Aten Project Management Tip: Do the Hard Part First

The reality is that every website redesign project we take on with clients will inevitably face obstacles on the journey to a successful launch. I want to talk about a very simple guideline I use as a project manager on our web design and development projects: do the hard part first.

This guideline is easy to understand but sometimes hard to follow. If you’re facing a challenging project or situation, I encourage you to think about how doing the hard part first can really help alleviate worries and contribute to your success. What are some reasons this is a good heuristic?

Nothing Magically Fixes Itself

Problems don’t get fixed by ignoring them or hoping for the best, and while all team members are responsible for raising their hand when they see a problem, it is up to the project manager to lead risk management and address issues.

Sure, you could let something sit on the back burner. Maybe you will even get lucky and find there wasn’t really a major problem there in the end! But how much better wouldn’t it be to learn that up front? By tackling the challenge straight away, you’d know the reality of the situation sooner and free up resources to go somewhere else. In a more pessimistic scenario, perhaps you wait as long as possible before addressing a risk, you confirm there is a real problem, and by waiting, you’ve lost a lot of flexibility in how to respond.

Give the Biggest Issues the Most Flexibility

Issues typically require some mix of time, budget, scope change, or additional team members to overcome, and bigger issues often require bigger responses. All of these are limited resources for any project. By focusing on small issues first (e.g., accommodating team outage, ensuring pixel perfection on a past version of a browser, or communicating the differences between a staging and a production environment) and avoiding the truly difficult problems (e.g., site hosting, launching before a key fundraising milestone, or right-sizing a 60-hour budget deficit), you may find yourself unable to muster a big response to the big problems. In the worst case scenario, there is no longer any viable solution, and the project cannot continue. It is a PM’s responsibility to avoid this outcome by focusing the team on big issues first.

Focus Early-Project Energy on the Big Issues

We’ve all seen teams decline in energy, creativity, and remaining budget resources in the latter half of a long, complex website redesign or development project. Even on very successful projects, there is a mindset shift over the course of a project from the blue-sky “what could we do” stage to the more focused “what should we actually do” of production. Projects that face budget and timeline challenges may devolve into “what can we even do” by the end. Team members in that mindset are not thinking creatively, but instead are grasping for straws. Use the optimism, energy, and openness of the early project period to get the most creative solutions from your team and make a plan from the start that accounts for big risks.

Serve the Emotional Needs of the Team

If you’re a PM like me, you probably spend a lot of time thinking about what could go wrong. It may be a useful trait for a project manager in identifying risk and making mitigation plans, but it can lead to individual and team anxiety to have many unknowns in front of us. Addressing the biggest risks of a project as soon as possible allows us to see what options we have, and the reality is often not as bad as the biggest fears our imaginations can come up with. Serve the emotional needs of yourself, your team, and your client by giving them a clear understanding of the situation and proactive risk management, not just the specter of unmitigated worst case scenarios.

Demonstrate Care and Expertise

Aten’s clients choose to work with us because they aren’t able to design and build a new website on their own. They recognize we are experts, and they look to us for guidance. We demonstrate our expertise, strong partnership, and good stewardship by highlighting the most likely areas that our project can stumble and do everything we can to explore our options and find the right solution for each hiccup. No matter what obstacles come up, it’s likely we’ve been down that road before, and we have the confidence that experience brings to explore the situation together and eventually launch on time and on budget.

If you’re interested in working with a web partner that will never shy away from the hard part of your project, get in touch!