manage their progress I'll show you some other useful tools like Google Docs jira Asana Trello kanban boards and more which will help your workflow stay organized and transparent so let's get started we'll Begin by discussing the product backlog which is a critical artifact for scrum teams meet you in the next video in this program we've introduced you to lots of project management artifacts such as project plans statements of work racy charts and more now we'll review an important artifact of the scrum framework the product backlog in an earlier video we defined the product backlog as the single authoritative source for things that a team works on it contains all of the features requirements and activities associated with deliverables to achieve the goal of the project the traditional non-agile project management equivalent would be the set of project requirements there are three key features of a product backlog first the product backlog is a living artifact meaning that items are added to the backlog at any time the product backlog evolves throughout the whole life cycle of the project and serves as a central guide for the team to know what to work on next second the product backlog is owned and adjusted by the product owner and finally the product backlog is always a prioritized list of features so when there's new information or new features those are added to the backlog in order of importance the items at the very top of the list are very specific and well defined leaving the more vague items for the bottom of the list remember the product backlog is the guide and roadmap of your product it's the central artifact in scrum where all possible ideas deliverables features or tasks are captured for the team to work on because the backlog is so Central there are a few best practices and pieces of data to capture when working with product backlogs there's the description the value the order and the estimate let's go through how to build a sample backlog with these best practices in mind first there's the item description the item description is exactly what it sounds like it describes an item when you're writing an item description it's a good idea to be really clear when adding product backlog items so the details are encouraged for instance on office screen's new project virtual Verde here's an example of an item description as a virtual Verde client I plan to grow my choice of vegetables while I work from home in my New York City Apartment this item description includes essential details such as an action and a location from the perspective of the customer this ensures that the development team has enough information to meet the user's needs next up we have the value field this is the field that tells us how much business value the item delivers to the customers to the team or to the users how to indicate value is a choice the scrum team should make together I like to set value by using dollar signs ranging from one dollar sign for low value all the way up to four dollar signs for high added business value next we have to add in an estimate an estimate is how much effort the scrum team thinks an item will take to complete we'll explore how to do relative effort estimation coming up but for now it's important to know that the relative effort estimate is captured in each backlog item this field in the backlog is owned by the development team the next attribute of each backlog item is the order as we mentioned the backlog should always be prioritized both the estimate and value fields we just discussed help the product owner figure out where to place an item in the backlog's order of hierarchy a product owner may ask themselves how important is this backlog item compared to all the other items product backlogs order items from highest to lowest priority this is called a stacked rank ordering items this way allows teams to operate more efficiently for example our virtual Verde market research team learned that people who work from home would much rather have plants that are easy to take care of versus a more high maintenance plant like orchids then the team prioritizes the simple and easy plants on the backlog like succulents higher than the orchids so their product backlog lists one succulents two orchids but say for example support gets an email from a user who says they'd love to have bonsai trees which are also hard to take care of where do we put it in the order before orchids or after the product owner does some research and decides that the team will do orchids first because they find that many more users have requested orchids versus bonsai trees the product owner gives orchids a two dollar sign value rating bonsai trees a one dollar sign value rating and puts bonsai trees last on their list awesome let's move on when creating backlog items the goal is to include as much as you can while not stressing about the unknowns too much for example the product owner in Virtual Verde doesn't know yet how much bonsai trees cost compared to succulents so they don't know if they serve a high-end Market or a low end Market they document an assumption in the bonsai tree description and move on they can study that in more detail when it is higher on the priority list so now you know a bit more about defining the product backlog and who owns it we also discussed how the various roles work with a product backlog and we can identify and describe each field in a product backlog in the next video we'll learn how to manage the backlog which changes throughout the scrum practices meet you there in the last video you learned about a product backlog we discussed that in order to properly build a backlog the project manager must consider factors like descriptions value order and estimations this ensures that you as the project manager will include enough information to meet the product owner's vision for user value now that you know about the various Fields associated with each item in your backlog let's discuss a popular way to capture and manage those backlog items user stories user stories are short simple descriptions of a feature told from the perspective of the user this helps the team create a solution that's always centered around the user and the user experience user stories might start off large and Broad or maybe broken down to be as small or specific as possible in this lesson we're going to give you some ideas on how to write user stories and how to break them down user stories are made up of three different elements the user the action they will take and the benefit to them these elements might have a few different formats but the most common is as a user role I want this action so that I can get this value when writing effective user Stories the team must have a user in mind imagine that the user will interact with the product in order to achieve a specific outcome what I really like to do at this stage is create personas or detailed descriptions of my different users sometimes I even give them names so in Virtual Verde we could give our users some names and some information about them here are some user Persona ideas Leo is my plant vendor who manages acquiring the plants the supply chain and delivery Logistics Felicity is my gardening expert who helps my support team give our customers really excellent advice on how to take care of their plants Zach is my amateur vegetable Gardener who wants to use the plants they purchase to make dinner Nia is my Management Consultant who works from home and wants to set up a professional backdrop for video conferences in their home office Rina is my flower Aficionado who wants to have a different flower arrangement each week to brighten up their home by giving these users a name and a backstory we can imagine them in our minds and we will Design better products for them as a result I really enjoy writing user stories because it puts me in the shoes of my users each user story should meet six different criteria represented by the acronym i n v e s t or invest I for independent the story should be able to be started and finished by itself it's not dependent on another story to finish it the n stands for negotiable there's room for negotiation and discussion about this item the V is for valuable this means that completing the user story has to deliver value e is for estimable our definition of done must be clear so that the team can give each user story an estimate the S is for small each user story needs to be able to fit within a planned Sprint if that user story is too big it should be broken down into smaller stories stories that are low priority on the backlog can stay big until they become a priority For an upcoming Sprint and finally the t is testable a test can be written to check and make sure that it meets the acceptance criteria while the product owner is the main person responsible for writing user Stories the team has a responsibility to give feedback on whether the user story is clear and fits the invest criteria before they invest any time into it in addition to user stories you need to know the term epic which simply represents a group or collection of user stories some epics for virtual Verde might be live plant delivery office plant advice service vendor management or client data management let's come up with a sample user story for our virtual Verde clients in the live plant delivery epic as a virtual Verde client I would like to acquire a bonsai tree so that I can have a beautiful plant and I can meditate as I trim the branches I thought of this one because I bought a bonsai tree for my 12 year old nephew last year and he did some research and learned that in Japan pruning bonsai trees is a meditative practice so he's learning how to do that with that sample user Story the product owner creates something called the acceptance criteria which is essentially the checklist you will use to decide whether the user story is done to have a completed user story you must meet the acceptance criteria checklist here's an example of acceptance criteria for the bonsai tree user story user can browse for three different types of bonsai trees to purchase compare the three trees to know which is easiest and hardest to grow in their home maybe each plant has a beginner intermediate and advanced Gardener notation next to it can purchase specific Bonsai tree care packages like fertilizer trimming shears Etc access online to a bonsai booklet sheet as well as having a care booklet packaged with the tree can find a troubleshooting bonsai tree issues page on Virtual verde's FAQ page sounds like an amazing story doesn't it it feels like a real thing that a user can interact with and get excited about each user story in the backlog should be written this way it's natural for items higher in the priority list to have more detail and fewer gray areas by leaving these low priority items vague this saves the team time from working on items that may end up getting de-prioritized down the road fantastic now you know how to explain user Stories the criteria for assessing user stories Readiness for the team and you can explain epics and user story acceptance criteria in the next video we'll discuss backlog refinement and explain relative effort estimation t-shirt sizes and story points meet you there welcome back we've been exploring everything there is to know about a product backlog although the product owner owns or is in charge of the data in the backlog the team must work together to keep the living document up to date in this video we'll discuss how to do that through a process called backlog refinement backlog refinement refers to the act of keeping the backlog described estimated and prioritized so that the scrum team can operate effectively after the product owner has added the backlog items with a description and a value statement they do backlog refinement backlog refinement is when the product owner and some or all of the scrum team review the backlog to ensure it contains the appropriate items and that nothing new is needed or nothing needs to be removed that the items are prioritized by the product owner this is also called setting the order field that the items at the top of the backlog are ready for delivery with clear acceptance criteria and that the backlog items include estimates or an informed assessment about how much work a particular backlog item will be let's discuss estimates since they're crucial in backlog refinement we add estimates to backlog items to inform our planning practices about how much effort it will be to finish each item or user story through estimation we can find out how much work we have ahead of us it can be difficult to estimate the amount of time it takes to complete a task more often than not we human beings tend to underestimate the time until completion when it comes to Big projects this effect can be multiplied many times and can be the root cause of projects being late and over budget so in scrum we try to overcome this problem by practicing relative estimation instead of absolute estimation absolute estimation is also called time and effort estimation in traditional project management relative estimation means that instead of trying to determine exactly how long a task will take We compare the effort of that task to the effort for another task and that becomes the estimate that estimation is not done in traditional units of hours days or weeks instead we assign each backlog item a value that is a relative unit for size there are two common relative estimation methods that I find most useful when estimating user stories these are t-shirt sizes and story points let's start with the simpler of the two t-shirt sizes to get started the team simply picks one item on the backlog that seems to be about a medium-sized workload and simply calls that a medium in the estimate field after that they take another item on the backlog and compare it to the medium item they just identified and answer the question if that first item was a medium what size would I give this one the team will repeat this process on each additional item or user story on the backlog until they're all addressed and done for example let's take four items from virtual verde's product backlog adding bonsai trees to the catalog creating a mobile app launching a new logo creating the new account page the team decides that launching a new logo is their medium the team together compares the other three items to that Medium item which gives them their relative effort estimate then there's my favorite method for estimating user stories tasks and backlog items known as story points story points are a bit more advanced than t-shirt sizes but the concept is similar the first step is the same the team picks an item as their anchor item and they'll conduct their estimations relative to that item instead of using t-shirt sizes this process uses what are called story points most teams use a famous mathematical sequence of numbers called the Fibonacci sequence the Fibonacci sequence is one two three five eight thirteen twenty one and continues on to Infinity these numbers are special in that they start out close to one another but as the numbers get higher they spread farther and farther out this is helpful because as the estimate gets higher the uncertainty and risk also gets higher this number combines both effort and risk into one number in other words there's not much use in debating estimation values between 21 and 25 points but choosing between 21 and 34 is a real conversation this concept can be tricky at first and practice is the best way to learn it to explain this concept in the classes that I teach at Google we use this example let's say you want to measure the effort to completely consume different kinds of fruit you have in front of you an orange a strawberry a banana a mango a pineapple and a cherry what are the factors that go into that estimate are there seeds to deal with do I need to eat it with a napkin can I eat it in one bite do I have to peel it or do I need any tools to prepare it okay let's try it if I choose a mango as our starting fruit at Five Points how might you estimate the rest I would rate them this way orange three because the peel is easier than cutting a mango strawberry one because I don't mind eating stems low effort banana three because I have to peel it similar to oranges pineapple 13. it's giant I can't eat it in one sitting and Cherry two stems seeds you know what I mean it's really fun to learn how differently people have learned how to cut up a pineapple but more importantly what estimation exercises do for a team is uncover great ideas on how to get something done as well as surfacing where the riskiest parts of the project are why do I like story points better than t-shirt sizes let's apply them to our virtual Verde backlog now we can see that adding a new user and adding bonsai trees to our catalog aren't quite the same size which the T-shirt sizes might have implied using story points a new user is eight points and the bonsai trees are 13. why would I mark them this way well implementing a new user page is a simple software update adding bonsai trees is more than just software it includes finding vendors building a supply chain and more I mentioned earlier that backlog refinement which includes adding estimates and updating the order field should take place regularly just as it's up to the team to choose which estimation method they select it's up to the team to decide when and how often to conduct backlog refinement some teams prefer to set up special meetings just to refine the backlog others will simply refine the backlog continuously in conversations or emails and finally some teams will conduct backlog refinement as part of a scheduled event like their Sprint planning meeting now you know how to define backlog refinement and you can explain relative effort estimation t-shirt sizes and story points in the next video we're going to learn more about Sprint planning meet you there welcome back as you learned earlier Sprints which we also called iterations provide the whole Rhythm for the team and is one of the five scrum events they allow us to get feedback quicker encourage team collaboration and provide more Focus for scrum teams within a Sprint the amount of work is planned based on the historical capacity of the team and is made ready for the Sprint planning event it might help to think of each Sprint as a mini project with planning execution delivery closing and a retrospective all wrapped into this bite size package Sprints are so important to scrum that the other four scrum events revolve around the Sprint the scrum guide technically defines five events the Sprint itself Sprint planning daily scrum Sprint review and the Sprint retrospective throughout this section of videos I'll share what the recommended duration or time box is for each of these events time boxes are an important Concept in scrum some examples of benefits are that they create a sense of urgency which will drive prioritization provide a window of focus which improves productivity and they help the team develop a predictable Rhythm to their work a Sprint's time box can range anywhere from one to four weeks how do you choose well there are three considerations first think about what you expect the frequency of changes to be how often do you think your requirements might change if you expect your project to have new requests popping up each week you may want to make your Sprint length one week so that you can adapt more often if the needs are more stable perhaps longer will be just fine second think about how much Focus time your solution developers might need to build a backlog item if the Baseline effort for most of your activities requires at least a week to create something valuable then your Sprint length should be at least two weeks to give the team room to execute without feeling the crunch mode third think about how much overhead goes into a delivery of your product if you're deliverable or solution requires a large review with many stakeholders or goes through a rigorous testing and quality assurance process that takes several days you should factor that into your Sprint length and choose a longer Sprint such as three or four weeks instead like most things in scrum there's no one-size-fits all and if you set a Sprint length and decide it's too long or Too Short after a few Sprints you can always change it for example my current team has Sprints that are one week long because we expect a lot of change and new requests coming into our backlog every week but often our work takes longer than a week to complete we're currently reflecting on that contradiction and considering changing our Sprint length to two weeks great now you know more about defining the Sprint in the next few videos we'll discuss the relationship between the other scrum events and the Sprint we'll start with the events leading up to the Sprint conducting Sprint planning and compiling the Sprint backlog meet you there hi again in the last video we discussed the parameters for a Sprint we learned that a Sprint is one of five scrum events and creates the frame around all other scrum events next up is Sprint planning the first event within the Sprint that sets your team up for success for the next one to four weeks depending on the length you chose for Sprint planning the entire scrum team comes together and meets to confirm how much capacity meaning time and people are available during this Sprint and then they identify what items from the backlog will be done during the Sprint this becomes the Sprint backlog and ultimately the Sprint goal this is a time for the scrum Master to facilitate team communication and answer the following questions throughout the event who is available during this Sprint are there any vacations or conflicts that we should know about what has been our average velocity meaning how many points or backlog items have we been able to complete in a single Sprint in the past what can and should be accomplished by the team in this upcoming Sprint what is the ultimate Sprint goal how will the work get done throughout the Sprint who is responsible for what tasks we've discussed Sprint lengths and story sizes so let's explore the meaning of definition of done definition of done refers to an agreed upon set of items that must be completed before a user story or backlog item can be considered complete some things that may be within your definition of done are the code or solution itself is reviewed by an independent peer group the product or unit passes all testing requirements which could include security or performance testing documentation is completed all user story acceptance criteria specified by the product owner is met and finally the product owner accepts the user story this list isn't comprehensive and the team should determine what should be on this list and improve it as needed a key deliverable of the Sprint planning event is the Sprint backlog the Sprint backlog is the set of product backlog items that are identified for completion during the upcoming Sprint in other words the Sprint backlog is a subset of items from the product backlog that you'll aim to finish during that particular Sprint for example virtual verde's product backlog might have 50 backlog items and virtual Verde has created four week Sprints that are named by month May Sprint June Sprint July Sprint and so on for the May Sprint the team has determined that they can complete the top five of those items based on the capacity of the team for May and the size of the effort of those items those five items now make up the Sprint backlog the Sprint goal is the overarching objective that the team aims to achieve and helps the team understand the why of the Sprint this should be taken from a big picture view of the items on the Sprint backlog the benefit of having a bigger Sprint goal identified is that it helps the team focus on a broader team objective rather than putting them into separate work streams for example let's say virtual Verde has identified these five items as the Sprint backlog for May virtual Verde users can purchase bonsai trees virtual Verde users can access an online discussion forum about home office Decor virtual Verde vendor management team can add audit results for vendors virtual Verde users can use a coupon to purchase home office accessories virtual Verde customer support can connect products to support tickets so the Sprint goal is to provide a comprehensive experience to the user who wishes to install a bonsai tree in their home office all of these backlog items can be connected to this Sprint goal in some way for example there is a new coupon for Bond size the vendors are audited for bonsai tree quality and so on to recap we just learned that Sprint planning will result in a well-defined and estimated Sprint backlog as well as a Sprint goal to keep the team motivated towards that final achievement see you in the next video where we'll cover more Sprint events as a refresher one of the principles from the agile Manifesto States the most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation so in this video we'll discuss communicating with the team through two kinds of face-to-face events that occur during and after the Sprint the daily scrum and the Sprint review first the daily scrum which is sometimes referred to as stand-up is a time for the scrum team to synchronize and prioritize activities for the day in 15 minutes and at the same time and place every day each team member answers the following questions what did I do yesterday that helped the development team meet the Sprint goal what will I do today to help the development team meet the Sprint goal do I notice any impediment that prevents me or the development team from meeting our goals daily stand-ups should provide the scrum Master with the opportunity to quickly unblock the team with little delay and daily stand-ups are an opportunity to reinforce focus on the Sprint backlog and Sprint goal the official scrum guide says that daily stand-ups must happen every single day though I will say I have had successful scrum teams who meet less frequently than that my current scrum team has a one-week Sprint and we have stand-ups two days during the week we found that this works really well for us try it out and see what works best for your team at the closing of a Sprint the team will complete another event known as the Sprint review this Sprint event is crucial to the scrum pillars of inspection and adaptation and demonstrate the values of openness courage and respect let's discuss what I mean by that the Sprint review is a meeting with the entire scrum team where the product is demonstrated in order to determine which aspects are finished and which aren't during a Sprint review the development team and product owner will play a heavy role in this inspection and discussion they'll also cover an exploration of which items should be considered done in the product backlog and they'll demonstrate and inspect the product Sprint reviews should be really fun and uplifting the Sprint review is when the team gets to impress each other with the cool things they've accomplished over the last one to four weeks these time-boxed meetings should not exceed four hours and they're a good opportunity for the team to practice the scrum values of openness and respect as they give feedback about the completed work often some of the greatest product ideas come out of the Sprint review let's look at an example with the new service the virtual Verde team needs to launch their new website page featuring home office plans let's imagine that the scrum team has a marketing specialist on the team remember scrum teams are cross-functional during the August Sprint review meeting one of the Sprint backlog items was to create a launch email to send out to scrum at Pal's corporate customers about their brand new adventure during the Sprint review meeting the team gets a demo of the email they pull up the email onto the shared screen and give the specialist feedback right there in the meeting such as love that opening line really draws them in let's make the opening image bigger can we make it easier for the recipient to forward this to their friends can we make this text shorter it's a bit long this group inspection of a work product from the team has many benefits that go Way Beyond just a better marketing email first it makes the feedback as immediate as possible no need to wait for people to review on their own and send in their feedback later on feedback and adjustments might be made right there in the meeting second everyone has a voice leading to a shared sense of ownership of every aspect of their product launch last but not least the team learns more about how their marketing teammate does their job leading to Greater trust and understanding between team members the Sprint review is a time for the team to demonstrate what they've accomplished the Sprint review is also where team members unveil what is called the product increment the product increment is what's produced after a given Sprint and is considered releasable a product is releasable when the team has developed a minimum viable product which has a set of implemented features or requirements a minimum viable product is a version of a product with just enough features to satisfy early customers at the end of each Sprint only items that have met the definition of done are considered part of the product increment anything that is not done goes back to the product backlog great work we've now covered the activities that happen during a Sprint to ensure that the team is focused and is building valuable Solutions in the next video we'll discuss another important meeting that takes place on a scrum team the Sprint retrospective meet you there hi I'm Sarah and I'm a program manager on the engineering education team at Google one way that I go about centralizing and organizing that I think is not spoken about as regularly as documentation is honestly just having a daily stand-up or a weekly stand up with your cross-functional project team sometimes as the project manager you're inclined to just be like oh well like our data analyst might not need to know what our marketer is doing just because they're so separate but honestly giving everybody the opportunity to come into a meeting week over week and just talk through very quickly this is what I just finished this is what I'm working on creates a certain amount of visibility transparency and like creates a sense of camaraderie and teamwork in a way that just documenting all that without having a conversation about it doesn't really solve for the goal of a stand-up isn't to be something at the length of a retrospective or like a town hall these are meant to be as short as possible I usually schedule them for 15 to 20 minutes and I'm happy if it's shorter we really want people to just quickly get through what they're working on right now and if they have any blockers anything that might be getting in the way for a particular teammate or project part of the project and making progress then you might need to set up additional time with that particular person or work stream owner to work through those tasks and see what you can do to help unstick them another thing to think about with a daily stand-up is that you're likely going to be working with people across a lot of different time zones a lot of different locations I recommend sending out like a gut check or survey to be like are we going to be okay with doing 11AM ET are we going to be okay with doing 4 pm ET and then kind of sticking with it to make sure that it feels like it's a consensus before you just put it on calendar and expect everybody to show up every single time if you're working on like a project with a very tight deadline if you're doing a stand-up every single day I try not to create a culture where it's mandatory that everybody's there right it's happening every day and there might be some components of a project that are moving quicker than other times than others a great way to keep people within their time box within a daily stand-up or any type of meeting is to before the meeting create an agenda and actually right out next to it how many minutes you're hoping to allocate to whatever update it is but if something comes up I generally try to say like don't you know cut them off mid-sentence it's never it's never a nice way to work with your with your stakeholders or with your project team to just be like two minutes are up you're done um but just say at some point when there's a natural break in conversation that hey we actually needed to give this other thing another 10 to 15 minutes so can we put a pin in that and come back to it if we have time later and if not in the next meeting if you've been following this program you've learned a lot about retrospectives an important part of project management regardless of the approach you're taking in this video we'll cover the last of the five events of scrum the Sprint retrospective the Sprint retrospective is an essential meeting of up to three hours for the scrum team to take a step back reflect and identify improvements about how to work together as a team in a Sprint retrospective the scrum team will reflect on what's working or not working for the team regarding the people the processes and the tools what improvements are worth exploring in the next Sprint and what improvements were put in place for the last Sprint were they helpful or not and why in my experience there are some key measures to take to ensure Sprint retrospectives are a success first it's important to demonstrate the scrum value of respect and always allow the team to remain blameless if any team member is worried there may be negative consequences for providing feedback your outcome won't be as beneficial you'll need to create a safe space for Candor by acknowledging potential awkwardness and if needed create a space for anonymous or private feedback participation is key because retrospectives only work if participants feel like their input matters if you notice folks aren't volunteering their perspectives search for ways to generate new ideas such as asking them what is one thing we could try in the next Sprint what slowed us down what happened that we didn't expect the answers to these questions can help you understand how to improve for example just recently my team discovered that having dependencies on stakeholders outside of our scrum team was slowing us down in our retrospective we decided to increase awareness of our priorities with these external stakeholders through some new communication channels next balance the negative with the Positive don't just ask where you can improve but also ask things like where did we notice success you want your team to feel like they were successful and you also want to recreate these successful outcomes and finally make sure to act on it teams can get discouraged from participating in future retrospectives if it feels like their feedback won't Inspire change search for improvements or simply convert the things that worked best into your team's habits and norms facilitating conversation among the scrum team both during retrospectives and in everyday workflows is an incredibly important aspect of being the scrum master and a project manager in the next video we'll discuss how to remain transparent with your workflow through the use of essential scrum tools these will also help facilitate good communication within the team meet you there in this video we'll explore two very important Concepts that allow a scrum team to manage their work as they progress through a Sprint and the entire product backlog these two concepts are burn down charts and velocity let's start with what a burn down chart's purpose is and how a scrum team uses it a burn down chart measures time against the amount of work done and the amount of work remaining the goal of using a burn down chart is to keep the team aware of how they're doing against their overall goals in a scrum team burn down charts reflect how the team is doing with completing user stories during the Sprint the scrum Master will review the burn down chart sometimes daily to examine if the team will hit their goals or not and there's some simple math and numbers here so now is a good time to mention what to do if your team is using t-shirt sizes rather than story points in that case simply map the sizes to a number and use that number for the burn down and velocity calculations for example maybe an extra small is one point a small is two points a medium is five a large is eight and so on here's an example let's imagine our virtual Verde team Sprints are four weeks long which will count as 20 business days in their July Sprint the Sprint backlog had stories that added up to a total of 200 points to be completed if you assumed an even burn of points over the business days you'd expect 10 points to be burned each day by day 5 in their Sprint 22 points had been burned or completed hmm okay it's only 25 percent of their Sprint so maybe things are on track by day 10 45 points had been completed uh-oh we should have been approximately halfway done by now which would be a hundred points according to the burn down chart we're running late according to our Sprint goal now this isn't the time to panic and stress out the team at this point as scrum Master you should already be discussing with your team to find out how you can help and unblock them by day 15 the burn down is 140 points few the team is back to humming Along by day 20 the burn down is 188 points completed great job let's discuss what happened in the retrospective in scrum there's a term for how many points a team burns down in a Sprint on average that term is velocity in other words velocity is a measure of how many points a team burns down during a single Sprint on average when the team is conducting Sprint planning they're using their average velocity over at least three Sprints to determine how many items they can safely add to their Sprint backlog there are a few things worth noting when it comes to calculating velocity first there's no such thing as a good velocity or bad velocity velocity is simply what the team has historically been able to achieve in a predetermined time box the next thing is that each team will have a different velocity especially since each team decides their own point system calibration it's impossible to compare your team's velocity to another team's for example I'm currently on a team of three people and we're burning down 70 points in a one-week Sprint so our velocity is 70. but on a previous five-person team our velocity for a two-week Sprint was only 120 points was one team better or worse than the other nope just different once you have a stable velocity and a refined backlog with prioritization and estimates this unlocks an incredibly valuable superpower you can now tell your stakeholders and sponsors two important things you can tell them approximately how long it will take to complete the entire product backlog and how much of your backlog will be completed by a particular time this ability to confidently predict when things can get done is one of the most powerful Tools in agile and scrum in my opinion let's imagine that our virtual Verde team has averaged 200 points in each monthly Sprint for the last three months the team knows they have 1500 points left in their product backlog they now can say that it will take them approximately seven or eight Sprints to complete the entire product backlog what if it's July and the team wants to know what will be available by January 1st no problem that's five months away just go down the backlog from the top and draw a line when you hit a thousand points that's pretty confident estimate based on the past performance of the team pretty powerful right if you want to pull in the dates you can use this information to decide to add people to the team and increase velocity rearrange the priorities or make other key project decisions on any given team it can take multiple Sprints to reach a stable velocity and that's perfectly normal as the team gets used to estimating and working together the velocity should begin to stabilize now you know how to Define velocity velocity Trends and burn down charts you also learned a bit about how an agile team reaches a stable velocity and what that entails using these tools is essential to any High performing scrum team there are powerful means to achieve execution predictability I'll demonstrate another useful visualization tool in the next video meet me there we learned about the importance of visualizing progress using burn down charts in the last video and good news there are other visual tools that can also help a team progress throughout their Sprint the tool we cover in this video may be familiar to you since we briefly covered it in a previous video it's the kanban board some teams refer to this as the scrum board rather than the kanban board while the two do have minor differences they're referring to the same basic tool the scrum guide doesn't specify exactly what a scrum board is but some scrum tools available in the market provide a board that adds some features to a kanban board these features make it suitable specifically for scrum both boards have three main features that make it a great Sprint tracking tool for scrum teams there's visualization work in progress limits also known as whip limits and flow of work visualization can be an important strategy for Learning and tracking this kanban board communicates everything we need to know at a glance we can point at specific work items on the board we want to discuss use images with variation in colors and sizes as we check in on work items and we can notice where the challenges are in our team without this visualization it's not as easy to find out where we can make improvements these boards make it easy to notice where whip limits break we learned earlier in this course that kanban whip limits are constraints on how many work items the team actively works on at any given time this provides Focus for the team which is one of our scrum values have you heard the idea that there's no such thing as multitasking in scrum it can be very true and the more work you have the less efficient you can become when you use a kanban or scrum board each team may set a whip limit based on their configuration and context this way it's really obvious to notice when the team is going beyond the whip limit and finally using a kanban board can give you a better sense of the flow of work through the team's execution processes physical Post-it notes or even virtual versions of kanban or scrum boards allows the team to experience the movement of work from one phase to another using a kanban or scrum board the team will move the items through the following stages to do doing and done this action often takes place during the daily scrum but the team can move items at any time for example with our virtual Verde team let's say that Leo our plant vendor has finished the item to finalize contracts with the three top plant vendors we plan to use for our initial launch Leo will go to the kanban board and move his item from doing to done and find out what's next to work on if for some reason that was the last thing for him in the Sprint he may reach out to his team to see where he can help a teammate with their work so to recap kanban and scrum boards are really useful because they help you visualize your progress set and maintain your team's workload and whip limits and give you a sense of the flow of work throughout the team's execution process awesome I'll see you in the next video where we'll review a few software products that help a scrum team manage all of this information welcome back we've covered a lot of ground in this section we've learned all about the various scrum events and what each of them does to ensure a scrum team's success to wrap up this section we'll review the tools available to implement and facilitate the scrum and agile workflows these can help improve collaboration and keep your workflow transparent as a refresher one of scrum's pillars is transparency so a scrum team's success is very dependent on transparency within the team and tools encourage everyone to be fully aware of progress and updates these tools will be used to store the product backlog Sprint backlog and any other essential documentation using scrum tools will help your team keep all of your progress organized and in one centralized place we've already heard about scheduling and Work Management collaboration and productivity tools let's revisit those tools now from the perspective of a scrum team let's talk about scheduling and Work Management tools in traditional project management applications like Microsoft Project provide you with very powerful schedule and Resource Management capabilities in a scrum team though the most critical tool you'll need is something to manage your backlog and your sprints jira by atlassian is a popular agile team project management tool and it supports all aspects of team and backlog management it can be customized for your team and will provide you with a central place to find all things related to your scrum team your product backlog your Sprint definitions your velocity your burn down charts and much more after jira there are other tools on the market that your team can purchase that provides similar capabilities some teams build their own agile tooling inside of spreadsheets too when it comes time to choose a tool most of these tools will let you have a free trial period before you make a permanent choice if you're searching for something simple and fun to try I recently started using trello's kanban capabilities just for my own personal projects it's helped me plan a move and organize a big birthday party for my dad Asana is another tool we've referenced in this program that works great for Sprint planning and backlog management Asana helps teams plan and coordinate their work from daily tasks to strategic initiatives with Asana everyone can view discuss and manage team priorities this allows teams to understand who is doing what in their time frame for each task it's great for assigning tasks automating workflows tracking progress and communicating with stakeholders these applications are built specifically to help a team manage a backlog and their Sprints but there are many activities that these products can't perform this is where additional tools for documentation collaboration and productivity come in you'll want to use some form of documentation or word processing tool this ensures that you capture key information about your project in a long format many products in this space feature both the documentation and the collaboration all in one tool Google Docs is a great example of this but it's not the only one spreadsheets such as Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets are useful for most teams you can use spreadsheets to capture backlogs and backlog item information or any number of other pieces of information for your project you may also want a tool to create presentations either using Google Slides or the Microsoft equivalent these presentation tools are used all the time two you guessed it present information to the team and finally since it's agile we value individuals and interactions so it's essential that we have excellent tools for collaboration and communication the types of collaboration you'll experience on a scrum team are video conferencing team and one-on-one online chats and emails these tools will result in huge productivity improvements for your team they allow teammates to communicate more effectively get quicker answers and unblock themselves long before the next day's daily scrum there are so many useful applications out there to help scrum teams maintain the desired transparency between team members and in scrum they decide what to use together and just like that you're almost at the end of the module in the next video we'll review and wrap up what you've learned so far congrats on finishing another set of videos I hope you're feeling as excited about scrum and agile as I do every day we spent a lot of time covering one of the most important parts of scrum the product backlog we learned about refining the backlog and the importance of relative effort estimation using methods like t-shirt sizes and story points we identified the five important scrum events which are the Sprint itself Sprint planning the daily scrum the Sprint review and the Sprint retrospective and we learned about when each of these take place and what their purposes entail we discussed visual learning by using tools like burn down charts and kanban Boards we also explored tools like jira Asana and Trello which make it easy to keep your workflow transparent and keep every team member up to date on the progress made throughout the Sprint I really want to congratulate you on making it this far you've already learned and accomplished so much and I'm excited for you to continue learning next up we'll learn about using Adeline scrum to adapt in real life situations hi there in the previous section we wrapped up how to run a project using scrum I introduced you to the day-to-day practices that most scrum teams use these practices include developing user stories managing a product backlog and running Sprints in this next section we're going to take an even wider view of scrum and agile and I'll introduce you to how to use scrum and agile in your daily life I'll help prepare you to apply agile thinking and methods to both job interviews and potential work scenarios these work scenarios will teach you how to implement agile to deliver value and achieve your business goals you'll also learn some techniques for responding to risks and Team Dynamics finally I'm going to wrap up this course on the foundations of agile by discussing agile as applies to the broader project management discipline and I'll help you figure out how to use agile in your next position ready for the final stretch of this agile Journey let's go hi again previously you learned how to effectively Implement scrum so that you and your team can deliver amazing products to your users in this video we'll explore the result of a project and the end product you'll ultimately deliver which is what holds value for the user and the customer I'm going to define the term value as it relates to project management then I'll share some strategies and tactics you can employ to maximize the value your team delivers the end product of a project is what provides value to the user value could be Financial benefits user growth and engagement or compliance adherence the term value can mean different things for each customer based on what they expect the product to accomplish the number one agile principle is to satisfy the customer by delivering valuable software you can always replace the term software with the words product or solution for non-software related projects delivering value as quickly and efficiently as possible to users is the primary reason agile came into existence the term value driven delivery means you and your team are focused on delivering a product of high value just because you deliver a product that doesn't mean it's valuable as I explained during the overview of agile history there was a growing problem of project teams churning out products that weren't very valuable this is because teams were focused on the process and weren't taking the time to evaluate the usefulness of the product until the very end after it had been delivered agile redirects the team's Focus to be about the product and ensures that the process for producing the product supports the goal of delivering value how can you make sure your team is focused on value-driven delivery build the right thing build the thing right and run it right remember Agilent scrum evolved out of the software industry so the terms build and run describe processes for building or running a software program machine or other technology you can replace the words build and run with terms like create produce or deliver for non-software projects to describe the same concept let's break this down first and foremost to deliver value you have to build the right thing you can do this by making sure you really understand what your customers want you might ask a customer what they want and they may say they want to build a website to promote their new plant service but take this one step further and ask about their goals do they want to increase their brand recognition do they want to get more customers having a solution-oriented conversation with your customer will help you build the right thing the agile value of individuals and interactions over processes and tools extends Beyond just the team it refers to having those important interactions with our customers and users too next you must build the thing right that's lingo for ensuring that your team only builds the requested or approved features working on features that aren't necessary can lead to complexities in the product that don't add any value to the users in addition building more than you need delays or reduces your value upon delivery it also increases the risk of bugs or other issues down the road and finally in addition to building the right thing and building the thing right you have to make sure that you're running it right to run it right means that your team has thought through how the user will interact with the product once it's been delivered make sure your team thinks through some of the operational tasks that will need to be addressed after the product has left the door ask the following questions how do users get support how does the product add value to users long after they initially received it and how do you make sure that new features and capabilities reach the existing users building the right thing building the thing right and running it right all work together to ensure that the team creates a steady and continuous delivery of value to users throughout the life of the product let's consider how the virtual Verde team can ensure that they focus on value-driven delivery first how could the virtual Verde team ensure they build the right thing how do they know they're creating something the customer really wants in this case the team needs to ensure that they create a service providing the types of plants that customers want to buy so they could create a survey that asks current and potential customers what their plant preferences are and the type of home office design they want to create then they'll use this data to update the user stories on their product backlog next how could the virtual Verde team ensure they build the thing right once the team knows what kinds of plants and Designs the customer wants how do they ensure the right processes are in place to deliver them well the team can secure a trusted plant vendor that carries the desired plant types and work with designers to make pots vases and other plant accessories in the different design styles that customers like the team can also communicate with marketing to make sure the types of plants and designs that customers want are prominently featured on the website and in the catalog and finally how can the virtual Verde team make sure to run it right how do they ensure customer satisfaction once a customer has signed up for the service how does the virtual Verde team retain their customers long after their plans have been delivered the virtual Verde team can send out follow-up customer satisfaction surveys that ask about their plan and design offerings delivery times plant quality and other insights the team can then use this data to continually evaluate their vendors plant and design offerings and marketing strategy for example the team could find ways to increase the quality of service by offering watering cans and automatic plant health systems or even free monthly gardening tips so the user feels empowered and supported to maintain their plants there are many ways to maximize your team's value delivery building the right thing building the thing right and running it right all work together to ensure that the team delivers value to users in the next video I'll teach you another effective proven way to deliver value called a value roadmap meet you there my name is Cameron I'm a technical program manager a technical program manager is a program manager with a technical background that enables them to engage in technical conversations or decisions with their team my favorite thing about agile has got to be the flexibility so when you're making most of the decisions at the beginning when you know the least not all those decisions might be right some will but probably all of them won't be so with agile it's a framework and a mindset that is open to that change it Embraces it it welcomes it as you learn more agile gives you built-in opportunities to make changes an important aspect of agile is incremental delivery you're delivering little bits over the course of a long period of time to contrast that if you think of waterfall that's when you deliver everything at once to the customer at the end in a waterfall project you have to wait and wait and wait until the very end to get everything and perhaps you're waiting days months years and you cannot extract any value out of it until the very end until the product is delivered I think that makes sense for a house I think that makes sense for a car I cannot give someone parts of a car and have them start you know getting value out of it you know because the car has certain safety requirements for things that take longer to figure out for more challenging design issues you don't have to sacrifice the entire project for that one last bit if you built 90 of the project and you can ship it go ahead agile lets you extract that value that way people can use that ninety percent while you're trying to figure out that last ten and then hopefully you have a ecosystem where it's okay to deploy or release that last ten percent down the line change is never free because you've already communicated plans you've already made estimate you already have some work in progress then if you're going to change that you're going to lose a little bit about is that change within your threshold or your budget to be able to adapt to get it right or get it better so it's not always about it being perfect it's about it being good hello again in the last video you learned about value-driven delivery which is when the team is focused on delivering a product that has maximum value for its customers one way to help teams make sure they're staying focused is by following a value roadmap in this video I'll explain what a value roadmap is and what you need to create one as a project manager part of your job is to help teams stay focused on delivering value a great way to do this is to build a value roadmap it's an agile way of mapping out the timelines and requirements for the product development process and can be used in all types of businesses this roadmap is a guide that demonstrates where to go how to get there and what to accomplish along the way in order to maximize value it helps map out a product idea and the strategy for how to deliver it as the team follows their roadmap they gather input from customers and stakeholders and apply their findings to each iteration of the product creating a roadmap helps the team explain the vision of the product and can also be used to identify important milestones a typical value roadmap has three components a product Vision a product roadmap and release plans the first component of a value roadmap is the product Vision your product vision is a critical step to starting any new scrum project your vision is based on your user interviews and market analysis and becomes your team's North Star in other words it's what guides your team the product Vision defines what the product is how it supports the customer's business strategy and who will use it next there's the product roadmap which the product owner is responsible for creating and maintaining it provides a high level view of the expected product its requirements and an estimated schedule for reaching milestones it's key to making sure your team is building the right thing the third component of a value roadmap is a series of release plans the product owner and project manager work together to develop these plans product releases occur when the team has developed a basic working version of a given feature or requirement a release plan includes the approximate date when the team is expected to release and deliver certain features to the customer or user an agile team may have several releases over the course of a project until their project is considered done for this reason only the first release date should be considered to be set in stone the rest of the release plan is based on early estimates and is subject to change as the project proceeds a release plan contains a release goal which is an overall business goal for the features you plan to include in the release the list of backlog items such as epics user stories or features that you require for that release goal an estimated release date and any other relevant dates that impact a release like a convention or major holiday it's important to add all of your release plans to your value roadmap to help you stay focused on the path to your overall value goal in summary the value roadmap contains three key components the product Vision product roadmap and release plan these three work together to help an agile team reach its goals through multiple iterations a value roadmap only works if the team is collaborative and all stakeholders work together regularly this will ensure that the project achieves results that align with the agile values and principles awesome now you know how to create a value roadmap in the next video I'll share some tips that will help you create an effective value roadmap hi again in the previous video I introduced you to the concept of a value roadmap and described its three main components product Vision product roadmap and release plans a value roadmap helps you determine specific routes for your team to deliver the most value it uses the basic events of scrum to Define product goals and requirements so the team can deliver a successful final product in this video I'll share some tips for creating an effective value roadmap my first tip is about creating the product roadmap the product roadmap provides a high level view of the expected product its requirements and an estimated timeline for reaching milestones many of those Milestones will be product release dates you'll need to ensure that product release dates are only rough estimates this is because as an agile team you know that things can and do change this is especially true since these dates could be anywhere from several months to several years down the road if the roadmap is too specific it might set the team up for failure because the dates can't be guaranteed speaking of product release dates this leads me to my next tip which is about the release plans there are some important things to know about creating a release plan which includes approximate Target release dates it's very important that the product owner and project manager or scrum Master work together to develop each release plan this is because the release plans need to connect the product roadmap with the team's capacity and velocity the capacity and velocity is the measure of the team's ability to complete work at a certain pace a release plan that isn't connected to the team's ability to complete work could be unrealistic and lead to an unsustainable pace for the team this would violate one of our agile principles which states agile processes promote sustainable development the sponsors developers and users should be able to maintain a constant Pace indefinitely if there are any Hard dates or deadlines on your roadmap meaning a date that cannot change Factor these into any release plans that might be affected for example virtual Verde might realize that office Green has an office Decor convention in October and they want to launch the first phase of virtual Verde services at that event communicate hard deadlines with your stakeholders so there's a clear understanding of must have features this way if the team discovers it might be at risk for not meeting the deadlines they can quickly focus on the must-have features since agile is all about embracing and anticipating change it might seem like having a release plan goes against the agile value of responding to change over following a plan but having a release plan does not mean you are a resistant to change an agile team treats a release plan as a living artifact So the plan can change based on the environment and new information that's received some common factors that may result in a change to the release plan could include a change in team velocity or how much work the team can do in a given iteration or Sprint this could be from adding or losing team members or even just efficiency gains from how they work a second factor is a change to the product's scope If the product owner approves a change to the product and a third factor that could affect a release plan is improving the understanding of how much effort is needed to build certain features the team may discover that a user story or epic is more or less difficult than they originally thought after doing some research or simply from better understanding the product space my last tip for creating an effective value roadmap is that the scrum master or project manager should always review the release Plan before starting a Sprint planning session they review the release plan to check whether the team is on track if the team is off track the scrum Master needs to have an open conversation with the product owner and business people to figure out what they can adjust to get back on track this is where the scrum value of transparency is key an effective value roadmap is a powerful tool for building and delivering successful products the plans you create will help you stay focused on delivering maximum value and the ability to remain flexible and stay agile in the next set of videos we're going to switch gears and discuss some common challenges that you might encounter when introducing agile and scrum or when joining an organization that is transitioning to agile I'll share some tips for how you as the project manager can help support and coach your team along the way meet you there hi there in this video I'm going to discuss your role as a project manager in an organization that wants to implement agile practices as you conduct your project management job search you're likely to find many of the organizations you apply to as either already being agile making the switch to becoming agile or not yet agile but ready to transition as an entry-level project manager it's not likely you'll be expected to lead a complete change to Agile in a large organization but you may be expected to help support the change process on the other hand you might get hired by a smaller organization that does want you to lead the change the techniques I'll share with you in this video will set you up to be prepared for all of these different scenarios let's begin first let's review some of the key learnings from one of the earlier courses on organizational culture and change management when an organization shifts the way it conducts business it usually requires a shift in its culture as well understanding organizational culture and the change management process is crucial when introducing new ways of working organizational culture is based on shared workplace values and pops up in people's behaviors activities the way they communicate and how they work with each other a change that's out of sync with the existing culture is much more difficult to complete in fact there's research proving that companies that don't consider the cultural aspects of agile are more likely to fail change management is the process of getting folks to adopt a new product process or an agile's case a new value system okay let's get into how to help introduce or continue the adoption of agile or scrum into an organization unless the organization has many years of agile behaviors and experience you may be facing a change in organizational culture these changes take time sometimes years to complete as a project manager you might only Implement a few changes and that's okay you'll still be adding value by demonstrating to your team or organization new and different ways of approaching their business I'll share with you some words of wisdom I heard from a colleague many years ago they said change takes patient persistence it may feel like things are taking too long but in many cases small changes add up to a big change in the long run so what are some ways that you can bring agile or scrum to a new team first I want you to think about the concept of creating a sense of ownership and urgency when people feel a sense of ownership and urgency around a project it increases interest motivation and engagement with the project outcome one way to create a sense of ownership is to find an executive sponsor who also feels a sense of ownership for the change you're creating wherever possible point out connections between the changes you're making and the company's stated Mission or values having buy-in from someone at the top increases your chances of successfully driving any change in organizational culture ideally your sponsor will reinforce the benefits of agile to the organization and give you the support and resources you need what about creating a sense of urgency my favorite approach to this is to ask the team the organization and the stakeholders questions about what's working and what's not working right now then I ensure the changes relate directly to those opportunities here are some questions you could try what is preventing us from providing the best possible product to our customers what is allowing our competitors to outperform us in this market and how can we help our teams become more productive and supported in their work this not only helps you prioritize your work you get the team thinking about the possibilities they'll enjoy if the change is successful you can use these questions going forward to collect feedback during the change coming back to these questions and demonstrating the incremental improvements is the true Spirit of agile let's come back to our friends at virtual Verde when the team set out to create this agile project and change towards an agile approach they realized that the CEO of office Green wanted to make sure they took advantage of the market trends since more people were moving to home offices they created a sense of urgency by highlighting that home office decorating was becoming a hot online Trend and they wanted office Green to become a part of the action lastly the virtual Verde team had lots of experience from their plant Pals project so they could gather a team who was motivated to apply what they learned and try a different approach to a new market opportunity bringing agile or scrum to a new team could be challenging but well worth the effort by applying some of these techniques you'll increase your chances of success I found that with a little patient persistence you can get past some of the initial skepticism and the benefits of an agile approach will start to become obvious to the team once this happens change will become easier to drive over time with their commitments I once had a large Global team at Google of about 200 developers my director and I wanted to transform them into an agile organization it took us about two years and many trips to different work sites for me and my team of project managers to deliver the tools processes and coaching to bring the team up to speed on an agile way of working I approached that transformation very much like how I described here and it worked in the next video I'll share some tips for coaching new and developing agile teams meet you there hi again as the project manager or scrum Master you're in the position to help the team improve in other words you're the designated agile coach you're there to help the team recognize areas for improvement and help them Implement Solutions in this video I'm going to break down your role as a coach into three steps similar to how you might approach being a coach for a sports team first you'll design the plays with the team second you'll provide feedback to the team and lastly you'll celebrate and learn with the team let me elaborate on each area a bit more first the scrum Master designs the plays although the scrum Master owns the Playbook it should be created with the whole team The Playbook should include how the whole team runs a Sprint review how the team Works day to day and how the team publishes plans to stakeholders when updates are needed to the team's plays it's important that you involve the team in any decisions take them through new processes together think through all the positions on the team and make sure everyone notices the flow a personal example of this was when I facilitated a brainstorm meeting with my team to discuss which parts of our process weren't working we use sticky notes to organize our ideas for improvement and then prioritize the ideas to implement changes second is provide feedback you should always provide feedback to your team and stakeholders as early as possible and on a day-to-day basis just like a coach gives directions from the sidelines the scrum Master needs to provide guidance all the time in addition to feedback provided in the moment the scrum Master also takes in a big picture view this is similar to how a coach might watch a video recap of the game to find patterns that need Improvement or plays that worked so well they should do it every game providing feedback shouldn't only be about fixing broken things but finding processes and activities that work really well and encourage the team to continue using the things that work third celebrate and learn congratulate the team often on a job well done a happy customer or a big solution launch if the team quote unquote loses meaning they weren't successful in fulfilling a requirement acknowledge that loss as critical data that will help the team improve next time it's important for the team to still feel positive about any disappointment and think of it as a learning opportunity as Thomas Edison famously said I have not failed I've just found 10 000 ways that won't work as a scrum master or agile project manager you play an essential role in the team and you're a big part of why scrum and agile work at all you're responsible for ensuring the team is always improving and becoming the best team it can possibly be awesome now you know the three steps of coaching your team designing the plays with the team providing feedback to the team and celebrating and learning with the team next up we'll learn how to anticipate and respond to real world risks with agile and scrum implementations meet you there hi there in this video we'll go through some of the challenges you might encounter during a change process that are specific to Agile teams as the project manager or scrum Master it's your responsibility to help teams improve how they work and Coach them on how to effectively adopt scrum practices so anticipating and understanding how to work through common challenges before they happen is super important remember the four themes of agile principles that we discussed in an earlier video to refresh your memory the themes are value delivery business collaboration Team Dynamics and culture and retrospectives in this video we'll focus on challenges you might encounter with an agile team that are related to the first three themes the first set of challenges are related to Value delivery which is about making sure the team is delivering Working Solutions frequently some signs that your team is experiencing value delivery issues could include things like the team has started missing expected delivery dates and is taking a lot longer than usual to complete tasks or you might notice that the team seem burned out is working long hours and showing signs of exhaustion or maybe the team has too many items in progress at any given time preventing tasks from actually getting to done if you start to notice your team is struggling in these areas there are a few things you can do to help you can try doing more demos of the solutions with the team to ensure they're delivering on the value roadmap when the team pauses to take in a big picture view of the working product they often notice areas where they can improve and speed up the work you can also use retrospectives to ask the team if anything is slowing them down like waiting on dependencies or communication challenges it can also help to do a quick review with the team and make sure that everyone understands what done means and finally be sure to focus on only a few user stories per Sprint this ensures the team finishes an item together before moving on putting all this into practice can be harder than you might think my current team is asked to cover a lot of ground in each Sprint so it can be tempting for us to try and Tackle too much at once but doing that usually just makes everything take longer so it's not actually helpful it's better to maintain focus and deliver fewer backlog items in one Sprint than to deliver a lot of items in more sprints okay another set of challenges you might encounter relate to the business collaboration theme to recap business collaboration is about making sure the developers are collaborating with business people on how to build the right product there are a few common signs that your team might be experiencing business collaboration issues you might notice that the team is overwhelmed with critical feedback or change requests from business people after they reviewed the working solution that could lead to people on your team avoiding asking for feedback or complaining about requested changes coming from the product owner or business team or you might start to detect and US versus them mentality between the team doing the work and management I've sometimes noticed this manifest in negative comments from team members like oh don't give a demo to the salesperson it's not ready yet and they'll just point out what's wrong if you notice any of these signs there are a few things you can do to help rebuild trust and collaboration between the developers and the business people to start with try addressing critical feedback and change requests by doing more demos this ensures feedback comes in at a steady pace and that everyone involved has a shared understanding of what done means next consider conducting a solution design Sprint which is an entire Sprint spent working solely on the solution design these are most effective when the working team and the business people actually sit together and collaborate on the solution finally you can help your team focus by ensuring changes to the backlog are introduced only in between sprints this prevents your team from getting distracted by possible changes which could stress them out and lead to resentment for example I was once on a scrum team where the engineering director loved to stop by the engineer's desk to ask for a quick dashboard which is a web page that shows data asking the engineer to do this completely disrupted the team's focus and slowed down the team's velocity we finally decided to ask the director to come straight to the scrum Master when they needed something so that it could be planned properly and not interrupt the team's current workflow okay let's move on to the third theme Team Dynamics and culture human beings are complex creatures with lots of different motivations and styles of working so it's likely that you'll encounter at least a few challenges in this area here are a few common signs of Team Dynamics and culture issues to watch out for first is low team morale if people are super grumpy irritated or generally in a bad mood then you might have some underlying Team Dynamics issues to sort out next watch out for signs the team is experiencing lots of conflict if people are arguing a lot and issues aren't getting resolved the team probably needs some help not everyone is going to get their way if team members feel resentful or are holding on to grudges it'll negatively impact the team's performance and finally and this might surprise you but low conflict can also be a sign that the team's experiencing issues we're usually taught to believe that no conflict is a good thing right but if a team never has disagreements it's a sign that they might be worried about starting a conflict because they don't feel like it's a safe environment being open and courageous are two of our scrum values but it's not always easy to put them into practice as a project manager part of your role is helping your team get comfortable being honest with each other and working through conflicts together if you notice these or any other clear signs of Team distress here are some ideas you can try you could run a team brainstorm session about how to work better together ask the team to identify some areas to improve on an example exercise could involve asking the team to write down stories about the worst team they've ever worked on and the best team they've ever worked on then sharing them in a meeting then you might have the team create a list of do's and don'ts for working together based on the stories everyone shared another idea is to change up the workflows try pairing up people to work together on a hard task or change up the way you run one of your regular meetings it can also help to take a training class together or watch a video about Team Dynamics and discuss it as a group you can also try a retrospective technique from the internet there are a ton of great resources out there one of my favorite retrospective techniques is called the six hats thinking technique in this technique each team member chooses a different hat to explore the subject of the retrospective the different hats each involve a different objective like discussing positives or negatives that happen during the Sprint or sharing emotive statements this helps ensure that the team takes a well-rounded approach to the retrospective all right that's it for this video now you've got some idea of some of the common challenges agile teams might face and how to address them coming up we'll explore some more issues you might encounter as a project manager or scrum master hi again in previous videos we discussed how your role as an agile project manager or scrum Master is similar to the role of a coach we also explored some of the ways you can help an agile team improve their performance in this video we'll discuss some more common coaching challenges you might encounter while managing an agile team or project whether they're a new team or they've been around for a while the three challenges we'll focus on are managing a stable product roadmap incomplete implementation of scrum and experiencing a lack of stability within the team first let's discuss the challenge of managing a stable product roadmap agile projects almost always experience changes in the product roadmap being able to respond quickly and productively to these changes is a core agile value but it is possible to have too much change impacting the project which can lead to an unstable product roadmap there are two main causes of an unstable product roadmap product ambition and product assumptions let's cover product ambition first product ambition poses a challenge when product leadership is overly ambitious about what the team can realistically deliver the product owner is responsible for representing the project to customers and Executives because the product owner wants to make the stakeholders happy it can be easy for them to over promise what the project can deliver for example imagine that our office Green CEO notices that the virtual Verity business in North America is doing really well in a meeting they say to the product owner this is amazing I'd love to launch virtual verde in Asia in the next four months what do you think the product owner really wants to deliver so they tell the CEO sure but the product owner won't actually know if meeting this objective is possible until they discuss it with the team which means they might accidentally be setting an unrealistic expectation with the CEO so how do you deal with this challenge here are three ideas to maintain a healthy roadmap management plan between you and the product owner first agree upfront how to handle New Opportunities Define when they are reviewed and estimated and how customer or management commitments are made second set up regular roadmap reviews with the entire team at least quarterly so that everyone knows what to expect and third promote sharing knowledge between the product owner and the development team so that the product owner knows how much effort the product takes to build and the team is aware of changes as early as possible the second thing that can cause an unstable product roadmap is making too many product assumptions when there's uncertainty in a project you may be required to make some assumptions to move things forward but making too many assumptions can jeopardize the team's success let's go back to our virtual Verde example sending plants to customers homes is a complex process you need to consider a lot of different factors like which plants will sell best which plants will stay healthy in a wide variety of climates and settings and what vendors to work with the team does their best to study the market in opportunity but they have to make some assumptions and move forward with decisions relying on less than perfect information as a way to deal with product assumption issues document the assumptions and make them transparent this allows you to discuss the assumptions as a team and either agree that there are safe assumptions to make or decide to question and double check them if you do decide to double check them you can use unbiased user research unbiased user research gathers information about what users really want it allows you to confirm or reject assumptions and helps you move forward with confidence user research could involve conducting surveys running focus groups or using other methods to collect objective data about your users the next big challenge you might encounter relates to an incomplete implementation of scrum this happens when scrum practices are only partially implemented or when scrum practices are implemented without proper support and coaching scrum roles artifacts and activities are designed to work together as a set if you only partially Implement them you might end up reducing their benefits incomplete implementation of scrum can cause a lot of issues first it can lead to a loss of clear roles and responsibilities to implement scrum completely you should Define the roles for the team and then fill those roles with specific individuals for example if you try to have a developer also act as the scrum Master they might not have the bandwidth to do either role very well better to have developers be on the development team and you the project manager be the scrum master you might also be tempted to skip some events or blend them to save time but a lack of clear boundaries for Sprint review Sprint retrospective and Sprint planning can lead to reduced transparency inspection and adaptation and these are all essential to experience the full benefits of scrum and finally not providing the team with the scrum coaching they need would also mean that you haven't fulfilled your role as scrum Master it's your job to fully explain the scrum practices and provide coaching so your team understands the reasoning behind the practices and can Embrace their benefits the solution to all of these challenges is to implement scrum completely being the scrum Master is a critical role you're the coach so you should reinforce the connections between the team's activities and the scrum and agile values for example if your team complains about daily stand-ups remind them that the purpose of stand-ups is to gain feedback unblock work ask for help and reinforce the importance of staying focused on the Sprint goals you can also make sure roles are well defined and properly fulfilled for example ensure that all team members understand their own roles as well as the roles of their teammates and how those roles interact for example the product owner makes sure we build the right thing the development team ensures we build it right and scrum Master ensures we build it fast and finally the last big challenge you might encounter with Agilent scrum teams is a lack of Team stability when the team changes a lot with people leaving and joining frequently it can make things unpredictable and disrupt the flow of work there are a few things you can do to address instability on your team first have a quick onboarding process for new team members to help them get to know the rest of the team and understand the project Second Use a pair programming style where a new team member teams up with a colleague and starts learning on the job this also helps if people leave the team since a partner should be able to pick up where they left off and third if team composition changes because members keep leaving try having shorter sprints this way team members can wrap up their last Sprint's worth of work before leaving to recap the three main challenges we've covered in this video are managing a stable product roadmap incomplete implementation of scrum and a lack of Team stability I've encountered each of these challenges and More in many of my teams the wonderful thing about agile is that there's a huge community of agilists that are happy to help with any challenges you might come across even an experienced agilist like myself asked for help now and then coming up we'll explore how agile is evolving and keeping up with the times now that's an agile way to be hey welcome back since its Creation in 2001 agile popularity has increased incredibly fast one industry report showed that 85 percent of organizations have adopted a product-centric model which is associated with an agile approach the state of agile report describes how 30 percent of those companies using the product-centric model apply a hybrid of methodologies this means that being able to blend methods will be a super useful skill to have as you start your project management career like we explained in an earlier video one of the reasons for agile's growing popularity is that we're in a very vuca world businesses face a lot of volatility uncertainty complexity and ambiguity and they recognize that agile and the Frameworks that derive from it are a way to overcome those challenges in this video we'll discuss how agile has already started evolving and explore some emerging ideas about how it might continue to evolve in the future the agile Manifesto as a mindset or philosophy hasn't changed much in almost 30 years the Frameworks it inspired though have continued changing and evolving to keep up with changing business environments one emerging agile framework is called devops which combines software development and it operations our Google Cloud platform business defines devops as an organizational and cultural movement that aims to increase software delivery velocity improve service reliability and build shared ownership among software stakeholders like all agile Frameworks devops aims to shorten the product lifecycle and deliver software products continuously and with very high quality devops emerged when software companies were faced with trying to figure out how to ensure their software products would run reliably for billions of people across the world 24 hours a day seven days a week as someone who spent my first few years at Google studying product breakdowns I can tell you how difficult this is if a business has the ability to launch products and features fast and reliably to a global Marketplace that's a significant competitive advantage devops is about growing and managing teams and organizations that can build and evolve large-scale systems at a rapid pace these systems need to be both secure and reliable so they can better deliver value to customers and organizations if you decide to pursue a project manager role in the devops framework you'll Venture into the future of agile approaches and large-scale software systems that are literally changing the world pretty exciting right one of the next frontiers of agile is called business agility which involves incorporating agile principles into the wide sphere of management so that the organization can thrive in high vuca environments organizations that want to become agile in this sense often find themselves rethinking everything from financial planning processes governance and Reporting structures to hiring and HR practices and much more they're looking for ways to make agile values and Frameworks work for larger and larger organizations as an agile project manager in a larger organization you might find yourself using Frameworks like scrum of scrums or scaled agile framework also known as safe check out the resources and readings for this video to learn more it's also important to call out that agile has reached a lot of Industries Beyond technology and software recently I was asked to give agile training to the Google sales team in Latin America they experienced major changes in their market and wanted to develop the skills to react quickly to those changes and still deliver results during the training we had great discussions about the benefits of agile the team especially liked how agile can help reduce risk at all stages of their sales cycle through early feedback and frequent and thorough discussions with teammates and customers even the construction industry has started applying an agile approach to their projects an article published by the project management Institute describes how construction projects used agile to deal with delays and budget overruns by translating the agile Manifesto into construction industry terms like silos are minimized and close cooperation is encouraged and finally agile methodologies can also be applied to your own personal life for example I was planning a move recently and immediately set up a kanban board to start planning my tasks have any projects in your life that could use a kanban board how about a garage cleanup or a family reunion or barbecue who's on your scrum team from devops and business agility to Agile methodologies in the construction industry and Beyond it's clear that agile's benefits will be useful for a long time to come the practitioners project managers and teams who live and breathe the agile values are the ones that help agile evolve and advance which means that you can play an important role in contributing to the future of agile 2. coming up we'll explore how to approach your job search so you can find an opportunity in agile project management meet you there my name is Jess I'm an SRE here at Google and my job is about making sure that Google's systems stay up and are reliable so what would I tell someone who is new to Agile and devops about really what this is about and what you do to be effective fundamentally agile and devops are about solving complex problems you solve a big problem by splitting it up into smaller chunks and then working out which of those chunks you can deliver first in such a way that you will maximize the information that you gain which will help you solve the bigger problem and then iterating and keeping on doing that not only will you discover better how to solve your problem in a way that actually makes life better for your users makes them more awesome in what they do you'll also discover about how to do that like what process will work most effectively here's the user problem that we want to solve you go and work out how to do it what I've seen happen in the last kind of 10 years is uh taking the the front end of that process the planning process and bringing that into the team taking the back end part of the process the the release and operational part and bringing that into the team and then making that like very religiously user-centered so how do we make everything user centered um and bring that into the team as well that that I think has been a big transformation and we are a long way from being done with that the other piece to success in agile that I think people talk about but isn't sufficiently internalized is that you are going to make a ton of mistakes especially as a new person you're going to make a ton of mistakes that's okay you can't learn if you don't make mistakes first of all don't expect that you'll get it right the first time or the second time or ever I still make mistakes all the time I've seen actually a lot of evolution of agile over the 15 years that I've been involved in it in organizations of all different kinds all over the world you know it works we just covered the evolution of agile and I shared how other organizations are adopting agile practices we also discussed the best mindset for delivering value to users as quickly as possible agile project management opportunities are everywhere whether you're looking for a new role in agile or want to incorporate agile into your current lifestyle or workplace I have a few tips to help get you there let's start by discussing how to land an agile project management position these types of jobs might show up on job boards as agile project manager scrum Master it agile project manager or a devops project manager after taking this course you'll be a great fit for any one of these look for a role that suits your experience level complements your industry domain expertise and offers growth opportunities also look for a role that provides a culture that be a good fit for you and I can't emphasize enough how important it is to find an employer who supports your goals and personal growth I'm a hiring manager at Google I've interviewed and hired many project managers here both agile and non-agile and I'd like to share how I approach interviewing and searching for an excellent agile project manager for my team even if a candidate doesn't have agile on their resume one of the first things I ask them is what's the difference between agile and waterfall project management their answer usually tells me instantly if they know what agile is about and it's a great launching off point for more follow-up questions in the candidate's answer to that question I look for a few specific things I want to know whether the candidate knows that agile is more than just scrums Sprints and stand-ups do they know it's also about founding values that include customer collaboration value delivery self-organizing teams I'm also interested to know whether they make waterfall out to be the worst solution or do they know that all projects benefit from certain types of approaches including waterfall like clear requirements risk management stakeholder awareness and more I also ask how do you know when to use an agile approach or Frameworks on your project their answer helps me know if they understand how agile or scrum can help a project manager with specific challenges and what those challenges are and finally I ask if you are facing resistance with your team following a scrum or agile practice how do you convince them to give it a try their answer helps me understand how they use communication and influence skills and whether they truly believe that an agile team can be self-organizing at Google our teams sometimes resist being told what to do especially because this can diminish Innovation and creativity so I always want to hire project managers who work with the team and don't try to force them to do things a particular way an important part of every interview is when the candidate gets to ask the interviewers questions these could be questions about the job about the interviewer's experience in project management about the culture and about the job expectations this is a huge opportunity for you as the candidate as an agile project manager you now know how crucial culture is to the success of an agile project this is a great time to ask questions that will help you determine if you'll be happy with this job or not some questions you should ask are how supportive is the management here towards blending project management approaches what's the first thing I should know about the culture here and how often will I get to hear about the needs of our users or customers and what would a typical day look like for me if I were to take on this position maybe you're not interviewing for a new role but you want to bring what you learned in this agile course back to your team how would you go about that as we discussed bringing agile or scrum to a new team is often challenging if their culture doesn't support it here are four things that helped me bring agile to my teams first start small you may be excited by everything you've learned here but your team might light things how they are so introduce agile practices in bite-sized pieces maybe start by using a kanban board just to keep track of one work stream or set up a retrospective after a major Milestone second listen to feedback the most powerful tool a project manager has is the ability to listen to their team and meet them where they are when you introduce changes ask the team how it's going get their ideas on how to make it better and include them in your approach this will amplify your small changes into big results for the team third be strategic Target your improvements to challenges your team has today introduce new ways of working that address head-on the biggest issues your team's experiencing for example maybe your team has trouble estimating effort predictably and always ends up in crunch mode maybe relative estimation techniques would help with that or maybe you have too many people chiming in on what the product should be introducing a single person who acts as the product owner to help ensure consistency in prioritizing features lastly find allies you may have setbacks or need to lean on supporters to bring these ideas back to your team find agile allies in your organization or network these allies will give you advice when things get rough and help you stick to Agile values and principles we built up a network of about 60 volunteer agile coaches here at Google and we're always leaning on each other for ideas and solutions great now you have all the tips you need to Ace your interview and successfully bring agile to your team or organization in the next video we'll wrap all this up and set you up for the final course of this program hi again and congrats on reaching the end of this course on the foundations of agile we covered a lot of material that I hope you'll find useful to your growth and Effectiveness as a project manager throughout this course on the foundations of agile we covered the history of agile along with the core agile values and principles we learned all about scrum and how scrum teams work and then in this last section we explored how to introduce agile practices to an organization and how to coach a team through the process finally we checked out some of the exciting ways that agile is evolving and how to apply your knowledge of agile to your future career in project management coming up in the last and final course of this certification program you're going to apply everything you've learned to a brand new project I'm so excited for you congratulations you are nearing the end of this certificate and it is time to start preparing for your job search before you begin we suggest creating a job search plan a job search plan can help you establish timelines set expectations monitor progress and adjust as needed to meet your goal of getting a project manager role and good news you can use some of the project management skills you've learned to build out this plan a job search plan is a resource that you create to help you take control of your job search it enables you to track important data in each stage as you monitor your applications interviews and feedback at each stage you'll gather information to make decisions like the number of resumes you need to send out each week your application to interview ratio and which types of Outreach and cover letter formats are working for you you can learn more about how to create a plan like this in the course readings once you have your job search plan in place it's time to start thinking about the companies and industries that interest and motivate you why having an idea about the type of business environment you want to work in helps you gain perspective about the work you want to do and how you want to bring value to an organization do you see yourself as part of a large organization or in a small business how flexible are you about location is there a specific industry you prefer to work in take this brainstorm one step further and put it on paper create a Target company list a Target company list can be as simple as listing out the companies you think of in a spreadsheet or digital document if you're not sure where to start there are plenty of resources online where you can find out more information on different types of companies for starters you can use professional online communities and networking sites like LinkedIn to research companies and connect with other professionals career sites like indeed and Glassdoor offer job postings and career tips to assist you during your job search you can also read employer reviews and find salary information also by setting up alerts from job boards you can see what new opportunities are available and look at in-demand skills for industries that appeal to you another great way to gain insight about a company is a simple one talk to the people who work there search within your network to see if you know anyone at companies that interest you and send them an email or a message on LinkedIn this also can work for people you don't necessarily know but are interested in their career path and organization request an informal and informational interview this will allow you to understand how the company works and common qualities people have in the roles you are interested in ask them what is it like to work as a project manager for a big company or what was your experience like managing projects at a startup or even what was your career path that led you to this company and what has your path been at that company also it's equally important to share your story and why you're interested when doing your Outreach typically the people who reach out to me that I end up responding to are the ones who share a personal story with me I find them compelling and sincere because it shows initiation motivation and authenticity traits I find prevalent in the most successful project managers that I know lastly if you're still unsure of which industry or company may be the best fit for you it's helpful to seek some advice from people whose career you admire these people can often act as your career mentor a career Mentor is someone who shares their own experience and knowledge with you in order to help you achieve your professional goals in fact my career Mentor led me to Google this person whom I've known for over a decade at this point was the one who introduced me to my role here while we were only colleagues to start he became someone I have grown to trust and admire and seek guidance from knowing my experience in working style he recommended I apply for my first role here at Google and here I am so the moral of that story is to connect with a network of your people and resources to improve your job search and be intentional about your next step also and maybe most importantly be true to the passion about why you want to be a project manager is it that you want to help other people bring their dreams to life is it that you have a dream you want to bring to life or maybe it's that you have a craft that you want to explore and try What drew me to the project management role was this idea that you can make something that was just an idea a reality there's nothing else like seeing something come to life right before your eyes knowing that you played a key role in the launch and success of a project exhilarating once you've thought through these things both in your head and into an actual plan of action your next step is to start applying to open roles at these companies check out the readings and activities on how to optimize your job application process by adjusting your resume writing professional emails and tracking everything in your job search plan enjoy and I'll see you again in a later course to give you my tips on how to have a great interview hi there welcome to applying project management in the real world if you've joined us for this program's previous courses then you've developed a solid foundation of project management Knowledge and Skills those courses covered how a project progresses through the initiation planning execution and closing stages they also taught how to manage projects using different methodologies and approaches like agile and scrum if you haven't completed the previous courses we recommend checking them out before starting this course to ensure that you're ready to work through all of the upcoming activities as you progress through this course you'll create project documents based on an imagined scenario you'll learn details through conversations emails and other materials just as you would in a real world scenario by the end of this course you'll have developed a portfolio of project management documents that will demonstrate your ability to manage stakeholders and teams organize plans and communicate project details all of this can be valuable when applying for jobs or working on projects in your current line of work before we go any further I want to take a few minutes to introduce myself my name is Dan and I'm a program manager here at Google and I'll be your instructor for this course at Google I work on a team that promotes responsible practices in designing building and applying artificial intelligence also known as Ai and machine learning I support teams in adopting tools and techniques they can use to evaluate their machine learning models and determine whether they are performing equitably I love this role because I get to support teams in building products that work for our users before my current role I worked on the Google AI residency program team this is a rotational program for people who are interested in doing AI research but who come from non-traditional backgrounds this work was compelling to me because I personally didn't have any experience with AI or machine learning before coming to Google this just goes to show that if you have strong project management skills you often don't need to be a subject matter expert in a given domain to work in that field prior to my time at Google I worked outside of tech first as a math teacher and then as a sponsorship coordinator for a professional soccer team throughout my career I've always been passionate about education whether that's teaching students in the classroom or teaching developers how to ethically Implement AI systems so I'm pretty excited about leading you through this course it should be a lot of fun now let's get right into the scenario that will apply to all of the activities in this course in this imagined scenario a small restaurant chain called sauce and Spoon wants to meet their annual growth and expansion goals as one way to meet these goals they've decided to launch a pilot project to test out the impact of installing new tabletop menu tablets the new menu tablets will allow the restaurant to serve more guests in less time and will provide valuable data that will help sauce and Spoon meet its business goals the company just hired Peta as their first in-house project manager to oversee the tablet rollout at two of the restaurant Chain's five locations throughout the course you'll observe Peta as she guides her team through planning and executing the project deliverables although she has five years of project management experience Peta hasn't managed a restaurant project before you'll get to follow the project through its life cycle as Peta learns about the restaurant industry determines the goals of the project negotiates with stakeholders and much more along the way you'll record details of the project to use in course activities you'll also evaluate peta's project management skills as she works to complete this project in scope on time and within budget you'll learn what works and what doesn't and how to problem solve your way through a project as you progress through the course we'll review and practice key project management Concepts which include analyzing materials to identify project requirements solve problems and manage stakeholders applying important negotiation techniques and influencing skills listening with empathy when working with a team and practicing your stakeholder communication skills we'll explore these Concepts in more depth and I'll explain how each concept applies to the sauce and Spoon project each activity will contain guiding questions to help you create common project documents that you can speak to in a job interview and utilize throughout your career as you work through these activities you may want to take notes on some of the information you learn feel free to use whichever tool you prefer whether that's the Coursera note-taking system or another method in the upcoming videos I'll explain the project in more detail and share project management best practices so that you can complete the associated course activities are you ready let's go hi again ready to get started in this next set of videos You'll apply strategic thinking and effective business writing to initiate a project you'll analyze project documents and supporting materials to identify project requirements evaluate stakeholders and problem solve you'll use a project Charter as a tool to align project scope and goals among stakeholders and you'll apply effective negotiation skills with stakeholders to prioritize project goals in this video I'll review the purpose and main components of a project Charter so you can get started creating one for the sauce and Spoon tablet rollout after this video you'll review supporting materials that will enable you to observe Peta as she initiates the project then you'll apply strategic thinking to create a project Charter based on what you observed strategic thinking involves analyzing documentation and talking with stakeholders to inform decisions based on the information available to you okay let's review the purpose and main components of a project Charter a project Charter is a formal document that clearly defines the project and outlines the necessary details to reach the Project's goals the project manager creates the charter during the initiation phase which is the first phase of the Project Life Cycle the project Charter helps you organize vital project information create a framework for the work that needs to be done and communicate those details to the necessary people it's also useful as a reference throughout the Project's life cycle since it can help stakeholders realign on the Project's scope goals and costs the project Charter contains key information about a project like the summary goals and deliverables the goal of the summary is to provide an overview of the project and to outline the goals you hope to accomplish summaries should be brief just a few sentences at most and to the point after the summary comes project goals and deliverables project goals refer to the desired results of the project and deliverables refer to specific tasks and tangible outcomes that enable the team to meet project goals in general project goals address the overall result that stakeholders are aiming to achieve they are determined by input from stakeholders and the project manager for example part of sauce and spoon's annual growth and expansion goals is launching the tablet rollout project and one deliverable of the project is the successful installation of working tablets at two restaurant locations the last part of a project Charter that we'll cover here is scope remember that scope refers to the boundaries of a project along with the scope the charter contains information about work that's out of scope details that don't contribute to the Project's goals are considered out of scope was covered in a previous course and all continued to discuss it in more detail in an upcoming video let's recap what we just covered a project Charter is a formal document that clearly defines the project and outlines the necessary details to reach the Project's goals the primary components of a project Charter are the summary goals deliverables and scope a charter can include other sections as well such as budget and cost and success metrics I'll discuss those sections in another video in the upcoming activity you'll identify and document the project name summary goals and deliverables of the sauce and Spoon tablet pilot in a project Charter ready to get started go on to the activity to begin the project Charter once you've finished meet me in the next video to continue learning about the project and adding to the Charter welcome back so far you should have added the project name the project summary and some goals and deliverables to your project Charter in this video we'll discuss how to use the charter as a tool to get the project stakeholders in alignment about the project scope and goals then in the upcoming activity you'll review supporting materials containing information about the sauce and Spoon tablet rollout you'll also observe how Peta guides a conversation among disagreeing stakeholders to get alignment on the project Charter details then you'll identify key aspects of the conversation that will help you revise and clarify details in the charter you drafted in the last activity let's get into it anytime you're communicating the details of your project you need to think about your audience and what information is important to them when adding details to a project Charter ask yourself the following questions about your audience and if it's helpful try answering these questions in your notes who are your stakeholders in this case your audience includes all of your key stakeholders what details are most important to them are there project details that they might disagree with once you've identified what you believe are important details review your Charter and ensure all of those details are included from there you'll be able to present the charter to your stakeholders and confirm that everyone agrees with the project information think of the project Charter this way in addition to serving as a formal document that defines the project a project Charter is also an alignment tool here alignment refers to reaching agreement between two or more parties a common cause of project failure is misalignment among stakeholders about the details of the project misalignment can also happen between you and your stakeholders when you have differing Visions for the project that's why it's so important to align with your stakeholders before the work begins stakeholders generally aren't involved in the day-to-day tasks of project executions so it's crucial to take time during the initiation phase to create a project Charter that clearly lays out the details of a project this helps ensure that the team is working toward the outcomes expected by all of the stakeholders and not just some of them usually the initiation phase is the most ideal time to make changes to the project as the project progresses into the planning and execution phases substantive changes might require undoing work that's already been completed so in this early phase of the Project Life Cycle you shouldn't be afraid to make adjustments here's an example of how you might experience misalignment let's say you're discussing the main goals of the sauce and Spoon project one stakeholder has a vision of being able to fully automate the ordering experience with the tablets over time another stakeholder has a different goal rather than fully automating ordering they want the tablet rollout project to improve order accuracy to help resolve this situation a project manager might facilitate a discussion between the two stakeholders to try and reach an agreement to confirm alignment on the Project's goals when you present a project Charter to your stakeholders it's important to collect feedback and identify where there are misalignments then you can make changes to address those misalignments if you and your stakeholders take the time early on to clearly Define the project then you're much more likely to deliver the outcomes your stakeholders expect at the end of the project as a project manager it's important to record the feedback you receive and document any misalignments and their resolutions this allows you and your project team to reference those decisions later on one way to document misalignments and resolutions is to create an appendix with a time stamp for new or updated information in appendix is a section of additional content at the end of a document a time stamp includes the date and sometimes the time of when the new content was created or added to the document awesome let's review some of the main ideas we've discussed anytime you communicate the details of a project you need to think about your audience and what information is important to them in the case of a project Charter your audience is made up of your stakeholders a common cause of project failure is misalignment among stakeholders about the project details it's important to take the time during the initiation phase to create a project Charter that clearly lays out the key details of a project and to align with your stakeholders before the work begins and finally document any misalignments and their resolutions in your notes and the project Charter to reference later on great job in the next activity you'll review supporting materials highlighting how Peta works with stakeholders to reach alignment on the project Charter's details then you'll edit your project Charter summary goals and deliverables based on the additional information you learn this activity will demonstrate your ability to select key details from conversations that are relevant to a well-written project Charter you'll also have the opportunity to observe and learn as Peta guides the conversation toward an agreement once you've completed the activity meet me in the next video welcome back by now you've drafted the project summary goals and deliverables in the project Charter and you've identified details in the project Charter where stakeholders need to be in alignment in this video I'll review smart goals and discuss how to add specificity to your project goals I'll also share some tips for researching industry success metrics which are helpful in adding specificity to your goals and deliverables being able to write specific measurable goals is an important part of project management and a great way to demonstrate your project management skills to potential employers then in the following activity you'll review supporting materials and update the goals and deliverables you've drafted in the project Charter to make them smart ready to begin let's go during the initiation phase some of the project goals might be broad because not all of the project details have been determined well it's okay to have broader goals it's helpful to add specificity where possible that's because clarifying project goals early on can help you avoid misalignment and gain a clearer understanding of the Project's scope budget and timeline remember project goals are the desired outcomes of the project outlining clear and specific goals is an important step in creating an effective project Charter and crucial to launching a successful project so you'll need to be able to accurately identify whether or not a goal has been met when your goals are clear you'll be able to determine your project deliverables project deliverables are specific tasks or outcomes that contribute to the completion of a goal in your career as a project manager you'll likely encounter stakeholders who only vaguely describe the outcomes they want for a given project for example a stakeholder might tell you that they'd like more customers to use a certain service or they'd like to sell more units of a particular product these are fine goals but they're not very specific you don't know how many more customers what kind of customers or how many units that you'll need in order to meet your goals as a project manager It's Your Role to ensure that the project goals are well defined so that you and your team have a clear roadmap this not only allows you to focus but also eliminates wasted time and miscommunication going forward you can create clearly outlined goals with the help of the smart method we discussed earlier in this program the smart method helps turn your project goals into smart goals remember this means your goals are specific measurable attainable relevant and time-bound these qualities can help you measure your success more accurately and allow you to make more precise adjustments along the way let's review some best practices for ensuring your project goals are also smart goals to make a goal more specific make sure that it provides answers to questions like what am I aiming to accomplish and what are the requirements and constraints of this goal here's a tip I like to use to add specificity to goals look for words in your goals that might be subjective or based on an opinion such as bigger better or faster once you've identified subjective words connect with your stakeholders to agree on a definition of what it actually means to make something bigger or better or faster what is bigger or better entail in practice by how much specifically the smart method helps you make your goals more specific by making them measurable for example if your stakeholder wants to increase company profits ask by how much do they want to increase profits by five percent by 30 percent adding numbers and figures to your goal makes it a lot easier to know when you've achieved it if you're having trouble making a goal measurable research how others in your industry quantify success this is called benchmarking which refers to evaluating success against a standard for example there are lots of ways to measure success in the restaurant industry you might search online for information using queries like how do restaurants measure success or how do you evaluate employee training sessions you'll likely find a number of results some common metrics include table turnover rate or the average length of time that a guest spends at their table Prime cost which is the labor cost plus the total cost of goods like food and drink an average check amount which is the average amount of money guests spend on a given meal most industries from the hospitality industry to the entertainment industry to the construction industry will have their own metrics for success that includes the tech industry too metrics are a big part of how we measure success here at Google smart goals are also attainable which means that the goal is challenging but not impossible to reach ask yourself in the team can it be done do you have the time resources and people available to complete the goal on time and within budget if not you'll need to make some changes to your goals and all project goals should be relevant ask yourself does it make sense for us as a company or as a project team to pursue this goal one best practice for determining the relevance of your project goals is to notice how closely your project goals align with the wider goals of your company or organization here at Google we use a tool for organization-wide goal setting called objectives and key results or okrs other organizations might use a different term for their own goal setting for us okrs combine a goal and a metric to determine a measurable outcome for example one of sauce and spoons broader objectives is to make fresh quick Food For the Working Families in its community so a relevant goal for the sauce and Spoon tablet rollout might be to decrease customer checkout time by 10 percent on average in the first six weeks after implementation this project goal helps the restaurant chain reach its larger goal to provide quick meals for guests and the last part of the smart framework is to make your goal time-bound you'll want to add a deadline to your goal so that you know when it's supposed to be completed okay let's review smart stands for specific measurable attainable relevant and time-bound if your goals are smart you can feel confident about including them in your project Charter in the upcoming activity you'll collect information from the supporting materials that will help you turn the goals you drafted into smart goals you'll also identify any additional goals and add them to the project Charter okay ready to get started let's get to work on the activity then meet me in the next video to discuss scope benefits and costs welcome back now that you've updated the project Charter and edited some of the project goals to make them smart it's time to discuss scope benefits and cost coming up we'll explore what to think about when adding these items to your project Charter after this video you'll review new supporting materials and use what you've learned to identify benefits and costs which you'll add to your Charter let's get started when thinking about what kind of information to include in a project Charter it's always good to consider the primary audience who will be reading it and since the goal of creating a project Charter is to communicate with your stakeholders they're your primary audience here's an example if you know that one of the benefits of your project would be of particular interest to a key stakeholder you'll want to make sure to emphasize this benefit in your project Charter the stakeholders reading your Charter might not see more detailed project plans and other documents later on so it's important to get consensus on the critical elements now while the project details are still being finalized you've already identified and hopefully resolved any misalignments about the project vision and goals next you need to get aligned with your stakeholders on scope benefits and cost we talked about scope earlier but as a quick refresher scope refers to the boundaries of the project for example the number of restaurants taking part in the pilot details that don't contribute to the Project's goals are considered out of scope to determine what's in and out of scope think about what's needed to achieve the project goal keep the following questions in mind which project details are your stakeholders aligned on that would be considered in scope do your stakeholders disagree on any elements are there any details you should designate as out of scope for this particular project as you think about these questions take notes on what you find and refer to them as you complete the scope section of your project Charter in the upcoming activity after you've figured out the scope of your project you'll need to focus on Project benefits and costs benefits are the expected gains of a project these can be direct monetary gains or indirect benefits like an improvement in customer engagement or satisfaction costs refer to the money spent on Project tasks and the prices of things like time resources and labor costs can be evaluated and managed using a project budget a budget is an estimate of the amount of money allocated to complete the project in the next activity you'll need to review the supporting materials and take notes on details that can help you identify the benefits and costs of the tablet rollout you'll use that information to add two lists to your project Charter a list of benefits and a list of costs usually you can find the benefits the project will bring in the business case or project proposal for example your list of benefits for the tablet rollout might include its potential to speed up service and increase sales by an estimated percent here's another benefit the tablets will provide the restaurant with clear data points on customer ordering and an integrated point of sale system to help guide decision making in the future a list of benefits can help you identify potential project goals you might have missed a list of costs will include items the organization will have to pay for in order to get the job done like the price of Labor or materials listing out costs helps your stakeholders weigh the benefits against the amount of money required to realize those benefits you can build a list of costs by working with stakeholders to get estimates on labor materials and any other factors that might cost the business money during the project earlier I told you that the benefits of a project should outweigh the costs this is almost always the case when a project is initiated or proposed when you add these details to the Charter it helps visualize them in one place and makes the costs and benefits crystal clear to the stakeholders this section is used a lot as an aid to help make sure stakeholders agree that it's worth the money to pursue the project okay let's recap scope refers to the boundaries of the project benefits refer to the expected gains of the project and costs refer to the money spent on Project tasks plus the prices of things like time resources and labor ready to get back to your project Charter head over to the activity where you'll review and analyze the supporting materials to identify the appropriate scope benefits and costs for the sauce and Spoon tablet rollout then meet me in the next video where we'll discuss techniques for negotiating with stakeholders see you soon the common problem that I see when you're in the initial phase of establishing a project is getting alignment between the key stakeholders also securing the right people to take on the project to incentivize you know your really talented project managers to want to join the project I find that attraction is much more effective than promotion so I want talent to come towards the project versus just assigning the project work and you know that that takes a lot of work it's worth it because you're laying good foundation for a successful project and ultimately the best velocity you could expect during the initiation phase when I'm trying to refine the success criteria I ask a lot of questions there's like probably a list of 20 of them a couple examples could be um you know understanding the environment what are some of the pitfalls or risks in the ecosystem I would also try to understand you know get do survey interviews people in the environment asking them what do you see as a problem also I I ask a series of quantitative questions uh where applicable to understand uh what am I dealing with in terms of measurables there are a lot of reasons why projects May Fail in my opinion it comes down to one really poor project definition to disorganization the Project Lead is not establishing a framework to manage the project and three there's too many people often you have this effect where everyone will want to work on their project and then you don't have accountability not every stakeholder is going to come at the problem the same perspective so I step back and understand who are my key stakeholders let's just say for example as two sponsors the key stakeholders and they're apples and oranges that's a problem so in that case I'm going to have to meet with them a lot understand broker compromise and really work through that initial project formation problem foreign by now you've filled in most of your project Charter the summary goals and deliverables scope benefits and costs you've also learned more about the project and your stakeholders who are the core audience of the charter in this video you'll learn how to prepare for some of the negotiations you'll have with stakeholders about your project we'll spend some time exploring stakeholders individual interests involvement and contributions to the project then we'll figure out how to use stakeholder influence to benefit the project and how to effectively work with stakeholders almost every part of a project requires input and agreement from multiple stakeholders and of course not all stakeholders will value the same input or agree on the same things that's why a successful project manager needs to be a skilled negotiator too after this video you'll review supporting materials about the sauce and Spoon project stakeholders to write a persuasive email demonstrating your negotiation skills let's get started as we discussed earlier in the program some common project aspects that are negotiated during the course of a project include scope costs and benefits timeline success criteria roles and responsibilities and resources this is another reason getting aligned with stakeholders early on is helpful good alignment can help prevent some of these types of negotiations down the road early in the project it's important to agree on the scope take note of how Peta focuses on securing stakeholder buy-in for that and it's good to remember that a lot of the skills she'll apply here will be useful to negotiating other elements throughout the Project's life cycle whether that's the budget timeline or product requirements you'll prepare for this and future negotiations by creating a stakeholder analysis the stakeholder analysis is a visual representation of all of the stakeholders it helps you understand who your stakeholders are what their priorities are and how they prefer to communicate it can help you determine how strongly you need to prioritize a particular stakeholders needs or goals on the project stakeholders have a vested interest in the Project's success understanding your stakeholders helps you figure out the right people to include an important conversations and how to prioritize the different needs of the different stakeholders this is key to getting the support you need throughout the project as part of your analysis try to answer as many questions as you can about each stakeholder then as you review your list identify which stakeholders directly influence the project and the level of interest each one has a stakeholders influence is related to how much power they have and how much their actions affect the project outcome interest refers to how much the stakeholders needs will be affected by project operations and outcomes so for example if a stakeholder has high interest and high influence it might be very important that you keep them informed and make sure their goals for the project are top priority if they have low interest in low influence then you might be able to de-prioritize one of their personal preferences for the project mapping these out on a power interest grid will give you even more clarity about whom to prioritize and how best to approach negotiations with each stakeholder you'll find a stakeholder analysis template in power interest Grid in the supporting materials of the upcoming activity once you have a good idea of who your stakeholders are and what role they play in the Project's success you can use this information to support your project negotiations one of the most important negotiations will deal with defining and maintaining project scope stakeholders might push to add more into the scope and it's your job as the project manager to negotiate what's realistic within the given budget and timeline expectations okay let's review some common project negotiations you're likely to have with stakeholders include aspects of the charter like costs and benefits and success criteria as well as other project aspects like roles and responsibilities and project resources you can prepare for these negotiations by conducting a stakeholder analysis using a power interest grid coming up you'll review supporting materials and complete a stakeholder analysis for the sauce and Spoon tablet rollout after you complete the activity meet me in the next video great to see you again in the last activity you completed the stakeholder analysis and mapped out which stakeholders have the most power influence and interest in the Project's outcome having a better understanding of the people who will be evaluating the success of your project makes it so much easier to strategize the best ways to communicate with them and get the support you need so coming up we'll learn more about how to successfully navigate a negotiation with stakeholders as a project manager you've got a lot of helpful tools at your disposal but even the most skilled negotiators have to put their skills to the test in order to meet project goals and gain stakeholders satisfaction there will be times when you need to negotiate a sensitive aspect of the Project's goals or scope or there could be a disagreement among stakeholders or you might disagree with something that stakeholders want you'll need to use negotiating techniques to move a disagreement from stalemate to solution after this video you'll identify shared benefits for your stakeholders that you'll eventually use to write a negotiation email let's get started when it comes to project management persuasion and negotiation are constructive tools you can use to enhance communication clarify wants and needs and Achieve workable solutions for everyone involved being skilled at persuasion and negotiation will also boost your level of influence it's important that you view the people you're negotiating with as your colleagues and peers not as opponents that's why you do a stakeholder analysis so you can get to know your stakeholders as people with their own jobs and responsibilities and as partners who want the project to succeed when you experience conflict or disagreement among your stakeholders it's in your best interest to address those challenges build consensus among the stakeholder groups and de-escalate conflict one way to do this is to find solutions that are mutually beneficial Mutual benefit is when all parties involved gain some kind of benefit or advantage for example let's say there's a disagreement over how many people to hire for a project you'd like to hire five but a stakeholder wants to limit the head count to three a solution that would offer Mutual benefit might be to install automated software to pick up some of the work or another solution might be to adjust the timeline or expectations so that five people aren't needed in order to reach the project goal the stakeholder gets to have their desired smaller team size and you're able to complete tasks with fewer people the goal here is to reach a solution that maximizes benefits minimizes losses and is fair for all brainstorm all possible options that meet this criteria then during your negotiations you'll be able to present multiple Alternatives and choose one that benefits everyone to some degree now as much as you want to satisfy your stakeholders it's just as important to think about what trade-offs you're willing to make to do this successfully you need a clear understanding of project priorities you have to know what's most important when it comes to scope timeline and budget for example if there's a specific deadline that has to be met then you'll need to negotiate any changes to the scope that might cause the project to go past that deadline If the product needs to look or function a certain way then the requirements are a top priority and you could negotiate aspects of the budget or timeline in order to adhere to the scope a common tool used for determining priorities is the triple constraint model or the iron triangle which we covered in an earlier course the triple constraint will help you decide if a project request is acceptable and what impact it'll have okay let's review persuasion and negotiation are constructive tools you can use to enhance communication clarify wants and needs and Achieve workable solutions for everyone involved the goal is to reach a mutual benefit which is when all parties involved gain some kind of benefit or advantage that's it for now coming up you'll prepare for negotiations about the project scope to do this you'll identify the mutual benefits and evaluate the impact of compromising on scope once you're done I'll meet up with you in the next video see you soon hi I'm Stanton and I'm a program manager at YouTube a program manager at YouTube basically works on a lot of different projects but puts them all together into a program that can help people understand what's going on at any given time whether that's development or product requirements or testing all that needs to come together for a project to work well scope change can happen at any time and I found that often happens when you don't want it to happen usually right before a launch so this is a project that I was working on at a startup before I came to YouTube um we were implementing a new app that had to do with body weight percentages managing stakeholders is really important as a program manager because the stakeholders might not always know what's going on and in this case with our CEO he was really focused on getting us to launch thinking about all the pr and the marketing and everything that he was going to announce once everything went live he saw that specific thing with the graphs and really wanted it changed this is something that happens a lot you can get requirements change at the very last minute you kind of find some ways to to make sure that your your client or stakeholders are still happy with what you can produce so in this case what we ended up doing is we went back to our developers we got an estimate for how long they thought making that change would actually take and that actually brought us Way Beyond the timelines that we had in mind so we came up with a few different proposals and what ended up happening was because the the launch date was set there was no way we'd be able to make all the changes that he wanted in time for launch so instead we negotiated and said hey we'll have it this way at launch but based on the estimates that we received we'll be able to get this done in another two weeks and we'll just do another release after that it shouldn't be a big deal it'll just be a change after the initial launch and when you're dealing with stakeholders there's always going to be some things that they want to get done more than other things and so when you're managing scope especially if something last minute comes along you can kind of try to stack rank it within that priority level right the one thing I would also add and caution about too is you can't get anything for free so if you do have a change in scope you need to make sure to go back and look at that priority and see what actually gets pushed out because of the new thing getting brought in they come to you because your project manager or program manager you understand all the things that are happening on the ground and I think that's the power that you have in this role thank you welcome back so far you've identified mutual benefits and their impacts to scope timeline and budget in this video you'll learn how to apply influence and constructive powered stakeholder negotiations then you'll use this knowledge to identify stakeholders who'd be helpful in supporting your position in upcoming negotiations we talked earlier about how the ability to influence is such a key element of effective project management you might remember an earlier video where we covered four steps to effective influencing Dr Jay Conger lists these four steps to effectively influence establish credibility frame for common ground provide evidence and connect emotionally one way to apply all four of these steps is to form a coalition a coalition is a temporary Alliance or partnering of individuals or groups in order to achieve a common purpose or to engage in a joint activity when two or more people Advocate together for an idea they're able to exert more influence than if they attempted to act alone forming a coalition with the right group of people is a powerful and effective negotiation technique for example think about some of the key stakeholders you identified earlier from the sauce and Spoon project which ones could you form a coalition with to help you negotiate one of the out-of-scope items that was requested creating a coalition boosts your credibility by involving others who support your goal the people in your Coalition can help you find common ground and provide evidence plus you can connect emotionally by including someone who either has a positive relationship with the stakeholder or understands the stakeholder and the goal well enough to make a connection an effective Coalition includes people with the right mix of influence or power and interest in other words identify people who can help you achieve your goal through their vested interest and expertise on the subject of your project you'll also want to balance your Coalition with people who have a high level of power in your organization to help influence and get things done a stakeholder analysis is a useful tool to help guide Coalition building once you've decided who's a good fit for your Coalition reach out to them and ask for their support a good way to do this is through a well-crafted email but you could also ask in person or with a phone call whichever method you think is most appropriate when you make your request clearly State the issue you're attempting to resolve explain which aspect of the project is being negotiated then ask if they might consider supporting your position or solution and state what that is and of course refer to that person's sources of power or interest you identified for example if you're negotiating the timing of the project you might say something like the timing of the launch will affect business hours and your experience managing restaurant projects year round could be helpful in explaining why this Factor needs to be reconsidered this will let them know that you value them why it impacts them and why you think they can be of specific help to you let's recap the main ideas the ability to influence is a big part of project management there are four steps to effective influencing as identified by Dr Jay Conger establish credibility frame for common ground provide evidence and connect emotionally one way to gain influence is to form a coalition a coalition is a temporary Alliance or partnering of groups in order to achieve a common purpose or to engage in a joint activity an effective Coalition includes people with the right mix of power and interest you'll want to play to those strengths when forming a coalition and influencing members of the coalition great now you've prepared for future negotiations up next you'll use what you learned about Coalition building and write a persuasive email to influence these stakeholders to join the coalition once you're finished meet me in the next video hi and congrats on making it to the end of this section let's take a moment to review what you've accomplished so far you started by analyzing documents conducting research and applying strategic thinking to complete the project Charter for sauce and spoons tablet rollout project next you use the project Charter as a tool to align the Project's scope and goals among key stakeholders then you completed your own stakeholder analysis and learned how to use one when preparing for project negotiations you also identified aspects of a project that often require negotiation along with aspects that provide benefits that could support a mutually beneficial agreement that works for all stakeholders and finally you applied your knowledge of power and interest to identify people to be part of a coalition aimed at persuading stakeholders to a certain viewpoint defining and getting stakeholders aligned with the details negotiating project scope and goals and being able to effectively influence others are super important to getting off to a successful start in any project it's here in the beginning that you want to get clear on what you're setting out to accomplish with the project that way you'll be able to accurately track the Project's progress and feel confident that you're working within the time frame and budget allowed being able to practice these Concepts create project documentation and apply this knowledge will help you prepare for job interviews and become a great project manager coming up next you'll continue to learn from Peta and her role as project manager for sauce and Spoon in the upcoming activities you'll take the work you've done here and move into the planning phase of the project to build out a project plan with tasks and Milestones meet you there welcome back so far you should have completed a project Charter for sauce and spoons tablet rollout the project Charter helps you organize vital project information create a framework for the work that needs to be done and communicate those details to the necessary people once the project Charter is created and confirmed you'll use it to start the project planning stage in the upcoming activities we'll be progressing from the initiation phase of the Project Life Cycle to the planning phase here you'll put your Knowledge and Skills to work on a project plan which is the central artifact a project manager builds during the planning phase most projects capture requirements in this artifact so the project plan you build for sauce and Spoon will be a critical part of your project management portfolio it will demonstrate your ability to break a large project into a set of achievable smaller tasks before we get started let's review the project scenario sauce and Spoon is a small but growing chain of restaurants with five locations they've hired Peta as their first in-house project manager to launch the pilot of tabletop tablet menus at two of their locations throughout the course you'll observe Peta as she works to complete this project in scope on time and within budget you'll create project management documents based on this scenario just as you would if you were the project manager as you work through these materials you may want to take notes about project details in order to complete some of the activities the project management documents you create will help you practice your skills by applying them to a real world scenario these documents will also provide you with a portfolio to speak to during a future job interview in the next group of activities you'll analyze conversations emails and other forms of documentation to build out a project plan as you continue on you'll identify tasks and Milestones within the sauce and Spoon tablet rollout you'll also demonstrate effective communication techniques like asking the right questions and practicing empathy which will help you make accurate time estimates for each task ready to get started meet me in the next video hi there in this video you'll learn to analyze project documentation including documents from previous projects to identify tasks for a new project this documentation includes project Charters emails and old project plans which a business may have available when you join a new organization or switch to a new project then in the upcoming activity you'll begin building the project plan for sauce and spoons tablet rollout by adding project tasks to a spreadsheet that will serve as your project plan I recommend that you use the provided project plan template to start your document but you're also welcome to create your own spreadsheet or use your preferred project management software let's get started first we'll review the purpose and function of a project plan a project plan is useful for any project big or small since it helps you document the scope tasks Milestones budget and overall activities in order to keep the project on track at the center of the project plan is the project schedule the schedule is your guide for making time estimates for project tasks determining milestones and monitoring the overall progress of the project one of your main jobs as a project manager is to identify all of the project tasks estimate how much time each task will take and track each task's progress so how do you go about adding tasks and Milestones to the plan for the very first time the first thing I do is review the goals and deliverables in the project Charter then I make a list of all the items that have tasks or Milestones associated with them as a reminder Milestones are important points within the schedule that indicate progress they usually signify the completion of a deliverable or phase of the project and project tasks refer to activities that need to be accomplished within a set period of time they're assigned to different members of the team according to each person's role and skills in order to reach a milestone you and your team must complete certain tasks for example one of the deliverables of the sauce and Spoon project is promoting the new tablet menus with table signs and email blasts in this instance a milestone could be the completion of this deliverable which would include all of the tasks that are required for getting sign-offs on the final versions of the marketing materials and confirming the dates of the email blasts some of these tasks would include writing multiple drafts of the different marketing materials generating an email list and programming the emails to be sent on the correct dates for each deliverable ask yourself what steps do we need to take in order to achieve this the steps will become the individual tasks that need to be completed let's turn our attention to another deliverable for sauce and Spoon the implementation of a post dining survey to assess customer satisfaction what steps do you need to take in order to achieve this deliverable you might need to assign a team member to develop a survey you'll also need to determine how you'll deliver the survey and create a process for carrying it out these are just a couple of examples of the many tasks you'll need to complete in order to achieve the deliverable it's your job to help uncover the rest of the tasks how do you uncover more tasks in addition to the project Charter there are other Common forms of documentation that can help you identify tasks for example you might ask your stakeholders or colleagues to share emails or an older project plan for a similar project let's discuss how these might be useful as you build your list of tasks emails that relate to the project can provide lots of helpful information for you to pull tasks from since so much communication in the workplace happens over email ask to have relevant emails that contain discussions about the Project's details forwarded to you these emails can help you uncover tasks and they can also help you identify team members to connect with further if you have additional questions it's also helpful to review an older project plan for a similar initiative to find out what kind of tasks were included for example if you are a project manager tasked with launching a new product you might ask a colleague with experience launching other products for the same company to share their project plan as an example or if your project includes some construction work you might ask colleagues about unrelated projects that also had construction components previous project plans can provide helpful inspiration as you create your own list of tasks they can also help you identify possible task durations subject matter experts and even suppliers that may be helpful to your project as you review project documentation take note of information that suggests other tasks your team will need to complete in order to execute on project deliverables during this process ask yourself questions like is there a large task being worked on by many people that could be broken into smaller tasks assigned to individuals are there signals that imply prior tasks need to be completed first for example a deliverable like install tablets might imply selecting a tablet vendor as a prior task great we've covered a lot in this video so let's review the project plan helps document the scope tasks Milestones budget and overall activities in order to keep the project on track to add tasks to your plan search for useful information from existing project documentation such as the project Charter email threads and old project plans from a similar project as you review project documentation take note of information that suggests additional tasks and Milestones that your team will need to complete in order to meet project deliverables great in the next activity you'll review the supporting materials to start building the sauce and Spoon project plan once you're finished I'll meet you in the next video welcome back by now you should have analyzed existing project documentation to identify a list of tasks related to the sauce and Spoon tablet pilot in this video I'll share a few tips for conducting online research which is a helpful strategy for Gathering domain knowledge domain knowledge refers to knowledge of a specific industry topic or activity if you're unfamiliar with a new Project's domain then analyzing supporting project documentation will help you broaden your knowledge there will be times throughout your career when you'll be new to an organization or industry you might be assigned to a project that's unlike anything you've ever managed before and that's okay new challenges can be a really exciting part of the job so how do you identify tasks and monitor progress for a project or industry that you're not familiar with another key to success when working on an unfamiliar project is knowing where to find useful information that can help you increase your domain knowledge here's an example let's say you've been hired to manage projects in the private banking industry in order to successfully manage these projects you'll need a basic understanding of how private banking works this includes things like how clients open accounts back office operations and how trade confirmations are verified and in the case of sauce and Spoon you'll need a base level understanding of the restaurant industry some of which you've already come across during this course like knowing about Guest averages and table turn times again you don't need to be an expert on your project but becoming more familiar with different Industries and types of projects is a valuable skill that demonstrates your versatility having industry knowledge can also save you time on future projects within that industry since you won't have to ask as many questions or do as much research that said if you're new to an industry or Organization no one will expect you to have all the answers right away one way to help build up your domain knowledge when you get started with project planning is through online research online research can help increase your knowledge of Industry terms techniques processes and more all of which can be helpful as you embark on a new project this allows you to read up on how other organizations have managed similar projects it's also an opportunity to draw inspiration from their successes and to learn from their mistakes so what should you be aiming for as you do research for a given project let's go over a few tips that can help you get started first try searching online for news coverage of similar projects at other companies for example you might search for news articles that focus on restaurant groups who've added tablet ordering capabilities to their restaurant locations experiment with Search terms like menu tablet news or restaurant tablet news to find relevant news articles as you read take notes on interesting findings did the company experience any surprising outcomes following their products Lodge did they come across any unanticipated roadblocks if so make note of these and decide if there are tasks that you should add to your project in order to achieve similar results or to avoid similar roadblocks identifying where similar successes or mistakes might play out in your own project can help you uncover tasks that you may have otherwise overlooked it's also helpful to search online for research on topics related to your project for example you might search for phrases like restaurant tablet research or digital menu ordering adding search tags like best practices or key takeaways can help streamline your search results then you can review the relevant research for information that might help inform your project planning you can also try researching similar projects in other Industries this can be especially helpful when you're new to a project or industry for example even though your project May center around tablet usage in a restaurant setting you can also learn about the installation process from research on tablet usage in similar settings like retail stores or coffee shops the details will be different but similar projects in other Industries can be a helpful source of ideas once you've done some initial online research review the list of tasks that you've identified so far and researched the specifics of executing that work for example maybe one of the tasks on your list is choosing the tablet model that you'll ultimately install in the restaurants are there any smaller subtasks your team will need to complete to decide on a tablet model searching online can help to uncover any additional tasks you'll need to account for well done let's recap what we learned in this video online research can help you increase your domain knowledge of Industry terms techniques processes and more when you conduct your online research keep the following tips in mind search for news articles about similar projects at other companies research similar projects in other Industries and finally review your list of tasks and research the specifics of executing that work ready to get started head over to the next activity where you'll perform online research to identify more tasks and milestones for the sauce and Spoon tablet rollout I'll meet you in the next video welcome back in the last video I shared some tips for conducting online research to help improve your domain knowledge and discover tasks to add to your project plan in this video you'll learn how to identify more tasks by analyzing key conversations related to the project the sauce and Spoon project is fairly complex and will result in a project plan with many tasks populating your plan with a set of tasks can indicate to Future employers that you're able to identify key areas of work based on documentation research conversations and more it can also demonstrate that you're able to synthesize these tasks into a single organized document which is a critical part of project management reviewing project documentation and researching your project online can help you identify tasks but that won't tell you everything you need to know discussions with other people working on the project from stakeholders to team members can help you uncover tasks that you're still missing or clarify the smaller subtasks let's start with tips for identifying tasks through group conversations with members of your project team one way to discover more tasks is to hold a group brainstorm session with team members who will likely work on those tasks for example Peta might meet with the sauce and Spoon project team to brainstorm potential challenges that the wait staff and guests might have with the tablets discussing these as a group can help identify ideas for tasks that may have been overlooked another way to discover tasks is to hold one-on-one conversations with team members about tasks they'll likely be responsible for completing for example you might have a discussion with a vendor who specializes in training restaurant employees to determine how to prepare for the training or you might reach out to a graphic designer to discuss creating new marketing materials your team outside vendors and Company Executives have specific expertise and job experience that gives them a deeper understanding of the work required to complete tasks or reach milestones through conversations with teammates you might learn that certain tasks are more complex than you assumed or that you're missing a key step of a given process in this case Leverage The expertise of your teammates to discover what you don't know and to fill in gaps in your list of tasks in addition to connecting with teammates to uncover project tasks it may also be helpful to consult with other people in your organization who are experts on given tasks though these people may not be involved in your project they may be able to provide valuable expertise that can help you identify processes and fill in gaps once you've connected with members of your project team and other experts in your organization examine your list of tasks are there still areas where you need more information if so it may be helpful to have a conversation with your key stakeholders to fill in any gaps as we've discussed senior stakeholders are often busy with other aspects of their jobs so you should be strategic about who to ask for a conversation stakeholders who have high or medium level interest or influence in the project are most likely to provide the information you need some examples include stakeholders who are subject matter experts and those who are directly affected by the outcome of the project like your team's leadership you can refer back to your stakeholder analysis for help deciding who would be best to connect with once you've identified which stakeholders would be most helpful make sure you're prepared by gathering as much information as possible ahead of your conversation and outlining clear outstanding questions that you still need answers to during the conversation present your research and your current list of tasks and explain exactly how they can help you move forward this will give your stakeholder a clear picture of what you've accomplished so far and help them to identify gaps or missing tasks that are required to achieve your goal ample preparation helps ensure that you can get the information you need while respecting the limited time of your stakeholders keep in mind that conversations you have about project tasks will often contain more details and information than you need to create a thorough list but you may want to note some of this extra information since it may be useful later in the project each task on your list should be detailed enough that you'll be able to check in on progress and identify problems early on but not so detailed that you're endlessly revising your project plan and burdening your team with the need to update you constantly on their work the right level of detail to include in your task list will vary from Project to project and team to team in Striking the right balance is a skill you'll develop over the course of your career okay let's do a quick recap discussions with other people working on the project can help you uncover missing tasks or clarify smaller subtasks some ways to uncover tasks include brainstorming with team members assigned to similar or related tasks holding one-on-one conversations with team members about tasks Consulting with other people in your organization who are experts on given tasks and having conversations with stakeholders the right level of detail to include in your task list will vary from Project to project and team to team as a project manager a key part of your role is identifying the right level of detail and then synthesizing it into a clear concise list of tasks in the project plan in the upcoming activity you'll review the supporting materials to uncover more task details and add them to the sauce and Spoon project plan head to the activity to get started and then meet me in the next video welcome back so far you've identified and added tasks to your project plan you've gathered information from relevant project documentation online research and other people on the project team in this video I'll discuss how to order your task list and share several techniques for identifying milestones maybe you've already identified a few Milestones on your own these techniques will be helpful to keep in mind when you're working through the activity after this video let's start with ordering your task list by now you should have a long list of project tasks to finalize the list review what you have so far check for any remaining larger tasks that could still be broken down into smaller subtasks and add those tasks to your list when you think you've listed all the necessary project tasks in your project plan the next step is to arrange the tasks in the order that they need to be completed determining the proper task order will help you assign start and end dates for each task when determining Priority First consider the basic order of operations in other words what is the natural sequence of tasks are there any dependencies or prerequisites for example you can't train staff on how to use the Tablets before they've been installed and tested to help you order tasks you can have a conversation with your team to uncover dependencies or prerequisites from each person who owns a task you might ask each person what needs to happen before they can start their work similarly you can search the internet for information with terms such as prerequisites for launching new hardware after you've thought through the order adjust the tasks in your project plan to reflect this order to do this simply rearrange the spreadsheet rows to set the order for your tasks for example the task of researching different models of menu tablets needs to happen before the task of signing a contract with a menu tablet supplier makes sense right you probably wouldn't want to sign a contract with the supplier before you'd researched every possible option once your tasks are in order you'll begin identifying Milestones remember that Milestones are important points within the project schedule that indicate progress Milestones usually signify the completion of a deliverable or phase of the project to determine Milestones within your list of tasks identify points in the project plan where you and your team can evaluate the work completed so far for example if there are multiple tasks related to menu tablet installation a milestone might be the first internal test run of the tablet's ordering capabilities these types of Milestones may be the same as some of the deliverables you listed earlier another way to determine Milestones is to identify important tasks that your stakeholders have a particular interest in to do this review your notes from previous conversations with stakeholders and identify tasks that stakeholders seemed eager to know more about or wanted to review when complete if your stakeholder has a high interest in a given task or point in the project label that task as a milestone for example one of the sauce and Spoon stakeholders might be interested in knowing when a tablet supplier has been selected since that decision will impact the budget as you review your list you should also identify tasks that carry a high risk or signal the completion of a phase or major task these tasks are often considered Milestones because they have a major impact on the Project's overall progress for example the first successful test run of the menu tablet's ordering capabilities might be considered a milestone amazing job let's review once you've listed all of the necessary tasks in your project plan you'll need to rearrange the tasks in the order in which your team needs to complete them it's also important to consider the natural sequence of tasks as well as the dependencies or prerequisites for each task once your tasks are in order you'll need to identify milestones when determining Milestones it's crucial to identify the points in the project plan where you can evaluate the work completed so far identify the tasks that stakeholders have a particular interest in and identify tasks that carry a high risk or signal the completion of a phase or major task okay ready to get back into your project plan head to the next activity to reorder your list of project tasks and identify your project milestones then meet me in the next video where I'll take you through adding time estimates to each task hi again in the last few videos you learned how to identify project tasks and Milestones by analyzing project documents conducting online research and having conversations with teammates stakeholders and subject matter experts in this video I'll review some strategies for getting accurate time estimates for your tasks and Milestones then in the upcoming activities you'll analyze supporting materials and apply strategic thinking to get estimates for the sauce and Spoon tablet project let's get started time estimation is a prediction of the total amount of time required to complete a task providing time estimates for each task gives you a better sense of the overall project timeline in relation to individual deadlines and Milestones knowing the estimated duration of a task also lets you easily track its progress so you can recognize if the task is likely to go over the estimated time that way you'll be better able to project the timeline and quickly make any necessary adjustments as I mentioned earlier you won't necessarily be an expert on the projects you manage initially on top of reviewing project documentation and doing some research you'll also need the help of your team and other subject matter experts to fill in some of the details and provide input asking the right questions can help your experts get to the most accurate time estimates possible let's go over some strategies for getting accurate time estimates from your task experts first check their understanding of the task ask the expert to explain all the detailed steps involved in the task you won't include every detail in the project plan but by having the expert do this you're getting them to thoroughly think through the work involved before providing you with an estimate next ask for estimates of the sub steps and make note of them then add them all up and compare that total with the expert's estimate of the total time needed to complete the task another strategy is to discuss the assumptions the expert might be making when they give you an estimate for example what equipment do they assume they'll have what kind of supplies how many people do they assume are working on the task what are their assumptions about the skill and experience level of the people working alongside them on the task then ask the task expert to consider How likely it might be that all or some of these assumptions might not work out and how that might impact their estimate one important detail to clarify here is the difference between an effort estimate and a total duration estimate an effort estimate only takes into account the actual time it takes to complete a task a total duration estimate accounts for the effort estimation and any other factors like getting approvals prep work testing and so on for example imagine one of your tasks is designing and launching the checkout page for the tablet the effort estimation for Designing the page might be eight hours which is the amount of time it takes to mock up and implement the design but the total duration of the task includes testing feedback and approvals needed to Launch that means that the total time estimate for the checkout page is actually more than eight hours finally another strategy for getting accurate estimates is to compare the expert's estimates against the actual time spent on similar tasks in previous work ask the expert to think about a similar project they worked on and describe what was different and what was the same ask how long that project took and whether thinking about that project changes their estimate at all okay let's review what we just covered time estimation is a prediction of the total amount of time required to complete a task providing estimates for each task gives you a big picture sense of the project timeline in relation to individual deadlines and Milestones and asking the right questions can help your experts get to the most accurate estimate possible try checking their understanding of the task or ask for estimates of the sub steps discuss assumptions and compare the expert's estimates against the actual time spent on similar tasks in previous work in the next video I'll share another strategy for getting accurate time estimates called the three-point method then in an upcoming activity you'll add time estimates to the sauce and Spoon project plan meet you there hi again I've got one more technique for figuring out accurate time estimates it's called three point estimating three point estimating is used to help determine the most realistic time estimate for a task it uses optimistic and pessimistic calculations meaning calculations based on the best case and the worst case scenarios a side benefit to this strategy is that it takes into account potential risks that could impact not only the task estimation but other aspects of the project like budget and resources just as the name implies in three-point estimating there are three parts of the estimate to examine here's how it works each task receives three time estimates optimistic most likely and pessimistic each estimate indicates the projected amount of time a task will take under that category and How likely any potential risks are to occur an optimistic estimate assumes the best case scenario issues will not occur and the task will be completed within the estimated time in other words it's how long you hope the task will take assuming everything goes as planned for example if all the supplies needed for a task come in early and everything works the way it's supposed to a most likely estimate assumes some issues might occur another way to think about a most likely estimate is that it is based on how long the task usually takes under normal circumstances like if the supplies arrive at the expected time and you only need to make some slight adjustments before everything eventually works the way it's supposed to and finally a pessimistic estimate assumes that issues will definitely occur this is where everything that could go wrong does go wrong for example if the supplies are late or the order is incorrect and nothing works the way it's supposed to when determining estimates using this technique you'll need to ask your task experts questions or conduct research that will help you understand best and worst case scenarios then add these notes to the plan for each task let's try out three point estimating with an example from the sauce and Spoon project the task of training the staff to use the tablets you ask the person tasked with arranging the staff training to give you a time estimate in each category and to describe the conditions for each the task expert tells you that the conditions for an optimistic estimate would mean the vendor who is hired to do training is well qualified has all the materials they need and shows up on time to deliver the training all of the staff shows up on time and successfully completes the training within the scheduled amount of time all of the equipment works for the staff to practice on in this best case scenario your task expert estimates four hours two hours to conduct the training and one hour each for setup and post-training review on the originally scheduled date in a most likely scenario the task expert assumes that the vendor is qualified but might not have all the necessary materials so they'll need to modify something or someone on the restaurant staff will need to find some supplies or the vendor might be new and need extra time to prepare or take longer to deliver the training usually a couple of Staff members can't attend or be on time so extra training time would need to be scheduled there could also be some minor glitches with the equipment and the training might need to be rescheduled for a different day later in the week the time estimate in this case is closer to six hours and the date is likely to get changed to two or three days later than originally planned under pessimistic conditions you could have a situation where the original training vendor quits and a new vendor has to be hired there could be several unexpected staff no-shows or turnover right before the training or possibly the equipment doesn't get delivered on time or doesn't work so the training can't happen until the new equipment arrives in this case the actual training time is still around six hours but the date has to be rescheduled for up to a full week later than originally planned when conducting your own research or having conversations with task experts be mindful of the three points so that you can determine the outcomes of optimistic most likely and pessimistic timing if someone quotes you a time estimate don't just take their word for it without understanding the context they're estimating from think about it this way if someone is being optimistic they might estimate that a task will only take them two days to complete if you go with that estimate and it ends up taking a whole week your schedule is off but if someone is being pessimistic and quotes one month and the task only takes a week then you've got extra time in your schedule that could have gone toward other tasks or LED to an earlier product release always accounting for a worst case scenario might seem like a good thing but it's actually wasteful if you calculate most of your estimates this way so you want to examine the best and worst case scenario timing and compare these with the most likely scenario from there you can build in a buffer that accounts for risks that are likely but still keeps the project progressing at an efficient rate okay let's review three point estimating is a technique to help determine the most realistic time estimate for a task it uses optimistic most likely and pessimistic calculations three point estimating takes a little more work but it gives you a clearer sense of what's possible with each task so you can make a more realistic and accurate estimate there are even formulas to help you quantify these estimates that we won't get into here but we encourage you to check out in the course readings in the next activity you'll review the supporting materials where Peta has had conversations with some of the sauce and Spoon project task experts then you'll come up with time estimates for the tasks they discussed and add them to your project plan welcome back earlier we discussed how to get accurate time estimates from your experts in this video we'll discuss how to determine a confidence level rating for each of your estimates a confidence level rating indicates how confident you are in an estimate's accuracy being able to share these ratings with stakeholders is helpful because they indicate How likely it is that a task will be completed in the amount of time estimated estimating is not a perfect science so adding a confidence level rating for a task allows you to address any uncertainty in an upcoming activity you'll finish calculating your time estimates and add confidence level ratings to your tasks in the sauce and Spoon project plan let's get started a confidence level rating ranges from high meaning you're very confident in your estimate to low meaning you're not very confident in your estimate knowing the confidence level of your estimate and adding notes about any risks or issues that might affect the estimate can help you identify whether you should ask the project team for their input they might be able to point out the estimates or tasks you should track more closely additionally if you notice that your confidence is low across a large percentage of task estimates you might want to communicate your uncertainty about the project timeline to stakeholders there are a few ways to determine a confidence level reading using the three-point Technique we just discussed is one way of gaining confidence in your estimates if you can show that you've considered the best and worst case conditions for a task then your confidence level rating for that task's time estimate would be high since you have a thorough understanding of the task another way to determine a confidence rating is by pulling your team about the tasks they're assigned and coming to a consensus about your Collective confidence to do this you could calculate their level of confidence as a percentage which means pulling everyone on their estimates and calculating the average confidence level you might find that they're 90 confident which would mean you have an overall high confidence rating or maybe they're only 60 confident which would mean you have a medium confidence rating or you could Define categories for the team for example we've never done a project like this before we've done this once before we've done this a handful of times and we've done this a ton of times already each category correlates to your confidence level if they've never done the project before or have only done it once then the confidence rating for the time estimate might be low estimating as far from an exact science particularly in project management when there are so many unknowns implementing A system that accounts for those unknowns and ensures an accurate picture of the project timeline means everyone will be better off over the long term okay let's review what we've covered a confidence level rating indicates how confident you are in an estimate's accuracy you can determine confidence ratings in a few ways including pulling your team on the tasks they're assigned to or by defining categories and remember estimating is far from an exact science particularly in project management when there are so many unknowns implementing A system that accounts for those unknowns and ensures an accurate picture of project costs means everyone will be better off over the long term in the next activity you'll review supporting materials and add confidence level ratings to each of your time estimates coming up we'll discuss effective negotiation techniques to get even more accurate time estimates hi now that you've added tasks time estimates and confidence ratings to your project plan let's prepare for upcoming negotiations concerning time estimates Peta has to negotiate with team members about some of the tasks that have low confidence level ratings or that are estimated to take longer than she'd hoped you'll help by analyzing the supporting materials recording notes and identifying some effective negotiation techniques earlier you applied some negotiation skills to discussions about the project scope negotiation skills can also help you get accurate time and effort estimates but the skills you use and the approach you take will be a little different in this case you're negotiating with a task expert not a stakeholder your goal is to try to determine an accurate time and effort estimate for a task instead of persuading them to agree with a certain outcome you're trying to arrive in an objectively accurate estimate together on any project you'll have to work with people who have a tendency to over or underestimate time costs or resources people don't do this intentionally usually they're just being optimistic or trying to please you by providing what they think you want to hear rather than what's realistic or sometimes they might be overly cautious and give you an extreme estimate in case something doesn't go according to plan in some situations using negotiation skills to get accurate time estimates might be critical to the success of the project there are lots of different negotiation techniques out there but let's focus on a few that are specific to negotiating a time estimate they are say no without saying no focus on interests not positions present mutually beneficial options and insist on objective criteria if a task expert gives you a time estimate that's different from what you hoped for there are a few techniques you can use to try and reach an estimate that works for both of you let's start with the first technique saying no without saying no the idea behind this technique is to get the other person to start working out an alternative solution with you here's how first think about the ways we usually tell someone no that won't work that's not going to happen I can't do that or there's no way statements like these can make the person you're communicating with feel defensive and shut down the conversation instead ask open-ended questions like how would you like me to proceed how can we solve this problem and what can I do to help questions like these invite the other person to collaborate with you this keeps the conversation focused on reaching a resolution that works for both of you let's explore the next technique focus on interests not positions here the goal is not to win Instead try to identify the other person's interests their basic needs wants and motivations around completing a certain task you might be working with a task expert who cares deeply about completing the task with a high degree of quality but you're concerned that if you don't meet the deadline the quality of the work won't matter you can ask if there are any areas of quality they'd be willing to compromise on that would shorten the schedule estimate but still allow them to complete the task to an acceptable degree a third technique is to present mutually beneficial options we covered this a little already but here's how you can apply this concept when negotiating time estimates imagine both you and your task expert want to complete the task as quickly as possible but the expert's time estimate is still longer than you'd like asking some open-ended questions like the ones listed earlier can help you figure out if there's a solution that will satisfy both of your goals maybe there's information the expert is missing or a resource that you could commit to finding and supplying to make the estimate lower the last technique is to insist on using objective criteria to define a time estimate objective criteria is based on neutral information like market value research findings previously documented experience or laws and regulations when you use objective criteria you're basing the agreement on known or shared principles the key is to agree in advance about which objective criteria to consult and then to use the information to determine your estimates you might have an expert who insists on following their instincts when coming up with time estimates if you ask them in advance to provide clear objective data that supports their instincts you can get them to arrive at a more accurate estimate okay let's review what we've covered there are many scenarios where negotiation skills for a time estimate might be critical to the success of the project a few techniques that are specific to negotiating a time estimate are say no without saying no focus on interests not positions present mutually beneficial options and insist on objective criteria great now you have a few new negotiation techniques for your project management toolbox in the next activity you'll apply what you've learned to time estimate negotiations for the tablet rollout project welcome back asking for time estimates or questioning why an aspect of the project is delayed can be a difficult conversation that's why practicing empathy is so important when negotiating and when communicating in general empathy is the ability to understand and feel what others are feeling it's when you make the effort to imagine yourself in the other person's position and experience things from their perspective approaching a conversation with empathy can make the discussion much easier you've learned about how to bring empathy into project management in general including being present listening and asking questions in this video we'll discuss how you can bring empathy to conversations about task estimates and timelines asking questions about how long a task will take can make some people feel insecure they might feel like you don't trust them that you think they're not competent that you believe you know more than they do about their own work and so on have you ever felt like someone didn't trust you or questioned your ability to complete your work even when you're just trying to get a clear understanding of a task you don't understand asking questions without empathy can leave team members with the sense that you're micromanaging them micromanaging is when a manager too closely observes controls or continuously reminds the people they're managing of the work they've been assigned this has a negative impact because it demonstrates the manager's lack of trust and confidence in the people they oversee there are several ways you can bring empathy to your conversations one way is to listen with curiosity ask questions to demonstrate your interest in what people have to say rather than making assumptions or suggestions start the conversation with a question for example you might ask the person how long a particular task took them on a previous project rather than suggesting a time frame to complete a similar task another way to show empathy is to periodically repeat what you think the other person said noticing you restate their message in your own words will encourage them to confirm their intent and will ensure you understand what they're communicating it might also help them view the issues you're discussing from a different perspective you can also demonstrate empathy by trying to connect with their experience let the person know that you understand that making estimations can be difficult for anyone yourself included you might share a time on a project when you struggled with making a time estimate for a task or misestimated it altogether make it clear that you know they want to do the best job possible and you want to support them practicing empathy also means you're able to recognize your own judgments acknowledge to yourself if you're making internal judgments about the person you're communicating with like if you're having doubts about their work quality for example then find ways to view the situation more compassionately even if you don't speak your judgments aloud people are very good at reading body language and facial expressions and interpreting the tone of others try to put yourself in the other person's position and find out about any barriers they might be facing another strategy for practicing empathy is recognizing buffering a team member might add a buffer to their time estimate for a task without communicating why they added the buffer ask them up front if they've included a buffer to account for holidays sickness child care or emergencies this can demonstrate your empathy for their situation and can also help you get a more accurate estimate encourage them to open up about this extra buffer by assuring them that you want an honest answer even if it's not ideal and finally in order to effectively employ all of these strategies for practicing empathy in your conversations you need to be able to fully focus on what the other person is communicating this means avoiding distractions putting your phone on silent not looking at phone notifications or texting and closing your laptop are some ways to show the person that you're giving them your undivided attention and that what they're sharing is important to you let's do a quick review empathy is the ability to understand and feel what others are feeling some tips for bringing empathy to your conversations are listen with curiosity repeat what you think you heard connect with their experience recognize judgments recognize buffering and avoid distractions excellent consider these tips for practicing empathy in the upcoming activity then I'll meet you in the next video to recap everything we've covered thus far [Music] hi I'm Tori and I'm an education program manager at Google specifically I work on our digital literacy curriculum called applied digital skills that helps Learners of all ages learn the Practical digital skills needed for the jobs of today and tomorrow empathy can be really important with project management because a lot of times you're dealing with a lot of different potential work Styles and communication styles with various members of the team and various stakeholders so you have to learn how to communicate with those different styles and potentially tailor your messaging to different audiences it's really important to be able to understand how different people may feel how they may like to be communicated to so that you can ensure that you are communicating your project goals and your impact in a very impactful way so one example where I've had to practice empathy as a program manager is when I was leading a project with about five different people on the program team we were running into some issues with some missed deadlines actually I had to end up commute communicating with one of the project team members just to try to understand what was going on why were some of the deadlines being missed ultimately we discovered that there were some things personally that were going on that we ultimately ended up having to like reshift some of our resources and get help from other teammates so that's an example of just trying to meet people where they are understand that there's lots of things outside of work that are also going on and sometimes you can adjust your timelines and your deadlines as needed or get help from other team members along the way so when you are negotiating task estimates I think a really good thing to do right from the beginning is just ask a lot of questions just talk to different people on the team maybe you're even new to the team and you want to get some different experience some folks who've been on the team a little longer and just try to figure out if there are any examples of past projects that are similar to the one that you're leading try to see if there are other projects that may be a little different but have a different timeline I think that can really help in the beginning just ask a lot of questions and collect as much data and information as you can from the beginning thank you great job making it to the end of this section in this last series of activities you transitioned from the initiation phase of the Project Life Cycle to the planning phase putting your Knowledge and Skills to work on a project plan you analyzed project documentation to improve your domain knowledge and identify project tasks and you uncovered more tasks by conducting online research and analyzing key Communications with the project team and task experts then you determined accurate time estimates for each task by knowing which questions to ask and practicing effective negotiation techniques you added confidence level ratings to your estimates by using the three-point estimating method and you learned how to demonstrate empathy in your conversations about task estimates the project plan you've built for sauce and Spoon will be an important part of your project management portfolio it demonstrates your ability to break a large project into a set of achievable smaller tasks you can also use your project plan during an interview to discuss how you approach project management work up next we'll get ready to move into the execution stage of the sauce and Spoon tablet rollout project by creating a quality management plan talk to you soon welcome back so far you've completed a project Charter and a project plan for the sauce and Spoon tablet rollout project coming up we'll move from the planning phase of the Project Life Cycle to the execution phase but before you can begin executing you'll need to make sure your Project's quality management plan has been established so you know you're delivering a project that meets your stakeholders expectations in the upcoming videos and activities you'll practice defining quality standards for your project then you'll evaluate how successfully the project standards are being met and present your findings to stakeholders you'll also create a retrospective document which project managers use during discussions about project progress and any process improvements that need to be made before we get started let's review the project scenario for this course and Spoon is a small but growing chain of restaurants with five locations they've hired Peta as their first in-house project manager to launch the pilot of tablet menus at two of their locations over the next several videos I'll share helpful information you can use to complete each activity and assessment and I'll offer tips that you can take with you after you complete this course by the time we're done you'll understand how to establish a list of quality standards for one aspect of the sauce and Spoon project you'll also practice writing evaluation questions and survey questions that'll help you determine if the quality standards are being met and finally you'll learn how to improve the process along the way and create a retrospective document which you'll be able to add to your portfolio of project management documents ready to get started meet me in the next video where we'll get started on developing your quality management plan hi again in this video I'll review key quality management Concepts and discuss in more detail the importance and purpose of maintaining project quality a crucial part of project planning and executing includes implementing a quality management plan and holding yourself to it throughout the project quality planning refers to the process that the project manager or the team establishes and follows for identifying and determining exactly which standards of quality are relevant to the project as a whole and how to satisfy them we can't just launch a project and assume everything will be okay that's why planning for Quality with clearly defined standards processes and methods of evaluation is important it helps keep you focused on whether or not the project is progressing successfully and alerts you to any adjustments that need to be made to keep the project on track remember as a project manager you're responsible for the planning and execution of the project as well as for the successful completion of the project quality planning works together with General project planning and aligns with the overall project process project goals and success criteria for the sauce and Spoon tablet project we'll focus the details of a quality management plan on quality standards evaluation questions and feedback surveys to ensure that the project is delivering on quality and producing a desired outcome after this video you'll practice project quality management by identifying quality standards for the sauce and Spoon tablet pilot let's get started there are many benefits of creating and maintaining Quality Management in a project some of these benefits include delivering a quality product decreasing overhead and increasing collaboration and ongoing reviews overhead is another word for costs quality management helps decrease overhead by reducing the amount of errors that would cost the organization money to fix quality management processes ensure that the team is always learning and providing feedback which in turn ensures that the project is on track to achieve its intended outcome in earlier courses we covered the main concepts of quality management I'll do a quick review here the main concepts are quality planning which I defined at the beginning of this video quality standards which are the requirements specifications or guidelines that can be used to ensure the materials products processes and services are fit for achieving a desired outcome quality assurance or QA which is a review process that evaluates whether your project is moving towards delivering a high quality service or product and quality control often known as QC quality control refers to the techniques that are used to ensure quality standards are maintained when a problem is identified here we'll focus on building quality standards for the sauce and Spoon project but in many projects all of these Concepts get built into an overarching quality management plan which documents all the information needed to effectively manage quality throughout the Project Life Cycle the quality management plan defines the policies processes and criteria for project quality as well as the roles and responsibilities for carrying them out again there are lots of different ways to develop and track quality management for your project but the benefits and Main Concepts that make up quality management remain the same let's review some of the benefits of quality management include delivering a quality product decreasing overhead and increasing collaboration and review and the main concepts of quality management are quality planning quality standards quality assurance or QA and quality controller QC understanding these benefits and Concepts will help you ensure you deliver a project that meets your stakeholders expectations coming up you'll apply your understanding of quality management to develop quality standards for the sauce and Spoon tablet rollout meet me in the next video to learn how there now that we've reviewed the benefits and Main concepts of quality management we'll explore what it means to Define quality standards we'll also discuss how to evaluate those standards to ensure you're meeting the Project's goals before we get into discussing quality standards let's define what we mean by project Quality quality means making sure that you deliver what you say you will and that you do so as efficiently as you can getting a project done on time and under budget doesn't necessarily mean you've met your goals you need to be sure you've delivered a project that meets your stakeholders needs that's why project quality is tracked throughout the life cycle of the project you can measure project quality by defining quality standards for the various aspects of the project like major tasks milestones and deliverables quality standards are the requirements and specifications that your product or service must meet in order to be considered Successful by your organization and the customer establishing standards helps you identify ways of testing and evaluating the Project's quality throughout the planning and execution phases and after the project is launched if the quality of different aspects of a project is failing to meet the agreed-upon standards you then have the opportunity to adjust your project plan to meet those standards let's use an example from the sauce and Spoon project one of the deliverables is training of management front of house staff and back of house staff how will you know if that deliverable has been fulfilled successfully what are the expectations or standards your stakeholders have for meeting this requirement for this deliverable think about what the staff needs to be able to do or demonstrate at the end of the training does each staff group need to be trained on the same things will management have different training requirements from front of house and back of house staff and does the training need to fit within a specific time frame budget or geographic location to be considered successful your answers to questions like these will be the start of your list of quality standards for this deliverable there are lots of resources that can help you determine the standards for your project and standards will look different depending on the type of project the first resources to consult are project documents like the business case and project Charter these documents State the goals scope budget and other details that can clarify the different requirements of the project so it's acceptable to your stakeholders just like you did when you identified tasks and time estimates if you need more information to help you determine quality standards you can have conversations with experts and stakeholders and you can do some industry research for example if you need to know how long it takes the tablets to recharge ask the vendor who will be training the staff or the tablet sales representative it's also a good idea to have conversations with the stakeholders who are funding the project to understand their perspective on how long they expect the tablets to last before needing to be replaced do industry research on the internet to see if there are established quality standards for the type of project that you're working on for example software and Construction Industries have established quality standards related to functionality design and safety other categories of established quality standards that you'll find in many Industries include ease of use productivity Effectiveness and customer satisfaction it's important that your standards are objective and measurable so you can clearly identify that the standard has been met as you have conversations and conduct your research you might notice stakeholders referring to a general category like ease of use without providing specifics as the project manager you should aim to get specific details by asking what would be a sign that the tablets are easy to use or hard to use you might get a response like it shouldn't take longer than 20 seconds to place an order or returning customers report that it's faster to use the tablet versus placing an order with a server now you have objective measurable standards let's consider a few questions to ask yourself when considering various standards if standards are related to productivity and Effectiveness you might want to ask questions like should the existence of the tablets change anything about how the front of house staff Works does it make them faster or allow them to serve more tables at one time if standards are related to customer satisfaction you could ask questions like how would the tablets ideally impact the customer's experience what would you want the customer to do or say as a result of using the tablets by asking yourself or your task experts these kinds of questions you can narrow down the standard that you're aiming to make objective and measurable all of these resources such as project documents conversations with experts and Industry research can help you determine the quality standards for different aspects of your project but remember you'll still need to use your critical thinking skills to determine the right standards and adjust them if necessary to meet the specific needs of your project let's review what we've discussed so far quality means making sure that you deliver what you say you will and that you do so as efficiently as you can quality standards are the requirements and specifications that your product or service must meet in order to be considered Successful by your organization and the customer there are lots of resources that can help you determine the standards for your project including project documents like the business case in Charter conversations with experts and stakeholders and Industry research some common categories of established quality standards from various Industries include functionality design safety ease of use productivity and effectiveness and finally it's important that your standards are objective and measurable so you can clearly identify that the standard has been met coming up you'll use your critical thinking skills to determine quality standards for one part of the sauce and Spoon tablet project then you'll learn how to evaluate against your standards to ensure that your project is achieving the required level of quality meet you there hi again in the last video we reviewed the main concepts of quality management and defining quality standards for a project then after analyzing project documentation and a conversation between PETA and stakeholders you helped solidify a list of quality standards for one of sauce and spoons project deliverables once the quality management plan is underway with clearly defined quality standards you're ready to measure against your standards and can finally begin implementing the project since the last activity Peta and her team have begun implementing the tablet rollout both of the restaurants that were selected for the pilot have had tables outfitted with tablets the staff has been trained and guests have been placing their orders using the new tablets in this video we'll discuss the importance of evaluation as it relates to the Project's quality management plan specifically quality assurance remember quality assurance consists of reviewing processes to evaluate whether or not your project is delivering an acceptable level of quality and evaluation involves observing measuring and then comparing your findings to a set of agreed-upon criteria this could be your quality standards or the overall goals of your project coming up you'll create evaluation questions as part of the QA process so that you can measure how well your project is meeting the established quality standards understanding how to create strong evaluation questions will give you the tools and skills you need to measure the success of your project throughout the Project Life Cycle let's get started in the same way that quality management plans may look different for each project quality assurance can be implemented in a variety of ways some examples of quality assurance are beta testing internal checklists and feedback surveys each of these methods allow you to evaluate and measure how well your project is meeting its goals evaluation is a form of research designed to promote learning and informed decisions it also provides accountability and helps you assess to what extent the project has achieved its objectives when you use evaluation you're able to improve upon judge and learn about different aspects of the project and the project itself for example with the sauce and Spoon project evaluation can help you improve how to implement the staff training process more efficiently it might help you judge or assess whether something is working the way it was intended or whether you should continue in the same direction it could be that the staff had a hard time learning how to use the tablets because the touchscreens kept malfunctioning in which case you need to assess whether or not to continue with the original launch date you also need to make sure that the project is not creating any unintended problems either for the organization your team or anyone else impacted by the Project's existence for example you'll need to assess when the best time for tablet installation is if you schedule tablet installation when the restaurant is open that might create a negative dining experience for restaurant guests by reflecting on areas of improvement and judging how certain aspects of the project performed you learn what things made the project run as intended how it can be replicated and how challenges can be overcome in the future your evaluation may have a single Focus like identifying what needs to be improved or judging whether a project or process should continue in its current format regardless of your goals your evaluation will ultimately allow you to assess all three of these areas of improvement and lead you to a better understanding of the overall success of the project as well as its impact on and benefit to the organization okay so now that we know why evaluation is used in project management let's get into the evaluation process so that you know how to carry out an evaluation and get the information you need in order to identify what you really want to know about your project first articulate why you're evaluating understanding your why will shape the types of questions you ask about your project this goes back to improving judging and learning even though all three of these will be addressed to some degree certain aspects will have a more specific Focus for evaluation you can narrow down what to focus on by reviewing both the project goals and organizational goals and determining how the aspect you're evaluating connects to one of these goals let's discuss an example the sauce and Spoon project has just reached one of its last Milestones the completion of three key deliverables that are required for project launch testing those deliverables are installing the tablets integrating the tablets with the POS system and training the staff to use the tablets in an upcoming meeting with stakeholders Peta will need to provide an update on the Project's progress and share an evaluation of this milestone it's important for PETA to share this evaluation since it will inform stakeholders on future phases of the project and Beyond including a tablet rollout at two more restaurant locations so peta's why is judging the quality and performance of the tablets and identifying ways to improve the training process once you've decided what your reasons for evaluating are you're ready to write out your evaluation questions an evaluation question is a key question about the outcomes impact and or effectiveness of your project or program there are two main categories of evaluation questions that ask how you can make improvements and questions that help you measure and compare questions that help you improve sound like this how can we improve what is working and what's not working which goals are being met who is benefiting what are the most common participant reactions next we have questions that measure and compare these questions will help you make judgments about how or whether to proceed with a process or with the project itself questions for measuring and comparing sound like this what were the results were there unintended outcomes what were the costs and benefits are there any lessons to be learned should we continue so if we think back to the sauce and Spoon project one of the evaluation questions might be to what extent do tablets improve the staff's work performance if you keep in mind the overall goals of the project you'll be able to write effective questions that generate the type of data you want effective evaluation questions meet the following criteria they address stakeholder or user values interests and concerns they relate to the purpose of the project and of evaluation they're worth answering and are important for the project and Beyond and their practical and feasible to answer with available resources amazing job let's review some of what we've learned so far evaluation is a form of research designed to promote learning and informed decisions it also provides accountability an evaluation question is a key question about the outcomes impact and or effectiveness of your project or a key aspect of your project and there are two main categories of evaluation questions those that ask how to make improvements and those that help you measure and compare in the next video I'll discuss how to create evaluation indicators for your questions which will help you focus the type of feedback that will be most useful to your project you'll apply what you've learned in upcoming activities as you review the supporting materials and write your own set of evaluation questions and indicators meet you there welcome back in the last video we discussed the importance of evaluation and how to come up with effective evaluation questions that address certain aspects and outcomes of your project in this video I'll discuss how to determine evaluation indicators evaluation indicators reveal the specific type of data that needs to be collected to help you answer your evaluation questions in the next activity you'll identify evaluation indicators for each of your evaluation questions and add them to the sauce and Spoon quality management plan simply put indicators State what you want to measure or evaluate like the number of something level of satisfaction preferences or demographic information such as age gender experience and so on similar to the way quality standards add specificity to your deliverables and goals evaluation indicators take your evaluation question and determine the specific type of response you're aiming for you'll need this information to understand whether or not your project or process meets the quality standards that were agreed upon in the project plan let's return to the sauce and Spoon project and the evaluation question which asks to what extent do tablets improve the staff's work performance to evaluate this you'll have to ask yourself how are you going to measure work performance you'll have to decide on indicators of work performance like faster table turnover rates higher tip averages or higher quality rating from customers another way to think of indicators is that they provide Pathways for answering your evaluation questions indicators demonstrate that the outcomes are achieved and provide measurable evidence of meeting a goal they also include visible signs like test scores attendance rates or observed Behavior the word indicate means point out or show evaluation indicators point out or show the way to answer the evaluation question this could include visible signs of how the staff works with the new tablets observed Behavior such as fewer staff members congregating by the beverage station or arriving late to work could be an indicator of increased productivity or over 90 percent staff compliance with the tablet ordering process could be an indicator of order placement accuracy awesome let's review evaluation indicators determine what data needs to be collected that will help you answer your evaluation questions this includes Clues signs or markers that measure one aspect of a project and demonstrate how close that aspect is to meeting the quality standards that have been established in the next activity you'll add evaluation indicators for each of the evaluation questions you added to the sauce and Spoon quality management plan when you're done meet me in the next video to get started on developing survey questions welcome back by now you should have created a list of evaluation questions related to your quality standards for the sauce and Spoon tablet rollout project and added evaluation indicators for each question in this video we'll discuss the survey development process and I'll explain how a survey question is different from an evaluation question surveys are one of the tools that project managers use to get answers for their evaluation questions there are lots of methods for collecting data and surveys are a popular method in project management in a survey each respondent answers a set of clearly defined questions and the data are collected and analyzed this data can be used to demonstrate specific examples of the evaluation indicators you identified for your project for the tablet rollout Peta has decided to create customer surveys as a way to get answers to the Project's evaluation questions so in an upcoming activity you'll write a set of survey questions and add them to your quality management plan being able to develop a survey and write survey questions is important because it demonstrates your ability to understand the goals of your project and assess how your stakeholders and users value the project this helps you determine if you're achieving your quality goals and where you need to make adjustments let's start with A Brief Review of surveys surveys are tools you can use to evaluate and measure the quality of a Project's process goal or deliverable making surveys a part of your quality management plan is one way to help you understand what's working and what's not working surveys assess the criteria you want to evaluate and provide you with data that will point out whether you've met your quality standards designing an effective survey that will deliver the data you want is a skill and follows a strategic development process first you'll need to develop evaluation questions and Define your evaluation indicators which you've already done then you can determine what type of survey to design and questions to ask that will give you the data you need to answer your evaluation questions since you've already come up with your evaluation questions and indicators the next step is to determine what types of survey questions you're going to ask as a reminder a survey question is different from an evaluation question an evaluation question is a key question about the outcomes impact and or effectiveness of your project or program whereas a survey question is designed to collect data which can help you answer your evaluation questions in other words survey questions are a more direct interpretation of your evaluation questions designed to get data points let's consider a specific example the sauce and Spoon evaluation question that asks to what extent do tablets increase work performance one of the indicators of work performance is how much side work the staff are able to complete during a shift some corresponding survey questions might be are the tablets easy to use was there enough time during the training to practice and ask questions on average how many of your side work tasks are you able to complete during a shift since using the tablets how often have you sent back an incorrect order the answers to these questions will give you data to track and answer your evaluation questions so how do you write effective survey questions that will address what you're trying to evaluate there are two different types of survey questions you can ask open-ended and closed-ended questions open-ended questions require more than one word answers such as yes or no they ask respondents to answer in their own words for example what went well during the presentation or what did you find most useful or interesting about the presentation the point is that the respondent has to construct their own answer to the question rather than selecting from a list of predetermined answer choices closed-ended questions can be answered with a single response like yes or no or true or false or selecting a single answer from a list let's examine three types of closed-ended questions in more detail the first type of closed-ended question asks for yes no or true false type answers these are questions like did you order an appetizer and have you eaten at this restaurant before the second type of closed-ended question is multiple choice multiple choice questions have you guessed it multiple answer choices you're usually instructed to select one of the answer options or to select all that apply the question could be something like how often do you dine at this location each month and then a range of answer options like zero to one two to three four to five and five or more a third kind of closed-ended question is a scaled question scaled questions provide more than two options but they're different from multiple choice because they ask the respondent to rate their answers on a scale for example how often something occurs how much they like or dislike something or how important they think something is a sample scaled question might be on a scale of one to five how do you rate your overall dining experience with one being poor and five being excellent regardless of the question type creating good survey questions is a skill that takes a bit of practice here are some tips first and foremost make sure your questions are asking what you mean to ask each question should be specific and address only one measurable aspect be careful not to make assumptions about your respondents for example don't assume that everyone taking your survey knows or enjoys the same things or has similar Life Experiences ask questions and provide answer options that allow people to answer accurately about their experience at the same time you want to make sure that your questions don't provide too much detail or information if you do you might end up influencing the respondent to answer in a certain way which could unintentionally create bias wow that was a lot of information let's review so it's fresh in our minds survey data helps you determine if you're achieving your quality goals and where you need to make adjustments surveys can also help you understand what's working and what's not working help you assess the criteria you want to evaluate and provide data that will point out whether you've met your quality standards the survey development process includes developing evaluation questions defining your evaluation indicators and determining what type of survey to design and questions to ask in the next activity you'll review your quality management plan and create survey questions for one of saw some spoons evaluation questions then I'll meet you in the next video to discuss how to present the data that gets collected from your survey hey there welcome back in the last video we discussed the value of feedback surveys and how to create effective survey questions then you had the chance to write some questions for one of sauce and spoon's user feedback surveys since the last video the sauce and Spoon surveys have been administered and the data has been collected this data is the result of your evaluation so now it's time to analyze the data and report your findings on how well the project is measuring up to its quality standards in this video we'll cover tips and best practices for determining your audience choosing the style of your evaluation report and delivering an effective presentation we'll also discuss how to distinguish between reviewing data and presenting an evaluation then in the next activity you'll apply what you've learned to analyze survey data and create presentation slides for an upcoming stakeholder meeting you'll be able to add these slides to your project management portfolio to demonstrate your ability to synthesize and summarize data into recommendations for a particular audience there are different ways to present an evaluation and you'll need to decide which style is best for your project and audience start out by considering your audience think about what's most meaningful to them as well as how much time they have if your audience is a mix of roles or groups like team members managers stakeholders and Executives consider the best way to share information with each group in some cases you'll need to present the same data in different ways different audiences have different reasons for wanting information your team for example could benefit from a detailed report so they can address aspects of the project they're responsible for however groups like senior stakeholders and Executives typically do not need want or have the time for a detailed analysis they would rather have a summary of the most important information and the impact it has on their investment in the project after you've considered your audience you should create a detailed evaluation report that addresses your evaluation questions you can then take the detailed report and summarize the information into the most appropriate format for a given audience in addition to a full report two common reporting Styles include a summary sheet and a slide-based presentation a summary sheet is a one or two page write-up with just the most relevant information think of it as a flyer or snapshot of your findings and a slide-based presentation uses digital slides to visually present information presenting evaluation findings should not just be a raw data report your presentation needs to reflect what the data means and explain how it informs a response to the evaluation questions in order to do this you need to filter and analyze the data this is probably the most important part because this is where you make sense of the data for yourself by filtering and analyzing you become familiar with the results the respondents and what those results mean in regards to project quality here's the difference between reporting data and presenting evaluation findings let's say the survey data reveals that 36 percent of respondents reported a negative dining experience with the tablets but what does that data mean it could mean several things it could mean that the tablets weren't installed correctly resulting in performance glitches it could mean the tablets are poor quality so even if they were installed correctly the tablets just didn't function very well it could mean the staff wasn't trained well enough resulting in delayed or incorrect orders or it could mean that respondents simply didn't like using the tablets and prefer a standard dining experience you see data alone isn't enough you need to conduct additional analysis that explains the data your job is to figure out what the data means and explain how the data answers your evaluation questions when you can explain what the data means in your own words you'll have the basis for your presentation a good way to start analyzing data to present is to look for Trends patterns and anomalies another tip is to share this process with some of your team members taking turns sharing what you think the data means allows you to check your understanding and uncover additional information through your varied perspectives after you've analyzed your data and know how you'd like to present it shape the story of your findings by tying it all together into one cohesive narrative take some time to think about what you're hoping to achieve the points you want to make and the questions and concerns you want to answer a great way to present an evaluation is through a story storytelling is the process of turning facts into narrative to communicate something to your audience this is essentially what you do when you present your evaluation findings you tell the story of your data we provide some great tips and more details of the storytelling process in those earlier courses so check them out if you need more help for the tablet project the point of the presentation is to demonstrate to stakeholders whether or not the project is successfully meeting quality standards so you might start by reminding them of the overall goal and purpose of the project from there identify the Milestone that's being evaluated and how it's expected to meet the project goals explain what the data revealed but don't cover every single data point or survey question again you're telling a story about the data not presenting the raw data itself identify any major issues the data revealed and summarize the rest if the data reveals that things are going well pick a few highlights and move on if there are some major failings suggest possible solutions or craft specific questions you need answers to let's review there are different ways to present an evaluation you need to decide which style is best for your audience to do this consider what's most meaningful to them and how much time they have in some cases you'll need to present the same data in different ways common reporting Styles in addition to a full detailed report are a summary sheet and a slide-based presentation an evaluation is not simply a raw data report it needs to reflect what the data means and explain how it informs a response to the evaluation questions in order to do this you'll need to filter and analyze the data a great way to present an evaluation is through a story storytelling is the process of turning facts into narrative to communicate something to your audience in the next activity you'll review data results from the sauce and Spoon feedback surveys and craft presentation slides that tell the story of your evaluation then you'll wrap up the section with a retrospective see you soon welcome back in the last video you practiced your presentation skills by synthesizing data into evaluation findings and communicating those findings by creating slides to be shared with key stakeholders in this video we'll briefly review retrospectives and their value to a project team retrospectives are an example of quality control because they help teams adjust and improve processes as needed coming up you'll learn from Peta as she facilitates a retrospective you'll break down the conversations and extract the details you'll need to build into the retrospective document let's start with a refresher on retrospectives a retrospective sometimes referred to as a retro is a workshop or meeting that gives project teams time to reflect on a project a retrospective gives you a chance to discuss project successes and setbacks and to learn from mistakes though retrospectives often happen at the very end of a project they are also a helpful process improvement tool that can and should be used throughout the Project Life Cycle especially after reaching a project milestone for example right after implementing the tablets and testing them with beta users is a great time for a sauce and Spoon retrospective you could celebrate parts of the project that have gone well so far and identify opportunities for improvement as the project moves toward upcoming Milestones retrospectives have lots of benefits they encourage team building by providing team members with the opportunity to understand different perspectives within the team they also facilitate improved collaboration on future projects and they promote positive changes in future procedures and processes because a retrospective is a specific type of meeting it's crucial to have an agenda to help guide the discussion organize the meeting and document learnings as the project manager you need to manage the tone of the conversation make sure that every team member feels included and identify details that will be recorded in the retrospective document for future reference in other words It's Your Role to facilitate a respectful and productive retrospective discussion that recognizes successes and areas for improvement let's recap the main ideas a retrospective is a workshop or meeting that gives project teams time to reflect on a project three main purposes of retrospectives are to encourage team building facilitate improved collaboration and promote positive changes and remember it's your role as project manager to facilitate a respectful and productive retrospective discussion that recognizes successes and areas for improvement in this next activity you'll practice preparing for a retrospective by creating a list that includes successes and areas for improvement once you're done with this video you'll observe how Peta interacts with her team members as she conducts the retrospective and add information to your document see you soon hey again in the last video we reviewed the importance of retrospectives now it's time to figure out how to deal with the sometimes tricky aspects of retrospectives in this video I'll take you through effective techniques you can use to address a lack of participation during a retrospective low participation can prevent a project team from making meaningful process improvements but if you've got methods you can rely on to help boost participation you'll be more prepared to lead any kind of retrospective throughout your career in project management after this video you'll review supporting materials that will demonstrate how Peta handles lack of participation in a retrospective you'll be able to identify and add several new details to your retrospective document first let's just say it retrospectives can be a bit intimidating when you host a retrospective with your team you draw attention not only to project successes but also to challenges if a team feels uncomfortable voicing challenges then they might not be very eager to participate during a retrospective discussion so before jumping into any retrospective make sure to ask yourself does your team seem likely to contribute to the discussion if you feel like the answer might be no follow along as we discuss a few useful techniques we use at Google to encourage participation in a retrospective one technique I use frequently to encourage participation is to create a safe environment for the team to create a safe environment you might open the meeting by adopting a policy of what said here stays here what's learned here leaves remind the team that the retrospective is a meeting free from stakeholders or customers and that it's a safe space where the team can speak directly about problems to help increase participation it can also be helpful to model the kind of participation you'd like to elicit from your team so if you're trying to help your team feel comfortable speaking candidly about project successes and challenges you could set the tone by starting the discussion with your own successes and challenges before the meeting try preparing a few examples of tasks or processes you know you could have handled better if you know that you made a mistake on a project task say it out loud for example maybe you made a paperwork error that slowed down tablet delivery by two business days be honest about your mistake and talk about how you'll avoid similar errors going forward when you admit to your own mistakes you make it okay for the rest of your team to share their mistakes too another useful technique to encourage participation is to pose a group question and ask for individual responses for example you could ask your team members to each think of one success and one Challenge from the project so far then ask each team member to share their responses if you find that a question you've asked doesn't get the kind of response you'd hoped for try phrasing it in a different way for example if questions like what went well and what went wrong don't get you the responses you'd like try Alternatives maybe ask something like what about this project should we start stop and continue and finally if your team is participating but contributing only very recent successes and challenges it may be helpful to review the project timeline this is a technique for encouraging teammates to think further back in the Project Life Cycle to identify successes and challenges if you remind your team of the project timeline you can refresh their memories and Spark more discussion about the entire project let's do a quick recap low participation during a retrospective can prevent a project team from making meaningful process improvements some effective techniques to encourage participation include establish a safe environment for the team model the kind of participation you'd like to elicit from your team pose a group question and ask for individual responses and review the project timeline in the upcoming activity as you review the supporting materials you'll get a look at how Peta handles lack of participation in a retrospective and you'll add some content to your accompanying retrospective document after you've finished the activity meet me in the next video to discuss techniques for encouraging accountability bye for now in the last video we explored ways you can address a lack of participation during a retrospective in this video I'll share some techniques for encouraging accountability during a retrospective accountability refers to being responsible for decisions associated with a project or task accountability is a really important part of a productive retrospective if a retrospective is meant to serve as a helpful tool for process Improvement then participants in the retrospective need to be honest about how the team could have performed better only then can the team figure out how to improve in the future knowing how to push a team to take accountability for a given project will be a huge benefit to you and your career after this video you'll review supporting materials that demonstrate how Peta handles individual and team accountability in a retrospective then you'll identify and add new details to your retrospective document before we move on I want to make one point clear accountability and blame are two very different things and only accountability belongs in a retrospective blame shuts people down instead of empowering them to share honestly accountability doesn't involve assigning blame to specific team members for mistakes instead it encourages the team to think holistically about mistakes and challenges in identifies solutions for the future another benefit of accountability is that it encourages ownership when a team member feels ownership over an aspect of the project they may be more motivated throughout the project to ensure that aspect meets quality standards and helps the project progress towards the goal so let's discuss some great techniques you can use to encourage accountability during a retrospective one technique I like to use is to come prepared with specific challenges to discuss as a group this can be especially helpful if you find that your team wants to focus discussion only on Project successes to encourage accountability call attention to a specific challenge maybe the sauce and Spoon kitchen managers provided feedback that they felt left out of decisions made by the general managers during a retrospective you might share this feedback with the group and ask the team to help figure out problems that led to this feedback another useful technique is to turn team complaints into Smart Action items you've learned that project goals should be smart which means that they're specific measurable attainable relevant and time-bound but here's another tip action items can be smart too if you find that your team does more complaining than problem solving pick a complaint and turn it into a Smart Action item for example let's go back to our example where the kitchen managers feel out of the loop on General decision making as a project manager it might be a good idea to add an action item to invite the kitchen manager to the weekly staff check-in meetings if you want to take it one step further you can even add a five minute agenda item for the kitchen manager to discuss issues and get feedback then you can make a plan to check in two months to find out if they're still feeling this way or if they feel more included by showing your team how to turn complaints into action you can help your team become more solution oriented when it comes to encouraging accountability it's also a good idea to push the team to identify its role in creating a given challenge your team might seem inclined to focus only on challenges they feel they had no control or influence over like a late delivery from your tablet supplier for example when discussing challenges that the team seems reluctant to take responsibility for you can help your team think about the series of events that led to a given challenge then you might push your team to identify a moment in that series of events when they missed an opportunity to recognize and address the problem let's go back to the tablet supplier delivery issue maybe if someone on the team had been assigned the responsibility of managing the tablet supplier vendor early on in the project they might have set up weekly check-in calls with the vendor this could have given the restaurants the foresight to plan for and work around the missed delivery when you help your team identify its own role in creating challenges you encourage reflection that might lead to helpful insights and ideas for process improvements as your team talks about various challenges they faced make sure criticism remains constructive constructive criticism is a respectful form of feedback that is intended to help the recipient improve a piece of work if criticism of a portion of the project begins to go from constructive to unhelpful or harsh it'll be your role as the project manager to redirect the conversation to change the subject try to detach the challenge being discussed from any specific person in the room you can do this by steering the conversation toward process improvements that the entire team can learn from let's review the main ideas accountability and blame are two very different things and only accountability belongs in a retrospective accountability refers to being responsible for decisions associated with a project or task accountability is about encouraging the team to think holistically about mistakes and challenges and encouraging ownership some techniques you can use to encourage accountability during a retrospective include come prepared with specific challenges to discuss as a group turn team complaints into Smart Action items push the team to identify its role in creating a given Challenge and detach the challenge being discussed from any specific person in the room in the upcoming activity you'll observe as Peta encourages accountability during retrospectives and you'll keep building out your retrospective document after you've completed the upcoming activity meet me in the next video to discuss techniques for addressing negativity in a retrospective welcome back in the last video we discussed some ways you can encourage accountability in a retrospective in this video you'll learn how to address negativity in a retrospective thoughtfully handling negativity is an important skill you'll need in order to effectively lead productive discussions in the future the ability to guide discussions that break down project performance while maintaining a constructive and positive tone will help you identify and improve problem areas of a specific project after this video you'll observe Peta carefully handled negativity as she leads a retrospective then you'll apply similar techniques as you wrap up your own retrospective document before you do your own retrospective it's important to ask yourself is this conversation likely to feel stressful for the team sometimes the answer will be yes let's talk about why negativity sometimes comes up during retrospective discussions retrospectives are a great way to build trust honesty and direct communication with the team but keep in mind if the environment doesn't feel psychologically safe to the team it's very easy for a retrospective to turn negative negativity can make it more difficult to hold a productive discussion that identifies solutions to project challenges if you sense subtle or even obvious negativity during a retrospective discussion here are some techniques you can use to change the tone of the meeting and guide the team toward a more positive outlook to address team negativity aim to set a positive tone at the start of the meeting kick off by highlighting project successes maybe the team received positive feedback from a stakeholder or you could thank the team for their hard work in reaching a major milestone determine how you'll set the tone of the meeting meeting props can help with this for example you might hand out an even number of green and red index cards to each participant and ask attendees to write successes on the green cards and challenges on the red cards passing out green cards might subtly encourage the team to think of successes in addition to challenges even on teams with a generally positive overall Dynamic it's always possible for negativity to come up so it might be a good idea to try anticipating any potential negativity by meeting one-on-one with team members before the retrospective happens if you get the feeling that one team member is likely to bring a negative attitude to the retrospective try asking yourself a few questions does this person feel insecure about the value they add to this team does this person receive negative feedback on the quality of their work understanding the root of the negativity can help you figure out how to help the person engage with the group in a more positive way for example if you sense the person is feeling insecure you could try reassuring them of their value a single negative voice can derail otherwise productive discussions as the retrospective leader It's Your Role to step in when one person's negativity dominates the conversation to deal with negative participation from an individual team member consider asking team members individually to share their thoughts calling on team members individually does a few things it gives each person room to share challenges it helps them model solution-oriented thinking for their negative team member and it discourages the negative team member from dominating the conversation by responding to every question finally you might call a meeting break a timeout is a great way to help de-escalate the situation it's good to remember that there's no single technique that fits every scenario how you choose to address negativity will depend on the situation let's review to address negativity during a retrospective you can aim to set a positive tone at the start of the meeting determine how you'll set the tone of the meeting consider asking individual team members to share their thoughts rather than posing questions to the group or call a meeting break in the upcoming activity you'll observe Peta by reviewing the supporting materials as she navigates negative situations in the sauce and Spoon team's retrospective then you'll finish your version of the retrospective after you've completed the upcoming activity meet me in the next video to wrap up hi my name is Dana and I'm a massage reliability manager at Google a retrospective is a process that we go through at the end of every project where it helps us to look back and learn about the things that went well the things that went poorly and where we got lucky it's a way for us to see if we can take the lesson that we have learned from a project and then reuse them in the next project most commonly we do retrospective at the end of projects but then sometimes if we're in the middle of the project and we find ourselves in the need to make decisions we would collect a lot of the data that we would collect for an end of project retrospective and do that in the middle of the project typical retrospectives have to be positive they have to be blameless and the goal is to continuously improve ourselves that our team and our processes if we are approaching this with the correct mindset we are asking all the people who participated in the projects what are their individual takes on their parts of the project and on the larger scale of the project and typically these are the people who will then be working with you on the next project one of the failure modes of retrospectives is when people don't really speak up and I see that quite often at Sprint retrospectives where people you know sit there and don't say anything everything is fine and that might be for two main reasons one they don't really care about improving much because it's it's fine they tolerate it it's the way that it is but the second one is the one that I am more concerned with is the lack of psychological safety when they don't feel like they can actually say what they think and have that result be well taken by the people in the room we need to make sure that our team has a safe space to bring up these topics that we can actually change and we can change a lot of things in our day-to-day and how projects are being managed and how communication happens at what projects we pick and choose from when we do planning on an ongoing basis so making sure that these venues are accessible to our team members kind of assures them that they have a stake at what what happens next and they can be impactful by virtue of what they say in postmortems because at least in the scope of the team we will listen we care and you can make a difference foreign hey there in this module we moved from the planning phase of the Project Life Cycle to the execution phase you practiced quality management by defining quality standards for your project then you evaluated how successfully the project standards were being met and presented your findings to stakeholders you also created a retrospective document we also went deeper into some Concepts you learned earlier and introduced a few new approaches methods and techniques along the way you navigated negotiations escalations and conversations with people in different roles with different priorities and personalities and finally you picked up techniques for handling retrospectives when they don't go as smoothly as planned you learned how to navigate through lack of accountability lack of participation and negativity in retrospectives which helped you draft your own retrospective for sauce and Spoon to add to your portfolio of artifacts great job now it's time to learn even more meet you back here for the next set of lessons hey there in the upcoming activities we'll continue the project execution phase and then transition to the closing phase of the Project Life Cycle you'll demonstrate your ability to communicate with stakeholders by writing an email about a problem to a senior stakeholder you'll also demonstrate your ability to wrap up a project by creating a closeout report to present the project impact to Executive stakeholders as you've learned throughout this program communication is a vital part of effective project management that's why in the coming activities we'll have you practice observing communication between the sauce and Spoon team based on those observations you'll execute various communication techniques including drafting emails to stakeholders creating a closeout report and writing an executive summary at the end of this course you'll take what you've learned and create your own personal impact report to reflect on your experience with this program ready to get started meet me in the next video to discuss communicating about project problems hi there so far in this course you've had the chance to practice communicating about key aspects of the project like deliverables scope timeline and budget in this video I'll discuss how to communicate project problems in the upcoming activity you'll learn how to synthesize a project problem into a one sentence summary for a senior stakeholder combining information from multiple sources like conversations emails and documents is a skill that project managers use frequently it's helpful to reference when leading conversations in meetings writing documentation and emailing team members regarding the project strong communication involves combining information and potential employers may want you to prove you're capable of doing so effectively the problem summary you'll write in the upcoming activity will be included in the practice email you'll create later on okay let's discuss project problems every project has its problems and communicating those problems is a part of your job as a project manager usually project problems are small enough to address within the immediate project team but occasionally you'll need to escalate problems in proposed solutions to a senior stakeholder for their input and guidance on next steps stakeholders shouldn't have to read different project documents or consult multiple email threads in order to understand the project problem instead it's your responsibility as a project manager to synthesize relevant information from multiple sources into a coherent summary that clearly communicates the issue to write an effective one-sentence overview of a problem you'll need to synthesize information from various sources like emails presentations meeting notes and more synthesizing requires gathering information from multiple sources and using those points to help form your own analysis for example it wouldn't be very helpful to send a stakeholder a link to your project plan because it doesn't give them a thorough understanding of what the problem entails to determine which information is relevant and belongs in a one to two sentence overview for your stakeholders ask yourself how can I communicate a decision in a way that makes it easy for them to decide for instance let's say the project plan has five tasks overdue because of supplier delays and this may ultimately affect the final deliverable of your project you've been working on creating a few solutions to mitigate this issue rather than sending your stakeholders a link to the plan and pointing out all of the overdue tasks you might summarize the problem by telling them a number of tasks have run past their due date because of supplier issues so we recommend hiring a second supplier to hit the deliverable date otherwise we'll need to push the launch date back this way you present the problem succinctly to your stakeholders and offer a solution this allows stakeholders to agree with your solution disagree with your solution or provide one of their own either way you've communicated the problem and proposed a solution which is your role as the project manager let's review communicating project problems is a part of your job as a project manager it's also your responsibility to synthesize relevant information from multiple sources into a coherent summary that clearly communicates the issue synthesizing requires gathering information from multiple sources and using those points to help form your own analysis in the upcoming activity you'll practice communicating project Problems by writing your one to two sentence overview of a problem with the sauce and Spoon tablet pilot you'll write this overview using information you'll synthesize from supporting materials after you've completed the activity meet me in the next video to learn more about project problems [Music] hi my name is Chris I'm a program manager at Google I work on search so the type of programs that I manage on search in particular are building features for millions of users all around the world on many surfaces languages and and information needs users all over the world have I can't emphasize enough that problem solving is quintessentially the most important thing we do as program managers it is the job whether it's a scope problem you know something is is out of the scope or the scope is increasing or decreasing whether it's a budgetary problem like you don't have enough funds or too many funds we don't have enough people too many people wrong skill sets of people whether it's a timeline problem these are all problems fundamentally at the today we're here to solve so our job is to identify it figure out a framework this is around tools and our processes and methodologies come up with a proposed solution and then get mine for that solution and the only way you're going to do that is to put something principally and organize together with these sort of tools and techniques and methods I try to always understand what is the root cause of the problem itself typically what you're experiencing is sort of a red herring or an outcome of the underlying problem and so always debugging the initial underlying systemic issue or the the process issue or the the tooling issue or the technical issue whatever it may be into the hood is actually the first step once you're able to sort of identify and get enough information as to what what that problem is and how you might solve it then objectively putting a plan together based on those inputs is actually how you reach a decision which is your ultimate outcome many times these these sort of Charters or scope docs or meeting notes or trackers or documents you know these artifacts that we we create or we manage on a day-to-day basis as part of our job are is the job but that's actually not the job those are just mechanisms and tools and methods to help you do the real job which is you know running skill scope running programs convincing people driving organizational change you know solving strategic initiatives these things are just elements that help you navigate those problems as opposed to being the problems themselves I think that's really really important takeaway I think this is the thing that we practice most at Google in particular is trying to solve more complex more strategic more holistic larger more complex problems on a day-to-day basis if you're new to this space you haven't had the opportunity to work on these big problems you know how do you build that problem solving expertise um whether it's a hobby whether it's you know building a new piece of software for yourself or your friend whether it's you know another passion that you have in another industry all of these are great ways to build skills and opportunities to just solve problems every industry every business has them and there are lots of ways to solve these and build those skills foreign welcome back in the last video you practiced communicating project Problems by writing a brief summary of an issue affecting sauce and spoons tablet pilot in this video we'll revisit a concept from a previous course on objectives and key results or okrs and their connection to projects then in the upcoming activity you'll connect your problem statement to sauce and spoons okrs the ability to identify a project problem's impact on your organization's okrs will help you determine and communicate the appropriate level of risk and urgency of the problem objectives and key results are a tool for organization-wide goal setting okrs combine a goal and a metric to determine a measurable outcome let's break okrs down the objectives portion of the okr defines what needs to be achieved which is similar to a goal the key results portion of the okr defines how an organization team or individual will tangibly measure their success in meeting the objective for example one of saucin spoon's objectives might be to prioritize customer needs and wants so the key result that indicates they've reached this objective could be addressing feedback from customer reviews within 24 hours earlier in this course you learned that okrs can be a helpful reference point when determining if a project goal is relevant to the needs of an organization if a project in its goals help contribute to the larger okrs of an organization that's a good sign that your project is relevant and worth the time and money required to complete it okrs can be a kind of shared language for an organization here at Google for example every project big or small aims to contribute in some tangible way to our organization-wide okrs struggling to determine how a project might help us reach our okrs can be a strong indication that we should reevaluate the project as a whole okrs can be really helpful to reference when communicating with stakeholders about project problems you can make it clear to a stakeholder why a given problem needs to be addressed by identifying the specific ways in which that problem might impact an organization's wider okrs you can also point to them to explain to stakeholders why a problem is worth their attention stakeholders especially those who hold senior positions within an organization often have a lot of work to focus on even beyond your project ing a solution to a company's okrs can catch a stakeholder's limited attention let's take the sauce and Spoon objective of we seek to run an efficient profitable business model or we seek to prioritize our customer needs as you fine-tune the problem summary you began in the previous activity you can add a sentence to explain how the issue jeopardizes the sauce and Spoon mission to run an efficient business model and meet customer needs let's review in this video you reviewed okrs or objectives and key results defined okrs as a tool for organization-wide goal setting and learned how they're helpful when communicating with stakeholders about project problems in the upcoming activity you'll practice drawing connections between okrs and project problems you'll use what you learn from the supporting materials to write a sentence that connects your problem summary with sauce and spoons okrs after you've completed the activity meet me in the next video where we'll discuss composing emails to senior stakeholders in the last video we did a quick review of objectives and key results we also discussed how connecting a project problem to an organization's okrs can help convince a stakeholder to take that problem seriously in this video we'll review a few best practices for writing emails to get decisions you need from stakeholders then in the upcoming activity you'll use these best practices to compose an email to sauce and Spoon stakeholders outlining a project problem and requesting assistance as a project manager identifying and managing issues as part of the job and if an issue is big enough to escalate to a senior stakeholder then it's probably an issue you're hoping to resolve as soon as possible email Can Be an Effective tool for quickly escalating a problem and asking for a decision from a stakeholder on how to proceed that's why it's really important to ensure that your email is written in a way that effectively captures a stakeholder's attention and gets you the response you need there are a few best practices to keep in mind to make sure your email doesn't get ignored first think about what's most important to your stakeholder often senior stakeholders will be more interested in a problem's potential impact on an organization than its impact on a single project this is where connecting project problems to an organization's okrs comes in handy identify how a problem will impact your organization as a whole and ensure that you clearly communicate that impact within the first two sentences of your email once you've determined what's most important to your stakeholder you'll be better prepared to draft an effective email remember to write a clear subject line that briefly States what your email is about it's also helpful to include language in your subject line that indicates what you'd like your stakeholder to do upon reading your email do you need them to review a document you've attached to the email try adding the words please review to your subject line is this an urgent email that you need a quick response to then you might try adding the word urgent to the subject line stakeholders especially those who hold senior positions within an organization usually receive many emails throughout the day including terms like urgent timely decision needed or please review can help draw attention to your message and make clear the action you'd like your stakeholder to take and remember to also keep the body of the email brief and to the point when communicating about a project problem to a busy senior stakeholder your email should briefly outline the problem explain how it might impact an organization's goals and clearly State the decision you need from your stakeholder in order to proceed that's it write one or two sentences that summarize your problem along with another sentence that identifies how the problem may impact your organization's okrs if there are documents or additional information that your stakeholder might need to review to make an informed decision consider including hyperlinks or attachments with the information in your email once you've finished writing your email be sure to proofread it for misspellings grammatical errors and inaccurate hyperlinks use spell check and other grammar check functions in your email application or online to help you make sure everything looks good let's review when writing an email to stakeholders make sure to do the following think about what's most important to your stakeholder write a clear subject line keep the body of the email brief and proofread for misspellings grammatical errors and inaccurate hyperlinks someday when you have to communicate issues to stakeholders in real life situations you'll see how managing tracking and communicating project problems is a huge part of running the project in the upcoming activity you'll apply email writing best practices when you compose an email to a stakeholder of the sauce and Spoon tablet pilot foreign [Music] the executive productivity advisor at Google my role is to work one-on-one with Executives in a coaching format in order to help them with time management meeting management effective email communication and organization when you're communicating with a stakeholder you really want to think about the absolute important information that they need to see so you might give more details when you're speaking with a co-worker or a teammate but when you're summarizing for an executive you really want to make sure you keep it concise you want to do some work beforehand to figure out what's the best way to get them information or to get a decision from them some things that can be helpful with that is asking someone like their executive assistant or someone that's worked with them before asking them what is their preferred communication style what types of presentations do they like to see what information do they typically need in order to make decisions and by doing that work ahead of time and asking around you're setting yourself up for Success especially if you only have a limited amount of time or a short amount of communication that you're able to get to the stakeholder it's important to remember that while you have multiple stakeholders or different projects it is going to be different how each of them like to communicate or like to receive information one example is I worked with a couple of managers on a project and both of them were stakeholders one was very talkative and loved to brainstorm through things he wanted meetings with me pretty frequently and he wanted to hash out all of the details the other stakeholder was completely the opposite thinking about how to tailor the same information the same decision-making process to each person that you need information or stakeholder that you're working with is really helpful and important to remember I like to look at a presentation I'm giving to to a stakeholder and think what are the probably the five questions they're going to ask me and then I have that additional detail in the appendix or ready to go so that I'm able to make the most of their time another good tip is when you come to a stakeholder with a problem or an issue you also come with your proposed solution or possible solutions thinking about not just asking what do I do but saying I think maybe we should do a but we could also do B and C what do you think that gives them a starting point and they feel like you've done the background work and you know the problem really well if you're sending an update via email you really want to make sure just like a meeting that you're using the email in the best way possible something I like to do and that we do often at Google is called tldr at the top which means too long didn't read it's kind of a funny way of saying there may be a lot of information but here's the one sentence you need to know from the email so having some sort of summary at the top similar to that saying here's an update on Project a or need decision or action requested or deadline by that type of communication right up front gives the stakeholder the ability to know what's coming in the email then you want to think about how to be as concise as possible when you're developing the email so using things like bullets highlighting or Bolding things that need to pop out to them reiterating your ask at the end of the email including any sort of deadlines that you have that's really helpful so that if people are scanning or if they go back to read your email they have all the information that they need including links attachments make it as easy as possible for them to go through your email and reply to you with the information that you need foreign hello there by now you've been with Peta through some of the most essential pieces of managing and delivering a project you've followed her as she set goals navigated through the planning process managed quality escalated issues to stakeholders and more great work we've reached the point in the project where sauce and Spoon has launched the tablets after passing quality standards and most of the project manager's work is done in this video we'll discuss one of the last elements of project management closing out the project and showcasing its impact before Peta can consider her project completed she has a few more tasks to take care of one of those tasks is to create a closeout report the closeout report is a great opportunity to compile all links and documentation into one place a practice we like to call good project hygiene the closeout report is also a time for reflection on your team's performance and it helps your team ensure every task was completed a closeout report confirms the project is done summarizes deliverables success metrics feedback Lessons Learned and next steps and serves as a reference document for the organization if a follow-up project is required or a similar project is initiated having these artifacts in one place will help these future projects run smoothly and should another similar project occur future project managers will be set up for Success if they have meticulous information on past projects an effective closeout report helps ensure that everyone is satisfied with the work that was done finalizes the efforts of the team and lets people move on to new projects and tasks and increases the impact of the team's work through communication with other people who may not have been as involved in the project in addition to serving as a reference document for the organization a project closeout report is a document created by project managers for project managers future project managers and anyone interested in the project elements and artifacts ideally you want anyone unfamiliar with the project to be able to read it and get a full understanding of what the project was why it was done and how well the project went in fact the project closeout report you will complete in this course should be able to stand alone for your potential employers you should be able to give them this document as a sample of your work they should understand the context of the sauce and Spoon tablet rollout project and get a demonstration of your ability to synthesize and communicate information clearly in a project closeout report you'll start by adding your project summary in this section you'll need to include the objectives another way to think about this what was the desired result for this project next is methodology or approach make sure to denote which methodology or approach your team used is your team using waterfall agile lean maybe a combination of these or something else one of the most important aspects of the closeout report is the performance Baseline here you'll describe the actual results and compare them to the objectives laid out in the planning and execution phases you'll compare specifications like actual project schedule versus planned project schedule actual project costs versus planned project cost and plan scope versus delivered scope there's even a handy notes column so you can explain any discrepancies or issues that arose the remaining sections are key accomplishments and outcomes Lessons Learned next steps and project documentation archive when filling out these sections being thorough is key we've included questions to help guide you and ensure you're being detailed enough but feel free to take it one step further in your own Closeouts by getting even more specific and when you're filling out these sections keep in mind that the purpose of the closeout is to compile and archive the most important aspects of the project let's review when writing a project closeout make sure to include the following project summary methodology performance Baseline outcomes Lessons Learned next steps and add a project documentation archive hopefully I've explained just how important the closeout report is for a project if a project is repeated or a similar project is initiated this important documentation which includes your learnings and project outcomes will set future project managers up for success in the next activity you'll review supporting materials to finish a closeout report for the sauce and Spoon tablet pilot in the last video in activity you learned about keeping good project hygiene by creating a project closeout report now we'll discuss a similar concept called impact reporting and you'll learn how to write an executive summary the purpose of creating an impact report is to show others the value that's been added to your project usually it's in the form of a presentation Guided by a deck or slideshow you've created unlike a detailed closeout report that's designed for future project managers or other readers interested in the project details an impact report is typically created for senior stakeholders or project sponsors who weren't involved in the day-to-day details of the project reporting your project impact is key for a few reasons it can help you to analyze results to adapt and improve Services motivate staff and Senior stakeholders by celebrating achievements build trust and credibility with supporters sponsors funders and anyone benefiting from the project and share lessons with similar organizations let's get into the elements that should go into an impact report one of the most important pieces of an impact report is the executive summary it's where you can highlight the key points of the project for your stakeholders an executive summary is a few sentences to a paragraph that describe the Project's purpose and outcome it provides an overview of the main points of a larger report it's written to share with the stakeholders who might not have time to review the entire report so think of the executive summary as a highlight reel for your project the purpose is to give senior stakeholders a concise and strong description of positive outcomes within the project without giving them too much information or being too vague when creating an executive summary ask yourself this question if an executive didn't have time to read all of the project documentation and only had time to read this executive summary would they be able to understand the project highlights your executive summary should aim to answer questions like how effectively was the project delivered and what did we learn from it in addition to asking yourself some foundational questions it's a good idea to review your smart goals your business case and your project Charter to help you write the executive summary these will help you reflect on and identify the most important aspects of your project which are likely tied to key accomplishments and positive outcomes one useful tip you might find helpful when creating an executive summary is to actually draft the rest of the impact report first this will help you hone in on the most relevant information to include in your summary in this impact report template you'll see slides for results what worked and next steps in these slides you should aim to describe your project in detail using things like graphs and images where applicable to tell the story of the Project's success the more detailed you get in these slides the easier it'll be to pull out and identify the highlights and add them to your executive summary after you've drafted those sections of the impact report you're ready to draft the executive summary you'll want to include elements of the following information project Vision here you'll specify what the purpose of the report was what need is the project fulfilling key accomplishments this is your opportunity to discuss which activities tasks and Milestones helped you define success what are the main highlights in the impact report did your project increase profitability what value did the project add talk about those here Lessons Learned this is where you'll talk about potential improvements how will you change future processes for the better okay let's explore an example of an executive summary say you just completed a project to launch a new money saving app that automatically sends money from its users checking accounts into designated savings accounts bi-monthly the amount sent from checking to savings is determined by how much money you have in your checking account at the time of withdrawal plus a few other variables like the frequency of deposits your beta users loved the app because it helped them build a savings account without even thinking about it so let's start with our project's Vision it might say something like our goal was to help users get ahead financially by creating an algorithm-based automatic deposit system that pulls money into a savings account now let's talk about what the project accomplished these are your key accomplishments so you might say as we prepared to launch we helped a thousand beta users save over three hundred thousand dollars in just six months this proved the use case and need for our app and in key accomplishments you might also want to include financial highlights so we could say something like by charging users three dollars per month with a thousand users in six months we netted eighteen thousand dollars finally it's good to talk about what things could have been done differently include Lessons Learned by saying something like the main feedback received from our beta testing was that our users wanted more frequent updates about when their money was being transferred We'll add that in our update okay let's review the main ideas we've covered in this video reporting your impact can help you to analyze results to adapt and improve services motivate staff and Senior stakeholders through celebrating achievements build trust and credibility with supporters sponsors funders and those benefiting from the project and share lessons with similar organizations and we also covered executive summaries and how they're essential to highlighting the key elements of your project to stakeholders now that you've got a better idea of what an impact report might entail it's time to write your own executive summary we've built out an impact report so you can get a sense of what a typical report might look like all you have to do is fill in the executive summary based on your new insights hi again and congrats on reaching the end of this course so far you've used the skills you learned in previous videos to execute the entire life cycle of our example project with sauce and Spoon first in the initiation phase you learned how to create a project Charter and then you identified project goals and deliverables you demonstrated how to conduct a stakeholder analysis to prepare for negotiations with stakeholders then you went into the planning phase where you determined tasks in order to accomplish the goals set forth you learn the value of holding team brainstorms in order to ensure all tasks were included and we explored some techniques for creating accurate time estimates for each of those tasks as you moved from the planning to the execution phase you started executing tasks as part of quality management where you set quality standards and measured quality with user surveys next up was the closing phase where you learned how to connect problems to project goals by creating okrs and you learned the importance of a closeout report finally you learned about impact reporting and how to write a great executive summary so that your senior stakeholders can quickly understand the impact of your project in the next video we'll wrap up the whole program and apply the knowledge you've gained to taking the next step in your project management career see you soon you've come such a long way in this course let's take a moment to celebrate your successes in growth in project management we call this process personal closing reporting similar to what you've done in the retrospective documents and closeout reports you've created throughout this program let's take a moment to reflect on what you just completed the Google project management certificate let's start by listing your key accomplishments think all the way back to what you first started the program up until now what challenges have you overcome throughout this process maybe there were particular lessons or concepts that you didn't think you'd ever understand but you surprised yourself when you finally figured them out maybe you overcame challenges in your personal life while taking this course if you have a full-time job but still found the time to complete this course that's a major win take a moment to write some of these down then reflect on any lessons you've learned maybe you were having a busy week and you feel like you didn't spend enough time on one particular lesson you might have wanted to read it more thoroughly because you felt it was important maybe you learned that you loved managing stakeholders but you didn't enjoy budgeting and procurement as much take note of those learnings next you'll want to think about what steps you can take from here to advance your project management career this could be contacting recruiting companies or asking your current boss to give you more responsibility maybe it's setting a goal to spruce up your resume and apply to five project management jobs a week write those next steps down then take that a step further and add your goals to a timeline as if they're part of a project you're managing like we've said time and time again project management is part of your everyday life then finally add your own executive summary rather than the executive summary you learned about earlier this is an executive summary of your experiences in the program when you're writing your executive summary describe your experience with this program as a whole take note of your successes and how you plan to advance your career in project management moving forward this should feel inspiring and fun so feel free to include all kinds of highlights maybe you scored high on a certain quiz and you want to Pat yourself on the back for that maybe you're able to apply some of the concepts you learned to the planning of your family reunion maybe you learned a lot about a specific topic that you had never researched before and you really enjoyed it whatever it is be sure to highlight it here and with that you're ready to complete your personal closing report take this report with you as a project artifact to look back on your experience with us throughout this program just like you would for your team at the end of a project celebrate your successes and strive to always keep growing and improving that brings us to the end of the program but it's just the beginning of your journey in project management take a moment to celebrate yourself and all you've achieved not only did you remain diligent in your search for new information and knowledge you also have a portfolio of work to show potential employers no matter what comes next you should feel confident that you have the skills you need to be an amazing project manager I can't wait to see what you do congratulations and good luck if you've been following along throughout the entire program I hope you're excited to update your resume explore your target role and build your Professional Network your next step is to prepare for the job interview first we'll discuss how to create an elevator pitch you can use for different situations during your job search chances are you've heard the phrase tell me about yourself for situations like this it's helpful to come up with an elevator pitch that can lead you into a longer conversation about your experience and reveal opportunities for your next step an elevator pitch is a quick professional summary of yourself typically it's designed for you to present in 60 seconds or less conveniently the time it may take for you to go up from the first floor of a building to the 50th over the years my elevator pitch has changed dramatically I used to think that I needed to have the most polished pitch but over time what I found is that my elevator pitch needed to be the most authentic for instance I used to say things like I love project management because I like to make order out of Chaos which is true but generic today I say I don't just love project management but I'm kind of in love with project management which is also true because I help make dreams come to life so as you're preparing your elevator pitch it's helpful to come up with an authentic story about your passion and why project management excites you really take time to think about why you want a specific type of role or what draws you to a specific industry what genuinely excites you about the job these are the details that make for a great elevator pitch to craft a strong elevator pitch break it down into three parts who you are what skills and experiences you have and what you want start with who you are introduce yourself and speak in a conversational tone for example you might say something like I started my career in project management a few years ago and recently I've been drawn to the gaming space I've always been good at bringing people together and working towards common goals my experience successfully leading teams and managing new app developments led me to look for opportunities in the industry summarize what you do using your experiences and background that are relevant to the people you're speaking to for example try writing one to three bullets focused on what you did in your last job or in another experience and what you enjoyed if you come up with more than one to three that's fine you'll tailor it so all of the Pieces come together this might sound something like I have a military background which taught me the value of organization or I speak three languages which help me to relate to many different cultures to I try to hand at a support role But realize that I enjoy driving the execution of a project more finally explain what you want this part of the pitch is unique to the setting and the person you're pitching to if you're trying to connect online with somebody who works at a company you're interested in you may ask for a phone conversation or a short meeting if you're interviewing you may ask for the job opportunity be sure to highlight the value you bring and what you have to offer and remember you're asking someone to take time out of their busy day to spend time with you although most people love to help they have constraints with their time so you'll want to give them a reason why they should help you instead of someone else do you share common backgrounds do you have a story that may be interesting to them commonalities or interesting facts will help them to Remember You your elevator pitch will change over time but once you create one you can make adjustments you can use it while writing a cover letter networking at an event and interviewing for a job next step we'll discuss ways to prepare for an interview now that you've landed your elevator pitch it's time to start preparing for some of the questions you can expect to come up in your interviews you'll want to think about the types of experiences and projects you'd like your interviewer to know about while you may not know exactly what questions will be asked it's important to feel prepared to discuss a few scenarios that can be applied to common interview questions interviewers will commonly ask a variety of Behavioral hypothetical and factual questions behavioral questions are those that allow the interviewee to share an example when they had to practice a particular skill you can think of these as the tell me about a time when questions interviewers that ask hypothetical questions will typically present a scenario to you and then ask you how you would go about working through that experience these questions are more difficult to prepare for because there are infinite scenarios for an interviewer to present but we'll talk through ways you can land these questions confidently and finally you may see some factual questions come up in an interview factual questions aim to assess you on your knowledge of basic project management skills for example what are the steps to initiating a project how do you know when you can move on to the next step in fact these questions might look familiar to some of the assessments you've completed throughout the certificate program behavioral hypothetical and factual questions aim to assess Your Role related knowledge basically an interviewer wants to know if you have the skills to perform well in the role your responses to these questions will assess how you prioritize competing deadlines if you can effectively manage budget and workload and how you work with others for example when preparing for an upcoming interview think about the common project manager skills that a company is looking for by reviewing job descriptions then think about the experiences you've had that really showcase those skills it may be a past work experience a school project or an activity you completed in this program it's important that you provide clear responses to your interviewer so we recommend the star method star stands for situation task action and result and it's a great way to organize your response following a story like structure let's break these down further first you begin with the situation for example if your interviewer asked you tell me about a time when you had a project deliverable that was not going to meet high quality expectations what did you do using the star method you'll want to explain the situation in the experience you'll be using to answer their question it's important to share the right amount of context while you want them to understand the complexities you were dealing with sharing everyone's individual role may be unnecessary to share for the purpose of the question now that you've set the scene you'll need to speak about the specifics what was the task or your involvement or responsibility in the scenario what deliverable were you assigned to complete what was the quality you were aiming for next you'll provide more detail what action or actions did you take this is where you really want to highlight your contributions when did you realize your deliverable was not meeting the quality standards you were aiming for what was your reaction to this and what decisions did you make to course correct who did you partner with and how did you communicate this to your manager or team this part of your response may take up the most time to cover as you can highlight multiple skills here but make sure to keep a clear and structured response the final part of your response should be focused on the result here you should discuss the outcome from the decisions you made and the impact you had and in some cases especially if you're sharing an experience that came with challenges it may make some sense to share the lessons you've learned finally where possible use data to reinforce your response practicing the Star method in your responses and preparing for a few scenarios in advance will help you feel more confident going into an interview let's cover a simple example oppose the interview question is tell me about a time when you faced a challenge during implementation I'd start with the situation we were working on launching a new internal support tool in my region by the end of the year it was crucial to have it launched before everyone took end-of-year vacation but we were facing delays due to a lengthy stakeholder sign-off process then I'd move into this task portion I was responsible for managing this project end to end and ensuring we rolled out the support tool to all of the employees in my region next the action I took to ensure we would meet our timeline I took a look at the sign off process and noticed it called for hundreds of terms documents pamphlets and video reviews that had to be signed off by every person in the team this wasn't the appropriate level of detail needed from these stakeholders or a valuable use of their time I summarize the areas of concern and opportunity that the stakeholders needed to approve and created a condensed review process as a result we were able to mitigate the delays in the sign off and launch the tool on time in December and while coming prepared with responses is important interviewing is not just about answering questions it's a conversation between you and the interviewer to learn more about the role and see if you can Envision yourself in that job before your interview you should also do some research into the company what are some questions that come to mind do you want to know more about the company culture are you looking to find out what types of projects you'd be managing what does success look like for someone new in this role employers know that you have questions in fact that's what they're expecting as your interviewer is responding to your questions listen and ask any follow-ups so they know what's important to you and so you learn more about what it'd be like working in that role ultimately the most important thing is to be prepared for an interview that means spending time thinking through experiences that showcase your skills practicing how you'd like to structure your responses and preparing questions you'd like to ask your interviewer this will also help your confidence which can show up in your demeanor and go a long way in the next video we'll chat through tips for interviewing remotely see you there in this video we'll talk through some tips for interviewing remotely you may have spent time practicing scenarios to discuss and putting together questions to ask your interviewer but it's also good to have a plan for remote interviews while in-person interviews usually provide an opportunity to explore the office and meet different employees remote interviews are very popular as video conferencing technology and remote work has expanded over the years it's important to remember that remote interviews take the same amount of preparation as a face-to-face interview instead of checking traffic in advance to make sure you arrive on time you'll be deciding the best quiet space to take the interview and make sure your surroundings are comfortable remote interviews may come in the form of a phone or video conference for many roles it's common for an interview process to be done in two or more rounds of interviews some companies prefer to start with a quick phone interview to get in touch with candidates and hear more about their background and do an initial screening to be sure their skills and experience are aligned with the job requirements for phone interviews make sure you are ready for the call 15 to 30 minutes in advance while it's unlikely you'll get a phone call 30 minutes early scheduling time to minimize distractions is important decide where you feel most comfortable taking the phone call and be sure to minimize distractions turning off phone alerts and other devices while talking to the interviewer or recruiter on the phone you can have notes in front of you perhaps your resume or scenarios written down that can help you remember things you'd like to highlight on the call another tip is don't forget to smile it may sound silly since your interviewer can't see you on the other end of the phone but you'll come across as more engaged and confident while talking while some companies will choose to conduct all interviews over the phone typically you'll get a chance to connect with someone over video conference during the interview process technical issues during a video interview can be scary and can easily cause both you and the interviewer to feel flustered so it's a good idea to test your video audio and internet connection well in advance try setting up a practice interview with a friend or Mentor using the same video conferencing technology that your interview will use this way you can get a sense for how you and the other person will look on your screen and you'll be able to confirm your connection will suffice know that technical issues do happen though and you shouldn't be penalized if something comes up during the interview if you get disconnected you can send the recruiter or interview or an email letting them know of the technical glitch and request additional time if needed if you can't hear the interviewer for whatever reason most video conference tools have a chat option you can politely tell them you're experiencing some technical difficulties another thing to prepare for in advance for a video interview is testing your surroundings and finding a comfortable setting ahead of time you don't want your interviewer to be distracted by something going on behind you so find a space that allows the interviewer to just focus on you also find a space with proper lighting and a simple background when talking to your interviewer you should be looking directly into the camera and establish a direct line of sight with them similar to a phone interview interviewing remotely over video allows you to have notes prepared but in this case it's important not to be looking down too frequently it won't be a strong interview if you're simply reading from a scenario you had pre-written it's important that the interview remains a conversation and you're engaging with the person on the other end the best advice here is to prepare whether you're talking to someone over the phone or over a video call spend some time getting comfortable and practicing in advance so you feel more confident when the interview starts interviewing is an exciting time you finally get to show up all the Knowledge and Skills you've gained over the course of this program we've covered so much together and it's just the beginning as you progress through your career you'll continue your Learning Journey we're glad to have been a part of it so how does one apply for their first job in project management your resume make sure it doesn't have any typos or grammar issues definitely having anybody peer review it right friends family can go a long way and then just reading it reading it out loud you'll catch a lot of grammatical and spelling errors that way a resume is your pitch it's you're walking in and you're explaining to somebody why you're the right person for the job so the things that you call out on your resume and the experience that you highlight on your resume shouldn't just be something generic that you copied and pasted from a website that describes what your role should be doing it should be the experience that you would share with somebody in person if you were trying to tell them why you could do the job that you're applying for your resume should highlight the experience that shows why you are valuable to the company that you're asking to hire you for me when interviewing it's super intriguing to hear things that have failed and what you have learned from it and how you apply those learnings going forward you don't have a lot of a lot of but you have life experience life experience is actually what matters most for program managers because it is about people and working with other people is what makes a project manager successful at their role we want to know that you fundamentally can come in and think about how to solve problems and get things done regardless of how many times you may have done that in the past another tip is when preparing for an interview have the artifacts prepared that describe the difference you have made in your past experiences your learnings from those experiences and how you have applied those going forward to prevent other problems I wrote down a large number of questions that could come up tell me about a time when you worked through conflict tell me about a time when you exhibited uh leadership skills despite not being in a leadership position tell me about a time when you were behind on a project and had to communicate a challenge to a stakeholder I listed all those questions and then tried to write one or two sentences about each so that I was prepared when similar questions did arise which they almost always will it may sound cliche but my tip would be just to be yourself try to highlight a lot of your organizational skills your leadership skills and some examples where you've been able to communicate well across different audiences another example of what is useful for interviews is really to think about specific examples of projects read lots of case studies that are available over the internet on projects that derailed and project that went well and what was done from the angle of a program management to set things off in a direction that is correct and and to sort of solve some of the problems that people have encountered along the way learn all the time read as many articles as you can about project management listen to Ted Talks attend meetups online meetups of course if you can and make sure to immerse yourself in the language of the field that you want to join you don't have to be very technical to be a software project manager but you do need to understand what is it about get some rest and if you're an anxious person I know I'm very anxious at times for interviewing I was very anxious for my interviews here for Google going for a jog right or a run or just going outside just anything that can kind of calm your nerves that you generally know that works for you I would say that is to try to be as calm as possible be genuine be yourself I typically don't you know get over indexed on you know overdressing or overplaying a part or pretending that you are what you aren't because look at the end of the day I just want to know how people think and how they'll function and how they'll be a good team player we look for genuine people who want to do good work they're positive people to work with the people who are good team players and fundamentally can just get stuff done enthusiasm matters a lot it matters more than knowledge especially in junior positions when we hire Juniors we're looking for potential we are looking for people who would be motivated to learn and to grow and if you have that spark in your eyes for whatever is it that you're interviewing for that will be visible to whoever's talking to you foreign [Music] congratulations on taking the first step in your journey to becoming a project or a program manager you rock I've never been as proud of you as I am at this moment it was a long journey but you made it great job job well done what you've managed to do is not a trivial thing you completed the course you absolutely crushed it whoa Mazel Tov to all my new project managers glad to add you to the ranks what an important Milestone the first of many we are really happy for you this is a great step that you accomplish in your professional career wow I'm so excited for you you did it fantastic job good work you this was a great accomplishment keep going nicely done you've got this I'm so proud of you congratulations congratulations well done completing this great long journey through your project management course good luck on the start of your career and best of luck on your long journey ahead [Music]