How to embrace project management in your agency with Tim Johnson

Speaker 1:

It doesn’t matter what kind of agency you run; traditional, digital, media buying, web dev, PR, whatever your focus, you still need to run a profitable business. That’s why Agency Management Institute started the Build a Better Agency Podcast a few years ago. We help agencies just like yours grow and scale your business, attract and retain the best talent, make more money and keep more of what you make. Bringing his 25 plus years of experience as both an agency owner and agency consultant, please welcome your host, Drew McLellan.

Drew McLellan:

Welcome to another episode of Build a Better Agency. Today’s topic is a topic that I converse with agency owners and leaders about almost every day. And usually, the agency leaders’ teeth are gritted a bit, so they are grinding their jaw as we have this conversation. And the reality is that as our agencies grow, our need for systems and processes evolves and changes. So when you’re 10 people or less, or 15 people or less, you can get by with a lot of tribal knowledge, with a lot of silos where everybody does things their own way, but at a certain point in time, and for most of you, it’s around 20 or 25 employees, that laissez-faire model doesn’t work anymore, and you really do need to get everybody working in the same ways inside the same system or process. And you need someone to champion that system or process.

This often comes at the same time that you add a project management system. So it might be a baked in system in Workamajig or eSilentPARTNER, or it might be Function Point that plugs into QuickBooks, or it might be something standalone like Asana or one of those kind of tools. But the reality is agency people are not really wired to embrace this forced standardization that these kind of systems and processes encourage us to do. We are comfortable doing it our own way. Or oftentimes when I’m working with an agency to implement something like this, what I hear is, “You know what? I think this is a great idea. We should have a project management system, and we should have a standard way of working.”

Unfortunately, my client, “That’s not going to work for. So I think it is a great thing for you all to do, but I’m going to need to have a pass on that because something about the way I work or who I work with or whatever it is, that’s just not going to work for me. So more power to you people for embracing the system or power or the process, but I’m not going to be able to do that.” And often, the greatest offender in this role is the agency owner.

So how do you find someone who strong enough and has the right skills, both hard skills and soft skills, to really lead an agency into this new methodology where everyone is working the same as opposed to everybody doing it their own way? Which works out great when you’re a small shop, but when you’re a larger shop, all of a sudden balls get dropped and things fall through the cracks. And so you really do have to standardize the way you work. Your clients typically are a little larger and they demand a little more accountability and want to have a better idea of where things are at.

Oftentimes at this size agency, account execs are being held to tighter expectations around managing profitability, so you really need to know how many hours have been spent on a job. And all of that lends itself to and leads an agency to A, adopting a project management system, and more importantly, hiring a project manager or a traffic manager who is overseeing that new system or process and getting everybody to comply, which is no small task.

So I knew that this is a pain point for many of you. Fortunately, I knew the right guy to walk us through best practices around all of this. So Tim Johnson has been a project manager, typically an IT project manager for probably 25 or 30 years. He is basically a project manager for hire, so he signs long-term contracts, two, three, sometimes four-year contracts with different businesses and goes in as an embedded employee and gets either a specific project off the ground or an initiative, or maybe a new system or process built in. He also is an author of several books, one on project management, which we’re going to talk about, I’m sure, in the conversation, and also, we’ll have links to all of his books in the show notes.

And he also is an adjunct professor at Drake University. So he teaches both undergrad and MBA students everything from some business basics, but also specifically project management. So he knows his stuff. Tim and I have known each other for a long time. He happens to live in Des Moines, Iowa, where I live as well. And so we’ve known each other probably, gosh, a couple of decades now. And I think Tim brings a fresh spirit and attitude to the whole idea of project management. I think you’re going to really enjoy the conversation. I think you’re going to learn a ton about what it takes to be a good project manager and what it takes to support someone in that role in your organization. So let’s jump into the conversation because I have a lot of questions.

So, Tim, welcome to the show. Thanks for joining us.

Tim Johnson:

Thank you, Drew.

Drew McLellan:

So a project manager, that’s a nebulous title. I think, especially in the agency world, that sometimes those are people who are responsible for other people getting work done. In some cases in agency life, they are really a junior account executive who does all of the admin and the more tedious tasks tied to projects or client work. So for our context, what I want to do is first I want you to define what you think a project manager is, and then let’s agree on a definition with inside the agency space so that everybody is tracking with us and we’re all on the same page. So how would you define what a project manager is?

Tim Johnson:

Well, I think before you define what a project manager is, you really have to define what a project is [inaudible 00:06:43] to back that up. And a project is really any initiative as a set, beginning and end, that leads to a unique outcome. So in the agency world, it might be a new campaign, it might be something as simple as a new mailer. In my realm, in the IT world, it usually results in any project system, any upgrade, new processes, whatever. So, but there’s some deliverable at the end that you’re saying, “Aha, done.”

Drew McLellan:

Great. So you’re right. In an agency world, it’s the list of jobs that you have open for a client that at some point you’re going to close and bill, and there’s going to be a deliverable on the end of that project, a [crosstalk 00:07:30]-

Tim Johnson:

Exactly, yes. So then the project manager is the one ultimately accountable for making sure that all of that gets done. Reaching done is the key point here. So as a project manager, I have to write status reports, meetings, progress, resolve issues, those kinds of things.

Drew McLellan:

And for you in your world, are your measurements… So if someone decides whether or not you have succeeded or failed, is that based on on-time and on-budget pretty much?

Tim Johnson:

Yeah. It’s the triple constraint. “Yeah, did you do it within the budget? Did you do it within the time? And did you deliver what you said you were going to deliver?”

Drew McLellan:

So I think one of the challenges for agencies is that they, for a while, when they’re smaller, everybody project manages their own work. So most account people in a small agency, so let’s call that 10 to 15, maybe even 20 people or smaller, they self project manage. And then at some point they feel like they… And by the way, the way they are tracking their jobs might be an Excel spreadsheet or a Google Doc, but there’s no project management software, there’s no, like they’re not using Asana or anything like that. And there’s not a person who oversees all of the jobs. Everyone’s responsible for their little island.

But at a certain point in time. And it’s usually right after some colossal ball gets dropped and a deadline is missed or a client fires an agency for one of those kinds of reasons, the agency realizes that the next step in their evolution is to have someone who oversees how work flows through the agency and how to make sure everything does get… “Did we deliver what we said we would deliver?” So as you call them, the triple constraints. “Did we deliver what we were supposed to deliver? And did we do it on time and on budget?”

And so oftentimes in an agency setting, what happens, and I think one of the reasons why this is such a pain point for agencies is the agencies are not just adding their first project manager, but the project manager is tasked. Usually their first job is, “Pick a project management software or tool, and develop the process by which you’re going to herd all these feral cats through who are used to doing it on their own and make them do it your way.”

And what I tell an agency when they’re about to do this is understand that there are going to be death threats against this project. People are going to want to tackle them in the parking lot and smother them with a pillow at some point in the process. And if they live through those difficult days, you will come out on the other end and you will be more organized and you’ll have all of these benefits. Is that true to form or is that just agency life?

Tim Johnson:

Project managers are pretty well despised universally. We’re-

Drew McLellan:

Hopefully there are no aspiring project managers listening to the podcast.

Tim Johnson:

If as long as you have a strong sense of self and can handle intense criticism, and by intense criticism is the death threats you mentioned, then you should be fine. They call project management the accidental profession because very, very few people say, “Well, I want to be a project manager when I grow up.” It’s more or what you said. There’s a pain point and someone says, “You, you’re it. You were out wandering in the woods, you touched raw meat and we caught you in the net. You’re a project manager. Congratulations.”

Drew McLellan:

Right. A lot of times I think one of the mistakes agencies make is that’s like the entry level position they put a kid in, and the kid doesn’t have the fortitude to stand up to a bunch of older adults who are being mean to them and saying, “Yes, I think your system is great for everyone else, but I’m not doing it.”

Tim Johnson:

Yeah. And really that’s a struggle that all project managers deal with. In IT project management, we’re always having to struggle against the functional tasks that get done day in and day out. And especially in IT, there’s always something that’s bombing out or a crisis or what have you. And then you throw on all of these project tasks. I had discussions with my clients even this morning of, “Hey, you said you’d have this list for me two weeks ago. Where is it?” And they’re busy putting out other fires. And so-

Drew McLellan:

Yeah, it’s not that somebody wants to not comply. It’s just that there’s too much on their plate, and oftentimes what you’re asking them to do isn’t on fire.

Tim Johnson:

And realistically, what I’ve learned after doing this for a couple of decades is I’ve actually started taking lessons from your playbook in the marketing and branding and advertising. I need to add a certain value with my communication, so I have to brand my message for the people on my team to make them want to follow me. It’s like hiding with spinach in the Velveeta. I’m not going to say, “You will follow me,” and leave it at that. I have to do things that make them say, “Oh, Tim’s on the up and up. He’s getting things done. I want to help him.” And so that means making sure I’m not absorbing huge amounts of their time in meetings.

I am a huge fan of the very, very, very short meeting. And a lot of people on my project teams, I’m currently managing about seven different initiatives, and the people on my teams are always like, “You get us out, you schedule us for a half hour, but you usually have us out and under 10 to 15 minutes.” I’m very, very aware of other people’s times. So that’s one of the ways I add value. I make sure that the people who didn’t make the meetings have very concise yet clear meeting minutes they can read if they can’t make it.

And then when I’m doing status, just the very straightforward information that they need to know. I’m very consistent with my status reports. In my first book that I wrote, Race Through the Forest, which was on project management, I actually talk about the five components that should be in a good status report. And I use the acronym SHARP for that. The first section’s statistics. Who’s managing the project? Who’s the champion of it if that’s a role that they have in the agency? What’s the budget? What’s the timeline? And then a color status, red, yellow, green, which I outlined in that book as well. So all of those kinds of things I outline in that stat section.

The highlight section, what are the upcoming milestones? Anything in the next three to six months is fair game, but what are those big dates that we’re pushing for? The A in SHARP is accomplishments. What did we do since the last status report? The R then is risks. What are the things that could potentially derail us as we’re working on this? Someone’s not getting back to us, we don’t have this information, we thought we would have it now, a vendor is hedging us, whatever it may be. But those things that are, those issues that are creeping up making you get nervous. And then finally, projections, the P in SHARP. What are we going to do before we report status again? So what do we project will get done next time?

Drew McLellan:

You can see how in an agency, a project might take six months, but it also might be due tomorrow. So you can see how if you had those lined up for the bigger projects, especially the risks, I think a lot of times we get caught off guard. Why, I don’t know, because the same stuff happens over and over. But we’re so confident that it’s going to work perfectly this time and then we’re stunned when the client takes too long to review something, or as you said, a vendor holds us out or whatever it may be. So I can totally see why those five components and reviewing them would keep everybody on track a little bit better.

Tim Johnson:

Yeah. And you mentioned the shorter projects, the ones where it’s dumped on your desk and it’s due tomorrow or due next week. And in those kinds of cases, you really have to scale your project management. You can’t throw all that rigor at someone. And that’s where like Agile teams use tools like [inaudible 00:16:39] boards, where it might just be a case of, “I’m moving the sticky note across a bulletin board, but that’s all the reporting you’re going to get.” You have to make sure that you’re always applying the right amount of rigor for the size of the project.

Drew McLellan:

I think that’s a pain point for a lot of agencies. The project managers come in, and again, in fairness to them, they often walk in and there is no process, or every single person in the agency has their own process and they’ve been tasked with, “Create a process and then herd everyone into using the process.” But what comes out of that sometimes is a rigidity and a, “We are going to do this by the book no matter how big the project is or how fast the turnaround is,” which is really impractical at the end of the day. Because again, if it’s a Monday and a client calls and needs something by Wednesday, we’re not going to have three status meetings and as you said, all the rigor that comes with something else. So it really does… Whatever process you develop, it sounds like it really does have to be able to evolve or ebb and flow depending on what you’re pushing through it. Right?

Tim Johnson:

Exactly. And I mentioned Agile earlier, and that’s one of the reasons why Agile has become so popular, is it really is able to differentiate between those two types of projects. The things where you have longer deliverables, you have more time, you break those down into manageable chunks and you manage it through the scrum process, which is closer to a waterfall project management is, but you’re doing things in very short sprints. With the things you mentioned where someone calls on a Monday, they want it on a Wednesday, that’s where you might use more of a Kanban approach of just how progress works. You’re reacting to something, you need to get it out the door, you’re not going to be probably even write one single status report, maybe to say, “Hey, we did this.” It’s like driving through a small town in Iowa, blink and you miss it.

Drew McLellan:

Right, right, right. You used a phrase I’m not familiar with, Kanban.

Tim Johnson:

That’s just a Japanese term. It simply is just [crosstalk 00:19:06]-

Drew McLellan:

Spell it?

Tim Johnson:

K-A-N-B-A-N. And really, again, it’s just more of the approach of, “We’re not going to apply a lot of rigor to this. We’re going to do the bare minimum just to get through the ad.” And it’s for those reactionary things, “Hey, this is wrong, we need to fix it.” Or, “Gee, can you draft this up by Wednesday?” That kind of thing.

Drew McLellan:

Okay. So I know that you’ve been doing this work for much of your career. As you look at other people who again, either get drafted or are drawn to that idea of being a project manager, a lot of the people listening to the podcast are hiring their first project manager and they’re not sure what to look for because in many cases they’ve never been in an agency that had a project manager. And in some cases, by the way in agency world, we call these people traffic managers. So they’re opening jobs inside a system and tracking the work through it. What are the skillsets first? And then we’ll talk about personality traits. But what are the skillsets that they should be interviewing for and looking for and testing for?

Tim Johnson:

First and foremost, communication skills. They tell us, an IT project management, 90% of what we do is communication. And that is so true. If you do not have those people skills, it doesn’t matter how well you can run Microsoft Project or any of the other tools that are out there, you’re going to fall flat on your face. And I’ve seen project managers who just severely lack the communication skills. And so that is above all. If I could rank the top three, it would be communication, communication, and by the way, communication. You really, really need to have that.

The second one, I would say have… and then this is a tie, organization and common sense. Project management is not rocket science. I hate to break it to people. If you can break down tasks into smaller tasks and organize and sequence them, you’ll be fine regardless of… That’s why I’ve seen people manage things very successfully using Excel. But you have to have that mindset of breaking things down, organizing it, sequencing it, and using that common sense skills. So really, of all the skills, communication, organization and common sense, if they rank high on those three things, they’re probably going to do okay.

Drew McLellan:

And then in terms of personality, because I do think even the nuance of communication is the best project managers are people who are able to create relationships with the people they work with to get them to want to do stuff they don’t necessarily want to do.

Tim Johnson:

Yes. I would say along with that communication aspect, a certain level of charisma.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah. Or empathy or persuasiveness.

Tim Johnson:

Yes. All of those soft skills will come into play. There are times where I’ve… It’s funny, I’ve gotten a lot better at this project management stuff since I started parenting teenagers.

Drew McLellan:

Same skillsets, yes.

Tim Johnson:

Yes. And so my wife and I have recognized that there are things that one daughter will listen to one of us about but they won’t listen to the other one. And so it becomes a Cyrano de Bergerac thing. You know, “I need daughter number two to come to this conclusion. You’re better at talking to her about these things.” And I’ll be like, “Look, I know your mom’s being irrational about this. Here’s [crosstalk 00:23:09]-”

Drew McLellan:

“I’m going to throw mom under the bus.”

Tim Johnson:

Oh, completely. “But here’s the reason why you might want to consider it.” And they’re like, “Oh, okay. That makes sense.” And you do the same thing in the role of a project manager. You’re like, “Yes, I know this process really is painful to do. And in this case, here’s why I really need you to do this.” So it gets to the empathy points that you’re talking about, but it really shows them that you’re not just doing rigor for rigor sake. It’s not just a, “Hey, what new template can I make you fill out?” We joke a lot in in my arena about Virgin sacrifice. So, “How bad is it? How many do we have to throw into the volcano to get this done?” And so yeah, the-

Drew McLellan:

I think acknowledging that you’re asking them to do something that’s either new or burdensome or difficult, or maybe they don’t see the upside of doing it and acknowledging that probably is a critical skill.

Tim Johnson:

Yeah. One of the other things though, as a new project manager or a traffic manager, as you call them coming in, one of the things I would tell, and I’ve been in situations where project management has been a brand new discipline. One of the things I always get the executives to do is think about what project would be an easy win. Find one where it’s pretty well-defined deliverable. It just needs that added push to get over the finish line. And people start talking, if it’s a project that’s failed three times just because it hasn’t gotten traction and you’re able to push over using that methodology or that process framework that you’ve created and people see that, “Wow, they actually got that done. That wasn’t as painful as we thought.” And then everyone’s like, “Oh hey, maybe that can apply here.”

Drew McLellan:

I think you’re right. I think having some quick wins so they can see the upside of it. Because that’s what I warn them, I’m like, “This is a little like having a baby. You’re going to hate this and this person for six to nine months, and then all of a sudden you build these new habits, the system is tweaked out. Now we know what works and what doesn’t work.” And you get on the other side of that and all of a sudden it does start saving you time or save your bacon when it comes to mistakes or whatever it is. And all of a sudden it’s like, “Oh, this person actually is on my team. I get it.” But I think it takes awhile for a team to absorb this new discipline and this new person in essence telling them what to do as opposed to them deciding what they want to do it.

Tim Johnson:

Yeah, exactly. And I think one of the other things, I realized in the agency world, a lot of it is driven by the clients. But really, at the start of that project, asking that why question. I cannot emphasize that enough, because if you go into it solving the wrong problem, and I always challenge people, when they come up with their statement of why we’re doing this project, to avoid the phrases ‘we need’ or ‘we have a lack of.’ Because if you are starting your problem statement with those two, well, let’s say I ask that of a project executive, they might come back with, “Well, we need a new computer system. What’s the solution for that?” “A new computer system, duh.”

But if you start using that rule of the five whys and are really digging down, “Why are we doing this and why do we need a new computer system?” “Well, nobody’s using the existing computer systems.” “Aha. Why is nobody using existing computer system?” “Well, because all the directions came to us in Swahili.” “Aha.” And so and why not [crosstalk 00:27:26]-

Drew McLellan:

Right. We need manuals in English.

Tim Johnson:

Yes. And so asking those why questions upfront, and I really, really push those, the why thing upfront. And another thing I found that really is helpful, and this scares a lot of people because it’s very counterintuitive to doing a project, is really embracing the word no. And that’s actually a current workshop I’ve been putting together to deliver in the near future, is that word is just beautiful and it’s so underused. And in projects, I’ve had to deliver those really tough messages of, “No, we’re not going to do that. That does not help us get it done.” So if you answered that why question really well, it gets a lot easier to do the no response.

Drew McLellan:

Right, right. The boundaries are better defined.

Tim Johnson:

Exactly. And I tell all of my students, I tell all of my clients that the only two vocabulary words, if you’re only allowed to use two words in all of project management, why and no are going to be your best friends.

Drew McLellan:

Good point. So one of the things I observe about good project managers, and certainly I have been managed for much of my career by other people inside shops that I’ve worked in and my own shop. I recognize I’m being manage. But I think a good project manager also has a pretty good understanding of human psychology and they get that some people need to be nagged and other people need to be… Like I had a project manager who would come in and she would always, I’d hear her yelling at somebody next door to me. You know, “Got to get this done. You’ve missed your deadline.” And sure enough, that person would get it done. And then she’d come into my office and know that if she would have talked to me that way, I’m stubborn enough that I would have bristled.

So she’d come in and she’d rub my shoulders or she’d talk to me real sweet. And then she’d go, “Do you think there’s any way that you could get whatever, blah, blah, blah, done?” And by then, I was like, “I will stay late and get that done for you.” And she’d walk out the door and I would go, “I totally got played.” Right? But she was able to get everybody in a very diverse team to get done what needed to get done because she understood the psychology of each person and how to approach them. So she didn’t have a one and done methodology. She knew how to communicate. So I think it’s even broader than communication. It’s also understanding that people are different and you have to approach them differently.

Tim Johnson:

Oh yeah. The EQ factor, the emotional quotient, emotional intelligence, just gigantic, and understanding. And I don’t treat everyone on my projects the same way. I can’t. I had one executive manager that I had to deal with [inaudible 00:30:16] actually. It was a case of knowing two things about. One, he was a chocoholic, and two, he was very Pavlovian. So his normal behavior on any given day was he would come to my cubicle, reach into my chocolate drawer, which I always made sure was stocked with his favorite chocolates. He would grab two pieces of chocolate, eat them in my cubicle, and then he leaves.

So I had him for five minutes a day, home-court advantage twice a day, unless he was either stressed or [inaudible 00:30:50]. And in those cases, the number of trips to my office and the amount of candy consumed per trip increased exponentially. And just by knowing that one little thing about him, I was able to manage upward even, and I knew, “Okay, now’s not a good time to give him issues to address. He’s going to fly off the handle at the smallest thing.” Or, “He needs more work. I need to give him an assignment.” So knowing that about a person is very valuable.

Drew McLellan:

Yep. Absolutely. So I want to take a quick break, but when we come back, I want to get your thoughts on if I’m hiring someone for this position, how do I interview, what kind of questions do I ask and how do I test to see if they have all these skills and traits that we talked about? But first let’s take a quick break.

Thanks for checking out this week’s episode of Build a Better Agency. I wanted to interrupt very quickly and just remind you that one of the services that AMI offers is our coaching packages, and it comes in a couple of different options. So you can do our remote coaching package where we would communicate with you over the phone or over a Zoom call. Or we also do onsite consulting where we would actually come to your agency and work with you for a day or a period of days to solve a specific problem typically that you’ve pre-identified and we’ve talked about on the phone. So if you’re interested in either of those, you might go over to the AMI website and under the ‘Consulting’ tab, you will find more information about both our remote coaching and our onsite consulting. Let’s get back to the episode.

All right, we are back with Tim Johnson and we are talking about project management. So before the break, we were talking about all the traits that a good project manager has. And what I want to get to now is, if I’m in the interview process and someone’s sitting across the desk on their first date best behavior, what do I ask? How do I know if especially these soft skills, how do I know that they can do the job?

Tim Johnson:

I find that storytelling is the best way. I give them very open-ended questions. “Tell me about a time when you had to,” and fill in the blank. And you can tell based on the level of detail, based on body language, based on how they’re expressing themselves if they’re on the up and up about this. And they will throw in the terms that you’re wanting to hear and the information you’re wanting to hear through those stories. “So tell me about a time when you had to influence someone who absolutely was digging their heels and didn’t want to be influenced. Tell me a lot of time when you had to manage a group to a very short, critical deadline.” Those are the situation you’re dealing with in agency life [crosstalk 00:33:43]-

Drew McLellan:

Right. Every day, right?

Tim Johnson:

Yeah, exactly. So those are going to be the kinds of stories you want to get your candidate to share with you. And same thing in my realm, I can do a lot of compliance projects. I’ve had to do things like anti-money laundering, I did HIPAA a few years ago, and by the way, that was actually one of my favorite projects just because of how things went and how creatively we were allowed to do things. But so in compliance projects, so you tend to get a lot of the zombie crowd. “Oh, we’re just here because we have to do it.” it’s like being in the cast party from The Walking Dead. But so I am going to questions about, “How have you creatively gotten through a task when no one wanted to do it?” And I have to share stories from my arsenal. If I’m not prepared to go in to an interview sharing all kinds of stories on mine on the creative persuasion, I will just say it involves me wearing a pink bunny costume and we’ll leave it at that. But I have had to really-

Drew McLellan:

This is why it’s great to be Facebook friends with you, is because then we get to see these things.

Tim Johnson:

Yes, exactly. So now I’m going to get flooded with all these Facebook [crosstalk 00:35:17] that say, “I want to see the pink bunny costume.” It’s still in my closet or out in my garage or somewhere.

Drew McLellan:

It’s a tool you might need again. Right?

Tim Johnson:

Exactly. You never know when you need to dress up like a bunny.

Drew McLellan:

Well, but I think bunny suit aside, I think the point is a valid one. A, yes, the interview questions, but B, you also are looking for somebody who is not set in their own ways, because they have to meld and mold to come up with a way to get everybody to do what they need them to do. And sometimes that’s probably… Not that dressing like a pink bunny is out of your comfort zone, but it might be out of some people’s comfort zone. Right?

Tim Johnson:

True. We’ll hope that it’s only in my comfort zone. But that’s one of the things when interviewing, is you really, really want to flesh out the posers. You and I are both friends with Steve Farber, and I really love the quote he uses in a lot of his training, the Terry Pierce quote, that there are a lot of people who think they want to be matadors, only to be in the ring and find 2000 pounds of bull bearing down on them and only then realize what they really wanted was to wear tight pants and hear the crowd roar. There are a lot of people out there who think, “Oh, hey, project manager, that sound like fun.” These are the same people who think, “Oh, being a teacher, that would be fun.” I’m married to a high school teacher. Trust me, there are some not fun days to that job.

Drew McLellan:

Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, and again, the project manager, I think it’s somebody who’s got to be able to handle a lot of stress, a lot of pressure from all points. And oftentimes, and you’ve alluded to this a couple of times, usually the greatest offender of the project management system is the owner of the agency. So the person who has the greatest power and strength to fire you is the one that you have to get to do stuff they don’t want to do, and you have to say no to them when they want to short-circuit the system.

Tim Johnson:

Yes. And learning those ways of saying no, managing upward effectively, those are going to be critical tasks. And so, quite frankly, that would be one of the interview questions. If I were an agency owner, I would just point blank say, “Given the situation, I’m pushing you to do something that is outside of the priorities and realms, what are some effective ways that you could tell me no knowing that I could fire you?” And make them answer that question. [crosstalk 00:38:02]-

Drew McLellan:

Because even just seeing how comfortable they are with being asked that question would be very telling.

Tim Johnson:

Exactly. You’re really digging in and getting them to do assess their skills and inventory, what they’ve done in the past in those situations. And you’re going to see if that person has ever been in that situation before or not based on that answer.

Drew McLellan:

Right. Well, and you can decide if you like the way they’re going to treat you as they… Because here’s the deal, no agency owner hires a project manager because they want to, they know that their agency needs it. And they don’t mean to be one of the biggest barriers to that person’s success, but often that is the case. And so you really do, when you were being rational about it as an owner, you really do want to hire someone who can manage you because otherwise they’re going to be unsuccessful.

Tim Johnson:

Yeah. Funny story. I was actually in a second interview for a project manager position and it was a project recovery. So the existing project manager had already screwed it up. They were bringing me in to fix it. And I am in a panel interview, so I’ve got the CIO, the COO, and the two senior VPs over the product line that [inaudible 00:39:15]. And one of them asked me the very standard textbook question, “How do you communicate with executives?” And my inner monologue all of a sudden is like, “Okay, I can give them the textbook answer, but this is a project recovery, I need to see if they can handle the Tim Johnson brand of communication.” I’m having this in microseconds because I have to answer them.

So I just look at them and I’m like, “Well, gentlemen, I’ll be quite honest with you, I’ve gotten a lot better at executive communications since I became a parent and I realized executives are merely toddlers in suits. And if I manage your ADHD correctly and give you a lot of pretty pictures with nice colors, nobody will get hurt.” I got the job. And over the next eight months, I recovered that project, got it back on track, was able to hand it off to one of their employees and go on my merry way. But if they had not responded well to that response, if they were like, “No, bad fit,” then we probably would have both gone away a lot happier.

Drew McLellan:

Right, yeah. Well, and I think the fit thing is critical, right? So I think agencies typically have a very unique culture and work environment and you’ve got to have somebody who can… I think it would be very challenging to be the person who’s trying to bring order into a workplace that by design is chaos and is creative on demand and all of that. So I think oftentimes, and I know because you live in the IT world this may not be so much your experience, but I think a lot of times project managers inside agencies feel like they are the odd man out, that they are not… So the CFO in my shop, again, who doesn’t write ads or do anything, she’ll often say, “I don’t really understand what you people do, but I know what my job is.” And I think sometimes the project managers must feel that way too.

Tim Johnson:

Yes. We have felt like the lone wolves for the last several decades just because it’s still continuing to evolve. Now, over the last 20, 25 years, the profession has received a lot more visibility and credibility, especially in the IT realm, which has helped tremendously. There are now statistics tracked about what IT project management can do. We’ve evolved from just a straight waterfall effect of, “Okay, you do all your analysis, then do all your execution and then close out the whole thing,” to more of an agile approach where you’re chunking it into smaller projects and sprints. So yeah, that has helped us a lot. In areas outside of IT, it is still a challenge because there’s not that support network that we tend to have. We can talk to each other.

I always tell people, and this was one of the things that helped me as an IT project manager, I quit networking with other IT project managers. I started networking with people outside of my field completely, which is how you learn and I met, is I started hanging out with branding and marketing and advertising people, because heck, you are a lot more interesting than IT project managers were.

Drew McLellan:

One that gives you a different perspective.

Tim Johnson:

Exactly. A project manager for an agency is going to have to have a healthy dose of creativity. They can’t be that linear concrete thinker kind of person. They have to be able to have some edge and some sense of humor to them or they’ll not last long, regardless of the culture of the organization.

Drew McLellan:

Well, and I think another skill they have to have is they have to understand that while we have a defined process and it’s absolute, there has to be some acknowledgement of reality in there, which is, “I know this is what we agreed we would always do, but this client situation or this budget or this whatever means that we have to find a workaround.” And so I find that project managers that stick around the longest that do earn the respect and cooperation of their team around them are the ones who are also able to say, “Okay, here’s the letter of the law. Now let’s look at how do we modify this slightly to take into account whatever our current situation is. We still need to live within some parameters because we still have to deliver a quality product on time and on budget, but this has thrown a monkey wrench into our rigid system and so we’re going to have to adjust.”

Tim Johnson:

Yeah. And one of the things that’s helped me as a project manager as I’ve gone along is I am actually pretty anti-methodology. As I had mentioned, common sense an organization go a long way in this field, and so I’ve become a lot more minimalist in my approach toward project management rigor. The start of the project, and realistically the start of the project is where you want to spend a lot of your time and energy. Because if you know that you defined the right problem and you’re solving the right problem, that’s huge. So at the start of the project, a business case. And a business case does not have to be anything huge and in depth. Some of the best business cases I’ve seen are two to five pages max, or even two to five PowerPoint slides if you’re into delivering it that way.

But just asking the questions, “Who cares about this project? What’s the rationale for why we’re doing it? What are some alternative solutions and our recommendation? High-level, what’s the timeline, the estimates?” And looking at those kinds of things. Once you’ve done that, figure out, what are the specific requirements and what done looks like. Whatever the campaign is or whatever it is you’re building, have someone can define done. And these are your subject matter experts within the agency. In the IT crowd we have what we call business analysts who help us define those.

But [inaudible 00:45:30] defines those requirements for what done looks like, from there, build a project plan. And if you want to use a tool like MS Project or any of the tools that are out there, great. If you just want to put something on a spreadsheet, fine, have at it, but have some kind of project plan that has the deliverables that says, “We’re going to get this done by this date and this is the person who’s working on it.” There might be some dependencies in there too. I highly recommend creating dependencies because if the person ahead of you is running late, you want to know that’s the reason [inaudible 00:46:05].

Drew McLellan:

Yeah, absolutely.

Tim Johnson:

And then two things while you’re executing the project, obviously, regular status reports, we talked about that, and then some kind of issues or risks log. And define what those are as you’re going along. Identify things that are going wrong. Don’t just wait for them to blow up and have them be an excuse. Really give some time and credibility to say, “Hey, this vendor is not delivering. They’re three days overdue or three weeks overdue. We’re not getting responses from their account manager. I need to escalate this.” And don’t be afraid to escalate to the agency manager, whoever your boss is in that project management role. That’s their job, is to help you [inaudible 00:46:57] through roadblocks.

Drew McLellan:

And they’re the one whose keister is probably on the line if it doesn’t get done on time or on budget. So they have a vested interest in helping you keep everybody on track.

Tim Johnson:

Exactly.

Drew McLellan:

Actually how all of this came to be, how you came to be on the podcast is I reached out to you asking you if there were courses or books or whatever, because I have a lot of people who have stepped into a project management role, not because they went to school for it, not because they, as you said, grew up, “I don’t want to be a baseball player or a fireman. I want to be a project manager.” There wasn’t that. It was just either they’re thrust into the role or they find themselves into the role. And I know, and we’ll include all this stuff in the show notes, everybody, but I know there’s your book. And actually, your blog has a lot of content around project management. Are there other resources, books or other blogs that you would point a newbie project manager to to learn some of these basics?

Tim Johnson:

I would look at… First of all, I would start with a basic Google search, but blogs, I think have so much more credibility in the project management realm now. Just because a lot of project managers have learned how to start blogging and sharing their insights and sharing their expertise, that would really be the first place I would go is find some good project management blogs. Get those people who are sharing their stories and where they’ve gone wrong. And so I find those are some of the best things. TED Talks you know, again, very quick. Podcasts such as yours. Find you some, not even necessarily that says project management, but listen for those project management things in the other materials that you’re looking at.

Project management has a fairly universal thing. You’re going to see it in history in battles that have been fought, and presidential campaigns. You’re going to see it in crises. Just thinking about things, like one of my favorite stories is the ride It’s a Small World from Disney. What a lot of people don’t realize is how quickly that was developed for the World’s Fair. So stories like that can… Those are the things I find most valuable [inaudible 00:49:38]. You really can’t get good project management skills just by reading a book. It’s like writing or singing or acting. You actually have to be out there doing it. And if you fall flat on your face at one agency and you’re able to take away some good lessons learned, get back in the saddle, try it again in a different agency. And-

Drew McLellan:

Well, and that’s a good point too. So for the agency owners that are listening, if you hire somebody to do this job, just like you are not going to be good at it for a while and your team isn’t going to be great at it for a while, the project manager is going to have to find their way too. And so I think especially if you’ve never had that role in your agency before, you have to be patient and let them find their pacing and find their skillsets and their comfort level in getting everybody else on track, just like you all have to be, that project manager, he or she has to be patient with you because you’re going to stink at this for a while and you’re going to muck it up and you’re going to try and end run the process and all of the things that just happen all the time when you are doing something new. Everybody has to give each other a little bit of grace and a little bit of breathing room to get better at it over time.

Tim Johnson:

Exactly. And that’s even a great interview question to ask an aspiring project major. “Tell me about a time you failed.” The ones that I find are the most genuine project majors have that failure story and are all too willing to share it.

Drew McLellan:

Yep, absolutely. I know that we’ve batted around some different processes, Agile, the one that you said, Kanban. Is there value? If I’m going to be a project manager, is there value in me understanding those different methodologies and being able to pick and choose from them what I think is going to work in my work environment?

Tim Johnson:

Yeah. And actually, again, don’t reach for the most pedantic, esoteric text you can. There are some very simple things out there. If you want to understand the Agile world, there’s a business fable as by a woman named Kristin Runyan, R-U-N-Y-A-N, it’s called Change, Inc: An Agile Fable of Transformation. And really for my MBA students, that’s what I send them to first to learn Agile, is because Agile is as we talked about even with project management, it’s more of a cultural transformation. It’s not about putting tasks on something. You’re changing the very fabric of how the organization works. And so understanding how those cultural exchanges work, very critical. So again, go for the simple stuff. That’s why I’m a huge fan of looking for the blogs and finding updated information when I need it. Google search, I mean, heck, let’s face it. That’s our first line of business when you go to find something. So don’t knock yourself out trying to find the latest and best. I always tell people look for the simplest and build from there.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah, which is probably a good tenet in project management in general. Right? Keep it as simple you can.

Tim Johnson:

[inaudible 00:53:10] life.

Drew McLellan:

Amen to that. Amen to that. So this has been great. It’s fascinating to me, this is in some ways, as you say, it’s not rocket science, but for agencies, it’s so challenging to put in place a process that everyone is willing to follow that takes into account 80% of the projects. Obviously, nothing takes in 100%. And to find a person who will weather the storm of trying to get a bunch of creative people to toe the line and work through a system and a process. So this has been a great conversation in helping agencies think about project management, the systems and processes they put in place, but most important, the kind of person that they look for to try and lead that charge, because they are going to need a unique animal to weather the agency culture and get everybody on the other side safely and in a on time, on budget and deliver quality products. In a way, agencies are not wired to be linear, and so this been a good conversation. Thank you.

Tim Johnson:

Yeah, and funny thing about that, when people asked me, “What does a project manager do?” My standard answer anymore is I get people from point A to point B without hurting themselves. [inaudible 00:54:34] pretty much encapsulated that [inaudible 00:54:37] your summation.

Drew McLellan:

Yeah, it’s a great point. So, thank you. Thanks for being here. Thanks for sharing your expertise. If folks want to track you down, read the blog, learn more about you, what’s the best way for them to do that?

Tim Johnson:

My blog is at carpefactum.com. That’s C-A-R-P-E-F-A-C-T-U-M .com. They can find me on LinkedIn, Timothy Johnson. I’m on Facebook if you want to see the pink bunny costume. If I get a slew of invitations from people all over the world [crosstalk 00:55:14], I need to blame Drew.

Drew McLellan:

That’s right. Again. Right.

Tim Johnson:

I am not a Twitter user. I have an account. It’s @carpefactum. But again, I never really embraced the tweeting culture. So yeah-

Drew McLellan:

Right. So it sounds like LinkedIn is the first step, and then if they want to venture into the scary world that is Tim Johnson they can go to Facebook.

Tim Johnson:

Yeah, exactly.

Drew McLellan:

All right. Thank you very much. Guys, we’ll put all those links in the show notes. So, Tim, thanks for your time. Appreciate it.

Tim Johnson:

Thank you, Drew.

Drew McLellan:

You bet. All right, guys, this wraps up another episode of Build a Better Agency. As always, I will be back next week with someone else who’s going to help you think about and shape your agency so that it serves you and your family and your team and your clients in a way that is scalable and profitable. So I’ll be back next week with that. And in the meantime, if you need to track me down, you know the easiest spot to find me is just go over to agencymanagementintitute.com and I’m there. Okay, talk to you soon. See you next week.

That’s a wrap for this week’s episode of Build a Better Agency. Visit agencymanagementinstitute.com and check out our workshops, coaching packages and all the other ways we serve agencies just like yours. Thanks for listening.