Hunting down red flags

How does a client’s grimace during a kickoff call affect your budget? What does a layer of misaligned stakeholders do to your scope? If you’re not sure, you might want to come to this little workshop. Learn how red flags impact your projects, pixels, and people in this fun and fast-paced workshop. You’ll learn the impact of red flags, some handy diagnostics to get underneath them, and you’ll get to practice some strategies that’ll have you spotting them in the wild well before they can sneak up on you and attack.

Transcript

1. Hunting down red flags Rachel Gertz Ground Control London 2017 @thestraymuse @louderthanten
2. What is a red flag?
3. What is a red flag? !
4. What is a RISK?
5. What is a risk? %
6. Why red flags? Smoke or fire? ?
7. X
8. Identify PART 1 Think of a bad chat or interaction you had with a team or client. Record: • Voice or tone • Behaviours • Warnings • Outcomes
9. • Kickoff call • I suggested we talk about the budget • I asked about business goals • I clarified that business goals help give our deliverables a business case Example Identify • Client went quiet during questions about budget • Saw client mouth something to her partner and stare • Client said “For goals, I don’t know what where we want to be, but I’ll know when get there.” • Client dismissed the question Me Client
10. Identify PART 1 improv Client/ Team You
11. Identify PART 1 Observe
12. Identify PART 1 Situational awareness https://www.uscg.mil/auxiliary/training/tct/chap5.pdf “…the ability to identify, process, and comprehend the critical elements of information about what is happening to the team with regards to the mission. More simply, it’s knowing what is going on around you.”
13. Identify PART 1 Is something wrong? Will something go wrong?
14. Classify PART 2 Risk Red flag Big impact or urgent danger Simple symbols
15. Classify PART 2 ! What does this effect?
16. Evaluate PART 2 People Time Money Business
17. Evaluate PART 3 How serious?
18. Evaluate PART 3 Now Later Nothing Something
19. Modifiers PM 2x Design 1.5x Dev .5x PART 3
20. Evaluate PART 3 Look at your data • Patterns • Inconsistencies • Bad habits • Areas of focus
21. Evaluate PART 3 Test your assumptions
22. Evaluate PART 3 ? Test your assumptions
23. Respond PART 4 Scripts “We saw another company do this: we want to add a giant pop up on the home page that tells people we’re the best at home carpeting.” “Let’s go back and see how this idea supports or hurts your business goals. If it makes sense to do it, we’re on board; otherwise, let’s brainstorm a few other ideas, too.” Response Client request
24. Write your own https://louderthanten.com/resources/scripts
25. Summary • Red flags are powerful warnings • Use situational awareness • Develop a useful system • Track your flags
26. Rachel Gertz
 @louderthanten Thanks! https://louderthanten.com/