Electric Sheep

Project managers dream of a simpler life

My dad taught me to drive. It was incredibly important to him that I learn and learn properly, so he started teaching me early. I tell people I’ve been able to drive since I was eleven and it’s true, thanks to hours of often combative lessons with my dad.

To him, being a good driver represents independence and utility. Being able to read the road, read other drivers behaviour and intent, is what makes you a good driver. There were two factors in the decision to teach me himself, rather than put me through a driving school.

Firstly, we were skint. Fairly blunt, but a sizeable contributing factor. There was no money and learning to drive in the UK is incredibly expensive.

Secondly, driving as taught through the majority of instructors (and so to the majority of people) is now reduced to a process. In order to remove the difficulty of thought which leaves far too much open to interpretation, new drivers are taught through a series of process-based tricks. Stickers on the windows to teach you to reverse around a corner, for example.

The rules of the road are many and varied and learning them by rote should produce the safest drivers of all time. But that’s not the case. Instead, we have a generation of stupefied road users, often unable to react to out of the ordinary situations that arise and as such, a danger to themselves and those around them.

By blindly following a process — the rules — these people are rendered incapable of adapting to quickly changing circumstances.

So… aside from a mildly disarming anecdote about my humble beginnings, why am I banging on about learning to drive?

The point is that process for process sake doesn’t help anyone. It certainly doesn’t produce anyone’s best work. Agencies run the gamut here, between so little process it’s surprising anything gets done at all, and so much that the team spend their days in a sort of process induced paralysis, unable to do accomplish anything or make any decisions.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a project manager: I believe in process. But it should be a stepping stone, not a crutch. If the process is so rigidly followed that it renders you unable to think you’re worse than useless, you’re in the way. It’s here the idea of project managers as blockers has its genesis.

Good process should be a series of shortcuts. All created in order to find the easiest way to get shit done. It should evolve constantly, and be subject to continuous and meticulous scrutiny. I’ve worked in agencies with no process whatsoever, which not only doesn’t work but causes friction between colleagues, between the agency and their clients and ultimately can lead to an increase in staff attrition rates.

Conversely, I’ve worked in agencies with a full on end to end process employed across all projects. Spoiler: this doesn’t work either. Being handcuffed to a process that doesn’t evolve makes you a worse project manager, less effective for both your clients and your colleagues.

What does work is empowering people to decide for themselves the best way to run a project or a relationship. By giving them a suite of tools and processes, rather than forcing your process through because it’s the way it’s always been done, you enable without smothering.

As a project manager, the first lesson I learned was the art of the Deep Cleansing Breath. Every call, every meeting, every interaction has to be new. You can’t carry bad feeling over from minute to minute, let alone from day to day.

The second lesson was the reiteration of the one I originally learned behind the wheel of a 1984 Fiat Panda: independence and utility are key. As the root of most agency process, we can become our own worst enemies when hamstrung by a process that’s too prescriptive or inert.

Historically, the approach to any kind of business process — agency or otherwise — has been to have a single process for everyone and everything. I call this the One-Size-Doesn’t-Quite-Fit-All method. This presents enough of a problem within the non-agency environment. When you’re working in an agency, with dozens of clients, potentially hundreds of stakeholders (internal and external) and multiple service offerings it requires an incredible level of hubris to believe that your single end-to-end process will work every time.

You also need to be ready to embrace change. Speaking for myself, I have enough self-awareness to know that my love of change is almost pathological. Throughout my twenties, I moved around once a year on average — both jobs and flats. Luckily for me, I’ve decided it’s a good attitude in a project manager. Speaking generally, metathesiophobic PMs are always going to have a bad time, but more so with changes to their own internal process — we expect changes from clients, but we need to get better at adapting to and championing change within our own organisations.

When you’re immersed in the machinations of an agency (or any organisation really) it can be difficult to recognise when something needs to evolve, even harder to see when it should be scrapped altogether. A fairly reliable measure for whether something needs to be rethought is how many workarounds you have in place. For this one, I like to use the analogy of an old sock.

Bear with me on this one.

You have a pair of socks that you love. They’re your luckiest, most comfy socks. One day your sock develops a hole in the toe. But it’s only a small hole, so you leave it for a bit. As the hole gets bigger you develop a blister on your foot, but you love the socks and you’ve got a pitch so you need the luck. Your emotion hazes the functional decision, leaving you limping to your pitch. Like I said, you absolutely adore these socks, you simply can’t be without them. So you give in and darn the toe.

Two months later you notice a hole in the heel, then another and another and on until what you’re wearing is more darn than sock. Your sock is no longer comfortable. It’s certainly not very lucky. It’s time to accept that you need a new pair.

When your process — or process component — is more workaround than work, it’s time for a new approach.

Strong agency process should be like a library. Scratch that. A box of Lego. You have all the bits you need to build the Millennium Falcon, but you can just build a little house if you want to, the important part being that you use the same bricks.

So, how do we build this Lego box of processes?

The way I’m approaching it (and I should be clear here, this is very much a work in progress) is much the same as I try to approach everything: with logic and fearlessness. And help. Lots of help.

Logic because it has to serve a purpose. Every part of the process has to be useful at some point. This requires the contents of Lego box to be subject to constant review in order to make sure you’re not just holding on to something because “it’s the way we’ve always done this”. On the part of the process owner it also requires a distinct lack of ego; just because something was your idea, it doesn’t mean it’s the only idea, no matter what your level of experience. In fact, often it’s the people with the longest tenure that can be the worst culprits for blocking forward momentum.

Fearlessness because if it doesn’t work you can always change it. The important thing is to keep moving, keep evolving and keep working. Fear of failure is an important survival trait, but in this case, your higher brain has to know when to cut in and drive things forward, keeping one eye on the risk and the other on the road ahead. If things don’t work out it’s not the worst thing in the world. You accept it and move on, tweaking as you go and sometimes throwing things out wholesale.

This approach also requires a certain amount of sense on the part if the people you work with. Ultimately, two kinds of people will have trouble: those who — for one reason or another — ignore all process completely, and those who rigidly try to incorporate all of it, all the time.

I say “try” because it’s not possible to use every piece of the process library at once. It doesn’t make sense. You wouldn’t use the windscreen of the Falcon when you’re building your little house. I mean… maybe as a bay window or something.

I suppose it’s possible to take a metaphor too far.

The point is that a shift towards a more modular suite of processes relies heavily on people knowing what to employ and when. That means everyone — not just the project manager, but creatives, developers and managers alike — needs to be onboarded and kitted out to evangelise.

The best way to get people on board with any kind of change is always to make them a part of it. Giving others ownership works for three reasons:

• Firstly, it takes the pressure off the process owner, allowing them to see more of the bigger picture, work out how this Lego house will eventually come together and whether that weird bay window is a good idea or not
• Secondly, it gives you access to knowledge and experience you don’t have. For example, if you’ve not managed an event before, you might not be the best person to work out how to go about it. This follows on from the whole point of agencies themselves: a group of talented and skilled individuals working together towards common goals. If we were all perfect at everything we’d be the most successful freelancers ever
• Thirdly, if they’re instigating and innovating right along with you they’ll have that much more invested in making a success of the new, and they’ll be that much more ready to get rid of the old. This is the same approach that many agencies take to working with their clients, just applied inwardly

The short term impression can be one of confusion if this method isn’t managed properly. By “properly” I mean ensuring that all parties are communicating. Everyone should know what’s working, what’s not working and the myriad of reasons why. I cannot stress enough how important it is to get everyone’s feedback on this, from clients to internal stakeholders, it’s important to know that people are happy and that things are moving along as they should. That’s why the first point above is so important.

I believe the most important of the three reasons is the third. Empowered people are happy people. Especially project managers (we love a bit of control). And happy people produce better work, are more likely to stick around and get the best out of the people around them. Which is the whole idea, surely? Give yourself (and everyone around you) the right tools because with the right tools, you can accomplish almost anything.