The Key to Focused and Timely Projects
The Key to Focused and Timely Projects
dun dun dun, it is "communication". Wait, wait wait. Most people do it wrong, and yet, most people know it is the right answer. How!
Communicate via Email
I am not talking about pre-project or post-project. I am talking about THE PROJECT. I know we need to communicate via email, but once we have a specific project started, that is not how communication should happen. Instead, do the following:
Use a Project Management Tool
Goes without saying, go for some Project Management tool, it doesn't matter which, use any.
- Jira (I hate Jira, everybody hates Jira, everybody uses Jira)
- Basecamp (Love Basecamp, so many missing features)
- Asana (Haven't used it much)
- etc...
Let's say we opt for Basecamp for the rest of this article.
This is where you SHOULD toss your User Stories, tickets, requirements, bugs, issues, you name it.
The moment you start the project, you hop on a call with teammates and you tell them:
Hello everyone, for any requirement we get from the customer or any bug we find, add them to Basecamp, don't Slack the team, don't email the team, don't report it on a call with the team, ADD IT IN BASECAMP!
Then, you hop on a call with the customer or end user representative/s and you tell them:
Hello everyone, for any requirement you have or any bug you find, add them to Basecamp, don't Slack the team, don't email the team, don't report it on a call with the team, ADD IT IN BASECAMP!
Yea yeah, I know what you are thinking, but there is this scenario where you need to do a discovery call, and that other scenario where the customer is not in Basecamp yet, blah blah blah. The focus here is to log every request or problem in Basecamp, focus.
Communicate about tickets/requests in Basecamp
Now that we have the requirements logged, any communication about that requirement should happen under that requirement. Do not send an email Do not slack the team Do not discuss it on a call
(Okay, I will address this now, you can discuss things on a call or an email for whatever reason, but the moment you get the chance, you write down a summary of what the decision was or the outcome is or a recap on the requirement in Basecamp)
Why keep everything related to that requirement on the requirement?
- You will forget what you have already done
- You will forget what you discussed
- You will forget what you decided
- You will be busy and another teammate will hop on the ticket, and they will have no clue about the progress of the ticket
- That is where the User Story is
- That is where the Acceptance Criteria is
- That is where the Design/solution is
- That is where the sign-off by customer is
- That is where you track status and progress
- The ticket is your Single Source of Truth (How do you advocate to customers using a single source of truth like Salesforce if you can't establish a simple source of truth like a ticket!!!)
- Assurance (To customer and to management) that it is being attended to, that it is in progress
What if a conversation might be too long, paragraphs long?
Huddle about it and put the outcome summary on the ticket
What if we draw some diagram?
Link to it in the ticket
What if I need to ask a customer a question?
Add them to the project, tag them on the ticket. Or if you ask that question in a meeting, put both the question and the answer on the ticket
PUT EVERYTHING ON THE TICKET! (Now, we are yelling!)
The big question, what if a teammate or the customer asks me a question about a ticket via email?
Copy their message, add it as a comment on the ticket as a quote and put above it, "this message was sent by X person", then add another comment, tag the person and answer their question. Then reply to their email saying "Hi, I have added this message to Basecamp on this ticket (Link to ticket), let's continue our conversation there".
In the same email, find the most polite way to say "AND DON'T YOU EVER EMAIL ME ABOUT A TICKET AGAIN!"
Communication about non-ticketed matters
Yes, sometimes, we need to converse about something else, the timeline, the budget, additional support, a third party tool, a vacation etc... That is why I love the "Message Board" on Basecamp, that is where these conversations happen, they also happen in the project itself.
Pro Tip: Have multiple Message Boards, one for Agenda for example, one for Project Management conversations, one for everything else.
Upload files in the project
Files related to tickets go under tickets Files related to the entire project go in the files section of the project, organized in folders, named properly and accessible to everyone.
Conclusion
The shared aspect of all previous points is communication, communicate about tickets, files, vacation, estimates, anything in the project. Keep everything in one place. 360 degree is a principal, it is not just Salesforce that should do it.
