Learning in a classroom environment is challenging for me. After an hour, I tend to get numb on both ends. The best solution for me is to dialogue with others who are passionate about topics and listen for what I can employ in my role and team.

Last week I broached the topic of project management and how it can have a place in recruiting. Keeping it practical, I sat down with one of my colleagues from Marketing over lunch and interviewed him about his experience using project management.. The two main questions of interest were:

• How was project management used in marketing?
• Can it be replicated in recruiting?

William {W} – Put project management in your own words.

Jamie {J} – Multi-tasking, communication and executing on defined efforts, deliverables for specific deadlines

W – Talk about your background and at what point did project management show up in your work?

J – Prior to coming here to this team, I had been solely on the marketing/agency side of the equation. There I was an account manager working with multiple clients, projects – all with expectations to exceed, resources to manage and budgets to meet. Project included billboards, TV spots, collateral, online, environments, training tools, etc.. Project management was bred into us at the agency. It was the only way to keep things straight and manage many moving parts.

W – When you joined this organization’s marketing team, what did you find?

J – I remember walking into a meeting and there up on the wall was large poster paper with a grid drawn on it. Columns were milestones. Rows were projects and there were various color post-it notes indicating various stages. We spent most of our time discussing where a particular note should be. It was where the team was at, not where we needed to be. I joined this organization to put a process into place for these creative projects by creating a standardized workflow and communication flow.

W – But you were leaving an agency and going to the corporate side. Engineering uses project management, sure – but do you need project management in, say, marketing?

J – The nice thing about being on the corporate side is the close proximity to your client (like for follow up). That also can be a drawback (like “hovering”). The time to deliver is no less compressed and always seems to always shift. If you don’t plan – you will always reacting and not planning. Project management doesn’t necessarily mitigate all of these negatives, but it does help to allocate the necessary resources when a quick-turn project comes in.

W – What did you change then?

J -First, we started talking sooner to (internal) clients. The moment we got wind of a project we set up (preliminary) meetings to discuss objectives and deliverables. It helped that marketing leaders do the same, reinforcing the behavior. Our clients have grown from “Just get it done for me” to “Let’s discuss this project”. Specifically it helps:

• Set realistic expectations
• Validates that the results are actually going to solve the problem
• Uncovers a trove of unanswered questions
• Identifies unintended impacts across the organization and breaks down silos

Second, we simplified the project brief –

W – Wait – “simplified”? Isn’t better to get more information than less?

J – Simplifying the project brief to just a few key questions did two things—first, it helped the requestor really focus on what their key strategy and objective is. It forces them to be concise and communicate exactly what they need/want. Second, it gave us exactly the information needed to execute on the project. There are probably 20 questions you can ask the requestor in a brief but most are irrelevant to us and therefore confusing the overall project objective with the creative team.

W – What are attributes of a great project manager?

J – Tenacity to see things through, thoroughness as unknown details will hurt the project, and people skills since one is always working up and down the line of management and across various organizations and dealing with various personalities, agendas.

W - Can talent acquisition benefit from using project management?

J – Yes, in the following ways:

• The requisition process that helps from a budget control standpoint.
• Engage the client in conversation early, define roles and responsibilities and capture information.
• Be a quarterback, coach who: a) tells the client their options in getting talent, b) keep the client informed of the status and any changes in the process.

Afterword: In the next post of this series, we’ll cover practical ways to leverage project management in recruiting. 8~)

Photo: Brendan Plant / Just Hangin’