Rob Harr
MAKING SURE THE JUICE IS
WORTH THE SQUEEZE.
@robertharr
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HELLO!
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YMMV!
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“Making sure the juice
is worth the squeeze.”
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Our long term business plan is to
have happy, healthy, well adjusted
humans and families.
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The power of words.
#1
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Resources
Talent
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I am in the talent business.
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People are our
biggest asset.
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Agency.
Studio.
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“How are you?”
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Thank you notes.
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Accountability.
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People over process.
#2
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Running a business
is hard.
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Running a
profitable business
is even harder.
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Running a
profitable business while
treating people like humans
is a constant struggle.
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Projects don’t fail for technical or
design reasons, they fail because of
the people involved.
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2 kinds of Companies:
Talent Producers
Talent Consumers
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Apprenticeships.
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People buy people,
not process or brands.
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A good portfolio is merely table
stakes in finding work.
TAN
GEN
T!
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What gets measured gets done.
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Humans.
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Achievable Goals
vs
Aspirational Goals
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Make better mistakes.
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Everyone has a superpower.
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The humans in front of us.
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The best part of our companies is
that they are made up of humans.
Humans sometimes suck.
The worst part of our companies is
that they are made up of humans.
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Effective collaboration.
#3
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If you can’t say no,
it’s not collaboration.
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We confuse
getting along for
effective collaboration.
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Conflict can be healthy.
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Have difficult conversations.
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Diversity
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Diverse teams help make
collaboration more valuable…
while also increasing the
potential for conflict.
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Our clients are wanting
to be collaborated with.
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Discovery projects.
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Scope
Budget
Timeline
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Project Manager
Client
Team
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The best predictor of project
success is how our
stakeholders feel about it.
TAN
GEN
T!
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Client Happiness =
A small delta
between project
expectations and
project reality.
TAN
GEN
T!
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Client
TAN
GEN
T!
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Managing Client Expectations
TAN
GEN
T!
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Setting Client Expectations
TAN
GEN
T!
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Research
Vendors
Vendor Selection Negotiation Project
Expectations Set
TAN
GEN
T!
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Research
Vendors
Vendor Selection Negotiation Project
Expectations Set
Expectations
Managed
TAN
GEN
T!
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“We want to work with you,
rather than for you.”
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Lean into learning.
#4
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We love having a plan.
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We often correlate progress
with decisions being made.
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and it is killing our projects.
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Last responsible moment (LRM) :
A strategy of not making a premature decision
but instead delaying commitment and keeping
important and irreversible decisions open until
the cost of not making a decision becomes
greater than the cost of making a decision.
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Not a justification
for procrastination.
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Last possible moment
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I believe as an industry we often
care more about how we get to the
end, then the results.
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Embrace the unknown.
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It is ok to not have all of the
answers.
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“That is a great question, let me get
back to you with an answer.”
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Discipline > Motivation
TAN
GEN
T!
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Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
Weekly Breakfast
TimeSheets due at 9:30 am
Projects Stand-up
Prepare and Send Invoices
MicroCash updated
Future P&L updated
$$ Meeting
Humans Meeting
Late Invoices
Sales Report
Director 1:1’s
All-Team Demo
Forecasting updated
TAN
GEN
T!
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Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
Morning yoga
Coffee
Afternoon Golf league
Morning Lifting
Coffee
Morning Lifting
Coffee
Weekly Breakfast
Blocked Lunch
TAN
GEN
T!
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Wearing in the rut.
TAN
GEN
T!
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Embrace learning during
the project.
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“We’ll know more about your
project tomorrow than we do
today.”
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It is ok to punt
to future you.
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One of the ways to make you have
regrets in life is only to chase things
you are sure to catch.
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There are seasons for all things.
#5
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The people and clients you
start with will not be the
people and clients you end with.
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Surviving Growing Thriving
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Surviving Growing Thriving
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Ending well.
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The end of things often colors how
they view the whole.
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Treating people like humans
should not be a differentiator
in our businesses.
But it is.
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Alumni.
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People have different
values in different contexts.
TAN
GEN
T!
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Accept the fact that you will be
completely wrong about things
that you are sure you learned.
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What makes the juice worth the
squeeze?
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What makes the juice worth the
squeeze?
The people.
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Rob’s two basic rules for
happiness in business:
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Life is too short to work with people
you hate.
Rob’s two basic rules for
happiness in business:
Rule 1:
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If you ever become annoyed by a
client, it is only because you’re not
charging them enough money.
Life is too short to work with people
you hate.
Rob’s two basic rules for
happiness in business:
Rule 1:
Rule 2: