The DSDE2 has went through the fifth customer project this week. We are coming slowly to the end of the journey (what??? so fast???). We have learnt a lot the last weeks. I remember the first weeks started with a mix of excitement, stress, confusion, and yet proudness in the final presentations. In the previous project I had the opportunity to take the role as a project management. It was really interesting to be in the project from another perspective, to deal with different tasks of work (making plans, contacting the client, moderate the meetings, etc.), and to learn some lessons from the smallest things.
Week to week, everything is getting better and better. First, because we get used to the type of work. Second, because we have developed a structure in cooperating the work among team members and dividing them through the week. Last but not least, we receive a hug amount of worthy feedbacks from all sides: among the data-schoolers, from TIL people who are our mentors and who watch our presentations. The feedbacks come in every circumstance: as data-schoolers we are looking out for each other before every big presentation; we received feedbacks after every projects and could use them directly in our next one; and whenever we have problems (over-hours work and so on), we could communicate them openly get some advices.
To summarize, here are two biggest things I learned to make our projects better: time management and expectation management.
I will start with expectation management because it was the cause of our messy time management.
Expectation management
In the first project we were so young and enthusiastic to do something big (I mean, we are now still young and enthusiastic but smarter and more realistic!). That’s why we spend a lot of time to look at everything in these datasets. Sometimes, we even had to clean them before we worked with them (this part is terrified too). The peak of that for me was one time we had to work really late the night before the final presentation, because the main interaction of our dashboard was much more complicated than we thought in the beginning. It was nearly the middle of our projects journey, everyone was exhausted, everyone complained. But what did we do differently now?
1. In the beginning of each project, define clearly the questions: what do you want to answer using this analysis?
2. Together with the questions: define their scope. What could we do within our project time this week.
3. Schedule your customer check-in the way that you could do something before to show them, and have some time afterward to adapt their feedbacks. Tell them also in the case all your trainings are in the second haft of the week and you do not really have time for big changes.
Time management
To manage your expectation and the scope of the project, you already do the biggest part for your time management. The rest should be:
1. Divide the work clearly in the beginning of the week. It is important for team members to know that they focus on and to plan their week according to that.
2. Try not to work overtime for the project. The project is designed to be done within the time it should be. Working on that amount of time will give the right reflection on what could we complete in that time at our level. This part is for the clients and the project designers to have a realistic view on the result which could be transered in an particular amount of time. And besides, I do not need to list the consequences of long-term working overtime to your physical and mental health, right?
So that were things learned on the way. I realized it is much better to have a clear structure on what you are working on and stick to that, work effectively and delivery the best result I can within the timeframe. If I have enough time to relax, I have the energy to concentrate on the next projects/trainings better!
And I’m excited for our last ones to come.
For now, happy weekend!
