The Digital Project Manager

Triumph over the contracting madness: Alexa Huston explains how an agile contract can benefit your project—and how to get buy-in from clients. This episode offers welcome advice for anyone struggling with the awkward space between fixed scope and agile projects, discussing the challenges, benefits, and drawbacks of working with different types of agile contracts.

If we don't end our projects right, we can end up going over budget, delivering late, annoying our team, and the client. Ben chats with Patrice to discuss how we can end projects better with a checklist of what to do, and what not to do.

Leading remote teams can be tough - but is it because our teams suck, or because we're not leading our remote teams well? Find out as Ben talks to Wayne, simple rules you can apply to be a better remote leader.

One way to do optimize your agile approach is to make your meetings or ceremonies more effective. Ben Aston talks to Alexa Huston about sprint planning, daily standups, sprint reviews and sprint retrospectives to give you the inside track on how you can do them better.

Sometimes projects go off the rails simply because we jump into them too fast. Ben Aston talks to Maik Stettner about how we can use a project initiation document, or project brief to get everyone on the same page at the start of the project to make project kickoffs more effective.

Projects are tricky often because we're working with teams that can be inconsistent, egotistical, and unreliable. So how on earth do we manage a project when we've got all that to contend with along with delivering the project? Ben Aston talks to Suze Haworth to discuss how we can use RACI charts to clearly define roles and responsibilities, stop things falling through the cracks, and prevent misunderstandings on our projects. 

Are you an average project manager or one that's destined for greatness? The difference is not so much about what you do, it's all about how you do it. Ben Aston talks to Patrice Embry to discuss how we can take those everyday responsibilities of a project manager and do them better. Find out what you should really be doing to separate yourself from the pack, and accelerate your PM career.

If you've ever got yourself in a pickle on your projects because you didn't have written evidence of your discussions with your clients, then this episode is for you! Ben Aston talks to Robyn Reynolds about the often forgotten status report and how they can save your bacon. Find out what you should put in it, how you can make them less of a pain to create and make them useful for you, the client and your project team. 

We all know communication is a massively important part of our project manager role. But what are the tools we can use to be better at it? One of them is a communications plan. Ben talks to Natalie about how you can use a communication plan to manage expectations better - keep listening to find out how you can stop clients badgering you for information, and get the things you need from your clients!