Episode highlights
[1:00] Failure is very personal
[3:00] Wait, was that even a failure?
[6:00] Failure isn't always apparent in the moment
[10:00] We need to fail in order to evolve

About the program hosts—

Brett Harned is one of the founding voices of the growing digital project management community. He launched the Digital PM Summit in 2012, and over the past decade has since hosted and spoken to audiences globally. His first book Project Management for Humans was published in July 2017, and his podcastSprints and Milestones launched in April 2018. His wealth of successful online classes, a YouTube series, and numerous bylines further underscore his experience in digital PM consulting.

He applies his breadth of knowledge and experience to help clients solve complex challenges around people, process, and culture. Brett served as Vice President of Project Management at award-winning web design agency Happy Cog and as a senior PM at global digital agency Razorfish. As a project manager, strategist, and consultant, he’s led capital campaigns, managed enterprise website redesigns, and produced new iOS and Android products for Zappos, MTV, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Pfizer, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Harvard University.

Greg Storey brings a wealth of industry experience and wisdom to his work as a founder and leader gained through 25 years of experience in the industry. His work with agencies, medium-sized companies, and enterprise organizations like IBM, USAA, InVision, Stanford University, Sundance Film Festival, AMC Theatres, and BBVA Compass has given him a unique and valuable perspective on what makes design successful in a variety of conditions. He’s a willing collaborator ready to partner across teams and loves to break down silos and build people and teams. Greg is known for bringing unique perspectives to problems that help get teams unstuck.

Greg is an active leader in the digital community, providing leadership for Dribbble, Creative Mornings, and Amazing People Design List communities. In 2011, he co-founded the Bureau of Digital, a supportive community for studio owners, operators, design and project management leaders. He is the co-host of the podcast Sprints & Milestones and is a co-author of the book Remote Work for Design Teams. To date, Greg’s single best achievement is the direct mentorship and growth of hundreds of designers worldwide.

Our Sponsors

Thank you to the fine folks who help us make Sprints & Milestones!

Audience Ops for producing this season of Sprints & Milestones

Resource Guru for sponsoring this episode

Episode highlights:

[2:00] Meet Wil Reynolds
[4:00] The first time in Wil Reynolds' life that he didn't want to go to work
[6:00] Personal failure or business failure?
[8:00] The long pause
[11:00] It's really hard to determine the lesson learned here
[14:00] "People are basically good, man. We just give all the attention to the assholes"
[18:00] "I'm making my mom proud."

About our guest

Wil Reynolds, CEO and Vice President, Seer Interactive

Wil started Seer Interactive in 2002 as a one-man operation out of his living room. Today, Seer is home to over 200 team members across Philadelphia, San Diego, and Remote.

In his free time, Wil hangs out with his wife Nora, sons Rio and Niko, and serves Philadelphia’s homeless and runaway youth at Covenant House, where he participates in a yearly sleep out.

He has worked across every vertical, including pharmaceuticals and hospital systems to Ecommerce and SaaS. With over 15 years of experience doing and talking about digital marketing, he loves to speak at conferences about the future of search and tends to lead our agency into thinking through different lenses.

His pet projects these days revolve around using big data tools to look at search, how to bust silos between divisions, and helping tell the tough side of running a growing agency on his YouTube. 

Our Sponsors

Thank you to the fine folks who help us make Sprints & Milestones!

Audience Ops for producing this season of Sprints & Milestones

Resource Guru for sponsoring this episode

We’re not box-checkers or micromanagers. We give our teams the agency to create and build without the burden of nagging process overhead. We find new roads to delivery while sticking to principles rather than following the words in a book or training. We forge paths on every project by focusing on the strategic vision first, while having a keen sense of process, timeline, and budget.

In episode seven of Sprints & Milestones, we talk about how project managers can move on from that rigid, box-checking way of working to being more open-minded, and strategic about the way they handle projects and teams. A few topics discussed include:

• The evolution of the project management role
• Having operational awareness, no matter your role
• How having a better understanding of your work and team help you to make better strategic decisions
• Doing more and being more helps your career long-term
• Tools to help you to think more strategically

Everyone who works with us, clients and partners included, trust us because they know that we’ve got their best in mind when guiding process and decisions. We don’t cover up mistakes; we illuminate them with the intent of not repeating it. We stay transparent when it comes to scope, budget, and timeline changes. We resolve conflict by remaining neutral and honest about causes and solutions. We truly believe that the truth always prevails, and we champion that in all interactions and communications.

In episode six of Sprints & Milestones, your hosts talk through the hesitation, challenges, and clear benefits of being completely honest when it comes to project challenges, mistakes, and straight-up issues. Get ready for stories with so-so outcomes, and ideas on why honesty is important in business no matter your role. Here are a few topics covered in the episode:

• Delivering bad news
• Bracing yourself for the worst response
  -How others view transparency, and how that can affect you (or how you’re viewed)
• The positive impacts honesty can have on project teams
• Dealing with scope (and money) and the uncomfortable conversations related to change, or even unexpected increases in project budgets needed

The role of a project manager is far more strategic than it’s perceived to be. In fact, a lot goes on behind the scenes to orchestrate the best possible project experience, and often stakeholders—and sometimes teams—don’t realize it.

As project leads, we expect change on projects because we understand that business goals evolve and change. Processes fail. Stakeholders come and go, and new ideas arise. When asked to change, we use project goals as a basis for discussion on whether or not the change is acceptable. We wade through comments and feedback and analyze and discuss change to help guide our teams and clients to the best decisions given our focus on project goals.

In this episode of Sprints & Milestones, Brett and Greg talk about how project managers stay laser focused when projects are being pushed and pulled in many different directions, sometimes by many people. Here are a few of the themes discussed:

• Creating a project environment that is conducive to alignment with clients and a team
• Finding a moment to pivot on a project to make a positive change
• Setting expectations to get what you need out of projects and making agreements to do things successfully
• The value of setting work agreements and running retrospectives to keep those agreements true

Working in an industry that moves so fast, we are inherently adaptable and open to new processes, ideas, practices, and deliverables. We follow what's happening in our industry from all angles, and do what we can to account for change to make our projects more successful. We're open to bettering ourselves, and our peers, by sharing our work and practices openly and freely with other DPMs as well as our team, clients and stakeholders. We recognize that learning and teaching builds trust in what we do, and benefits others, and leads to stronger partnerships and outcomes.

In this installment of Sprints & Milestones, Brett and Greg share their personal stories of how they landed in design and project management careers. They also discuss the importance of continuous learning and teaching in the digital space to push yourself - and others - to be better. It's not about learning everything in school, in fact, it's all about learning on the job.

Some topics discussed include:

• Finding your role, but also finding what you love to do and continuing to grow within that role
• The value of certifications Being a part-time project manager when your focus is in another area of a project
• Resources for learning about project management for PMs and non-PMs alike
• The value of community How teaching can bring about learning opportunities

Digital project managers walk the line between servant and leader caring equally about numbers and people. It's a challenge that requires much thought and consideration in the way we behave. While we are not managers with direct reports we work hard to build relationships with our team members to serve as confidants, councilors, and friends who have their work and best interest in mind at all times. At the same time we challenge bullshit when we see it, stand up for our clients and our teams when it's easier to stay quiet, speak up and save our projects, and work damn hard to keep our teams motivated, our clients happy, and our projects on target.

In this episode of Sprints & Milestones, Brett and Greg explore what it means to be a “loveable hardass” and how difficult that can actually be. Some topics and scenarios discussed include:

• Does the PM have to be the B.A. Baracus of their project team?
• Will you ever succeed in leading teams if you play the role of “the enforcer”?
• Building trust and good relationships on projects
• Setting expectations for how teams work together
• The “Trust Battery” and mutua work agreements
• Safe words for teams

As project leaders, we have to adapt and speak to a variety of people at many levels in organizations about a wide-range of topics. It's a tough gig. But when you work hard to digest information and communicate effectively with your team and multiple layers of stakeholders, you can find the path to building trust, great relationships, and eventually project success.
In this episode, Brett and Greg share their experiences with pushing nerves aside to make projects and teams work well together.

Some topics that are touched on in this episode include:

• Digging in to understand confusing language and company-speak
• Figuring out what unwritten expectations exist in projects
• Establishing trust and using it as your superpower
• Speaking up justmenough as a DPM
• Setting expectations for what the DPM's role is on projects
• Feeling empowered as a junior DPM
• The DPM's role as the the undeputized enforcer of accountability

Work and projects can be chaotic, and that’s not always a bad thing. In kicking off a topic that can truly drag projects down, Brett shares a story about how a project was going really well…until it wasn’t. That sparks a conversation about not only how to manage through chaos, but to embrace it. Greg talks about his experience working with teams and finding what works best when you’ve got to wade through team chaos — because working as a team can be tough to figure out, and chaos doesn’t only come from client work.

So take a break from your current chaotic episode, and listen to this episode of Sprints & Milestones to find better ways to solve problems and stay chill when things get nuts.

Digital project management: What is it, and who makes a good digital project manager? In this first episode of Sprints & Milestones, Brett Harned and Greg Storey introduce you to digital project management, the principles set forth in Brett’s book Project Management for Humans, and how they apply to anyone leading projects. This episode is just a taste of what’s to come in future episodes, so take a moment to get to know your hosts and the basis of this first season before we dig in.
Show Notes

In this first episode of Sprints & Milestones, Brett Harned and Greg Storey introduce you to digital project management, the principles set forth in Brett’s book Project Management for Humans, and how they apply to anyone leading projects. This episode is just a taste of what’s to come in future episodes, which will be a review of each of the seven principles, which are:

• We Are Chaos Junkies
• We Are Multilingual Communicators
• We Are Loveable Hardasses
• We Are Consummate Learners and Teachers
• We Are Laser-Focused
• We Are Honest, Always
• We Are Pathfinders

Each episode of this first season will deep deeper into the principles and your hosts will share their opinions, war stories, and tips and tactics on how to address many curve balls that come your way while working on digital projects. This episode is just a taste of what’s to come in future episodes, so take a moment to get to know your hosts and the basis of this first season before we dig in.

Episode highlights:

• [2:00] Meet Scott Berkun
• [4:00] The story begins on a product team at Microsoft
• [5:00] An escalating volcanic eruption!
• [7:00] Calling a time out
• [9:00] Lessons learned: anticipation and facilitation
• [13:00] Being bold and obnoxious as a facilitator
• [17:00] Scott Berkun's thoughts on failure

About our guest

Scott Berkun, bestselling author and speaker

Scott Berkun is a bestselling author and popular speaker on UX design, innovation, leading teams, public speaking and other subjects. He’s published eight books, including  How Design Makes The World, The Myths of Innovation, Confessions of a Public Speaker, and The Year Without Pants. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The Guardian, Wired magazine, USA Today, Fast Company, National Public Radio, CNN, NPR, MSNBC and other media. His popular blog is at scottberkun.com and he tweets at @berkun.

Our Sponsors

Thank you to the fine folks who help us make Sprints & Milestones!

Audience Ops for producing this season of Sprints & Milestones

Resource Guru for sponsoring this episode

Episode highlights

• [2:00] Get to know Galen Low
• [3:00] Introducing Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Toxic Masculinity
• [8:00] The team gave him a nickname
• [10:00] Brett & Greg D discuss their toxic traits
• [16:00] Is expressing emotion at work okay?
• [25:00] Galen's definition of "failure"

About our guest

Galen Low, Co-Founder of The Digital Project Manager

Galen is a digital project manager with more than a decade of experience delivering human-centered digital transformation in government, healthcare, transit, and retail through client services and business development.

Having finally discovered a use for his radio-announcer voice, he is now helping professionals lead teams and deliver projects ahead of the digital curve as the Co-Founder, Community Lead, and Podcast Host of The Digital Project Manager.

• [1:00] Meet Margot Boomstein
• [3:00] Margot's story kicks off with a new project
• [5:00] She's falling in love
• [8:00] Things start getting Gilligan's Island bad
• [9:00] More red flags
• [12:00] She's falling out of love
• [13:00] How do you try to turn a situation around?
• [20:00] Keeping your heart in it
   

About our guest
Margot Bloomstein, Brand and content strategist, author, speaker, and facilitator
Margot is one of the most prominent voices in the content strategy industry. She is the author of the critically acclaimed Trustworthy: How the Smartest Brands Beat Cynicism and Bridge the Trust Gap and the industry mainstay Content Strategy at Work: Real-World Stories to Strengthen Every Interactive Project. She is also the principal of Appropriate, Inc., a brand and content strategy consultancy based in Boston.

For more than 20 years, Margot has taught workshops, keynoted conferences, and advised marketing teams around the world, earning a reputation for asking thoughtful questions and bringing teams together in productive, creative work. She developed the popular message architecture-driven approach to content strategy and created BrandSort, a tool embraced by consultancies to help organizations clarify their communication goals. Her clients include the American Montessori Society, Harvard University, Fidelity, Lovehoney, Mailchimp, Scholastic, Sallie Mae, Timberland, and the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority. A participant in the inaugural Content Strategy Consortium and featured speaker at SXSW, Margot advises Women Talk Design, a platform for speakers in design. She also teaches in the content strategy graduate program at FH Joanneum University in Graz, Austria. Margot lives outside Boston and lectures around the world about brand-driven content strategy and designing for trust.  

Episode highlights:

• [3:00] Whitney explains her point of view on failure
• [5:00] Whitney looks at her past self and begins the story
• [7:00] Book ideas abound
• [9:00] More ideas, more confusion
• [11:00] She ghosted
• [12:00] The fallout
• [19:00] Have you been ghosted?

About our guest

Whitney Hess is a coach, writer, and designer on a mission to put humanity back into business. She believes empathy builds empires.

Whitney helps progressive creative leaders design their careers and accelerate their missions. Her techniques help people gain self-awareness, identify blind spots, navigate obstacles, and bring their whole selves to their work.

For more than a decade, Whitney was a user experience consultant making technology easier and more pleasurable to use. She has been recognized for her work with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, Foundation Center, Seamless, Boxee, and WNYC. She is named as a co-inventor on a U.S. patent with American Express.

Whitney is a two-time graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, with a Master’s in Human-Computer Interaction and a Bachelor’s in Professional Writing and HCI. She is a Certified Integral Coach through New Ventures West and a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) with the International Coaching Federation. She writes on her blog Pleasure & Pain, co-hosts the podcast Designing Yourself, and speaks at conferences and corporations worldwide.

A native New Yorker, Whitney currently lives in Maine with her partner Fredrick Selby. They are in the early stages of planning their circumnavigation.

“There is so much growth and so many great things to experience when you go ahead and say ‘yes’ to change. You say yes to the universe. You say yes to the fear. You let go of all the things you've been holding on so tightly. It’s really okay. It's better than okay.” - Tracey Halvorsen

Listen to this episode to hear how Tracey took that grenade and used it to reshape how she lives and works, and came out the other side feeling stronger than ever. It's a deeply personal and life-changing story that comes with many lessons.

Episode highlights:

• [3:00] Introducing the "shit sandwich".
• [6:00] Tracey drops, "If you want real change, you kind of have to change yourself."
• [8:00] Tracey talks about defining—or redefining—herself.
• [14:00] If you're feeling it, it's real.
• [21:00] Brett and Greg discuss their grenades, and how people help with recovery

Episode highlights:

• [3:00] Crystal's first story about a missing projector begins
• [8:00] Brett is asks, "wait, what's the failure here?"
• [10:30] Crystal dives into a story about a toxic manager who wants to play a game of telephone
• [14:00] We talk about the value of observing the situation before acting
• [16:00] Being your true self helps you to manage and diffuse situations
• [19:00] Crystal shares her favorite Maya Angelou quote, “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

About our guest

Crystal J. Richards, PMP, PMI-ACP, CSM 
Crystal is the Principal and Owner of MindsparQ™, a talent development consulting firm dedicated to helping organizations better their teams' skill sets in project management, communications, and leadership.  

Crystal’s focus is to train people to be better project managers so they can consistently deliver projects with clarity, confidence, and courage. She maintains an online community on project management and better leadership practices.  To learn more about the community, go to www.themindsparq.com/community.   
 

Episode highlights—

• [2:00] Welcome back...to failure. Er, a new focus.
• [4:00] The lessons that failure presents span industries and roles. We can learn a lot from one another's experiences.
• [6:00] The connection between Seasons One and Two.
• [8:00] Shocker! We both fuck up, too, and we'll talk about that.
• [9:00] We're so lucky to have Audience Ops producing this for us!

About your Hosts—

Brett Harned is one of the founding voices of the growing digital project management community. He launched the Digital PM Summit in 2012, and over the past decade has since hosted and spoken to audiences globally. His first book Project Management for Humans was published in July 2017, and his podcast Sprints and Milestones launched in April 2018. His wealth of successful online classes, a YouTube series, and numerous bylines further underscore his experience in digital PM consulting.

He applies his breadth of knowledge and experience to help clients solve complex challenges around people, process, and culture. Brett served as Vice President of Project Management at award-winning web design agency Happy Cog and as a senior PM at global digital agency Razorfish. As a project manager, strategist, and consultant, he's led capital campaigns, managed enterprise website redesigns, and produced new iOS and Android products for Zappos, MTV, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Pfizer, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Harvard University.

Greg Storey brings a wealth of industry experience and wisdom to his work as a founder and leader gained through 25 years of experience in the industry. His work with agencies, medium-sized companies, and enterprise organizations like IBM, USAA, InVision, Stanford University, Sundance Film Festival, AMC Theatres, and BBVA Compass has given him a unique and valuable perspective on what makes design successful in a variety of conditions. He's a willing collaborator ready to partner across teams and loves to break down silos and build people and teams. Greg is known for bringing unique perspectives to problems that help get teams unstuck.

Greg is an active leader in the digital community, providing leadership for Dribbble, Creative Mornings, and Amazing People Design List communities. In 2011, he co-founded the Bureau of Digital, a supportive community for studio owners, operators, design and project management leaders. He is the co-host of the podcast Sprints & Milestones and is a co-author of the book Remote Work for Design Teams. To date, Greg’s single best achievement is the direct mentorship and growth of hundreds of designers worldwide.

Did you know that Brett and Greg are working together again? Check out loupecollective.com and reach out if you want to partner!

Season One of Sprints & Milestones was all about the principles of digital project management, taken from Brett’s book Project Management for Humans. We released seven episodes full of discussion and stories about our experiences leading projects. It was very much about us, but really it’s for you. In our final episode of the season, we respond to questions submitted by listeners.

Several questions about project leadership came in, so we sat down to share our two (sometimes different) perspectives. At the direction of our listeners, we cover:

• The PM career path
• How to scale your PM tasks on projects of varying sizes
• Questions to ask PM candidates in job interviews
• How to develop trust with a team
• Managing people without being their “manager”
• And more!

And before you go, please take a few minutes to give us some feedback! Rate us on the iTunes store, and send us feedback via twitter or email at sprintsandmilestones@gmail.com.