48 - Project Management

Note: This transcript was auto generated then some poor soul sat and listened to it, and followed through correcting any mistakes they spotted. Please however expect human error and shout if you spot an issue. Email: lee [fancy curly symbol] trailblazer.fm.

Verbatim text

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Welcome to WPInnovator podcast, the podcast for web designers and design agencies, exploring the world of WordPress and online business. And now your host, Lee Jackson. Hello, and welcome to episode number 48 of the WP Innovator podcast. Today on the show we have Dan Connors, who is talking all about project management. It’s a brilliant episode, and we are really appreciative of all of the work that Dan has done in our agency. So we really wanted to interview him, to have him share the benefit of his wisdom and his few years in project management. I’m being kind. Many years.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
All right, guys, before I go do, head on over to the Facebook group. It’s leejacksondev.com group. Dan actually is in there too, which is awesome. And let’s have a conversation. How. How are you managing your projects internally? What software are you using? What did you find useful about this episode? Really look forward to meeting with you over there, guys. Enjoy the show. Hi, this is Lee at the WP Innovator podcast.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
And today we have with you a gentleman that I may have mentioned. Oh, at least three or four times in the podcast and in the Facebook group, it’s Mr. Dan Connors. Mate, how you doing?

Dan Connors:
Just finally, how are you doing this morning?

Lee Matthew Jackson:
I’m doing brilliant, and it’s always a pleasure to hear your voice, mate. Guys, Dan Connors, if you don’t know, is a knight in shining armor that kind of appeared in Lee Jackson Dev, I don’t know, maybe four or five months ago and offered to just kind of help us unpack how we were managing our projects, look at our weaknesses, et cetera. And Dan has trained all of us within the team on how to be far more organized and far better at what we’re doing. So we’re always indebted to what Dan’s done for us. So we want to. To get him on because we wanted to share some of the amazing pearls of wisdom that Dan has to offer with everybody else as well, because Dan is the man who can. Oh, that was good. That was, wasn’t it?

Dan Connors:
That was. Yeah, I like that.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
That could maybe be your tagline. What do you think, Dan, the man who can.

Dan Connors:
I think I’ll write it down.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah, that’s too cheesy. So. So, mate, why don’t you just say. Say hello and just give us a little bit of a background about who you are, Dan, and what you do.

Dan Connors:
I. Hi. Okay, so unlike most of the people that listen to your podcast, I am not an entrepreneur yet. Or entrepreneur. I never even pronounce it. Correctly. But anyway, I’ve been working for big businesses for many years and I accidentally wandered into the project management space when we had a contractual dispute and there was a large government program called base realignment and closure out here, out here in the states that caused about 25,000 of our customers to move and we had to provide IT networks for them. And so I just got into mandate and that project lasted about five years and I learned a lot about managing people and customers and the customers, customers and all that.

Dan Connors:
And I found out I just loved it. And the core of project management, at least in very large organizations, is managing temporary virtual teams, which are people who don’t work for you on a project that will end. So they’re not your employees. They don’t last for a long time, the projects. But you’ve got to get the group of people together and get them to cooperate and work towards a common goal without having any authority over. I just found it a lot of fun. So then I moved into our enterprise project office, which is all the project managers in a gang. And I learned a little bit more like that.

Dan Connors:
And I decided I would love to get out of the 9 to 5 drive and get on my own. And so I probably. You’re probably all going to laugh. I said, well, it can’t be that hard doing websites. I worked on that for like, I figured that’d get you. I worked on that for like three months and because I was interested, I looked around for podcasts and I was driving an hour and a half each way to work so I had time to listen to them. And I tripped over your podcast, Lee. And your podcast had a tremendous amount of information about websites, but it also had a tremendous amount of information about being small business and being on your own, specifically value pricing and niching down to a small thing.

Dan Connors:
So after I got in that for a while I said, you know, I’m never going to be any good at web development or you know, it would take years to full time work. And I don’t, you know, I’m still working so I can’t spend years getting that smart. So I said, well, why don’t I start with something I know? So I said, well, I’ll provide project management support to people. It’s like, yeah, that’s pretty generic. And so when I niche down, I said I’m already interested in this group of people who are doing web design. Why don’t I look at how I can do web, you know, help people who do web design with their project management and, and Because I was listening to your podcast, I just emailed you and said, any chance you want to work together? And you jumped right on it. And we’ve been working great ever since. And so I’ve been learning a lot about how very small businesses, you know, can use project management.

Dan Connors:
So that’s how I got here.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Anyway, it is a cool story as well because I remember when you connected with me, I think it was through Facebook and then we had an initial call and for me, you know, we’re a growing business. You’ve got multiple projects on the go. But we’ve always found it hard to manage all of the, all the, well, multiple people’s expectation, work out when we can even do things by and then even understand how the hell we can accept more work as well. So, you know, you connect. I remember the day you connected with me was a time when I had somebody saying, here’s a new project. When do you think you’d be able to deliver this by? And at the same time I had like three other things going on. And I mean, everyone knows I’m bald, but I was like tearing out the imaginary hair that I have trying to work out how the hell to do all this. And I love your, the backstory as well.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
It’s so great to know that people are finding the podcast and you know, the whole point of this podcast was to help people who build websites. And the idea is, you know, everybody has that entrepreneurial seed in them as well. So it’s great to find that you understood the idea of doing what you’re really good at, project management and niching down. And it’s been a great journey for the both of us, I think, because we’ve learned so much from each other. I’ve been able to learn how to become a better project manager because I never even realized I even was one. And for yourself, you’ve learned a hell of a lot of pain points. I believe that we struggle with on a, on a day to day basis in the inner workings of an agency. So it has been a match made in heaven.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
And you know, guys, if you just want to go and check out what Dan Connors is all about and his service Quando, then just check out danconors.com and you know, there’s an elephant in the room here. Are you any relation to the guy from Terminator?

Dan Connors:
No. There’s a lot of famous people last name of Connors. And oddly enough in the States almost everybody’s. Everybody spells it wrong.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Oh, is that right?

Dan Connors:
They always spell it ers. And it’s O R S. Although it

Lee Matthew Jackson:
could have been Connor, couldn’t it? Actually, in Terminator, in the term, was it John Connor or Connors? I can’t remember.

Dan Connors:
I think it was Connors. I think it was. Yeah. And you got Jimmy Connors and Chuck Connors and all those people that have more money than me, so.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Oh, yeah. Well, you never know. Kwon do could take off and you’ll be even richer than those guys. So remember, that’s danconors.com currently no relation to the guy in the movie that we know of.

Dan Connors:
That’s right.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Until we find out. And that would be cool. Or if suddenly a robot comes and approaches you about something that’s going to happen in the future, then just let me know because that would be amazing.

Dan Connors:
That would be interesting.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
It would be. So, I mean, am I right in saying then that obviously you’re still in employment at the moment, but you are looking to kind of expand and launch into Quando? Is Quando going to specifically focus then on web agencies and design agencies, or is there any particular industry that you feel you may be tempted to go towards? Or is your focus going to be kind of the agency area?

Dan Connors:
I’d like to focus on the agency area. And there’s a little secret, and that is that listening to your podcast, I found these are very creative people. And I really. I’m just awed by very creative people. My son’s one of those, and I look at what they do and it’s like, I wish I could do that kind of stuff. So anyway, I like that kind of people. I like the kind of mindset that they have, and I think I can help there. And, you know, I’m not.

Dan Connors:
I’m not adverse to going into other areas. I just not familiar with other areas as much as I am with your area because I’ve listened to so many podcasts.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
The only reason why I asked, I just wanted to know if I put you off or not. From all our many conversations. So you mentioned that you kind of fell into project management completely by accident, or it sounds like it was from accident.

Dan Connors:
Yeah.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
How. How did it kind of. I mean, we’ve all got our understanding of what a project manager is or does. So I guess this is two. Number one, did you realize you were becoming a project manager? And number two, how did that kind of differ from your expectation of what a project manager would be?

Dan Connors:
Well, it was kind of funny. Most project managers start out as junior project managers and build up and then they might go into program management and I started in program management. And the difference between project management and program management is there’s a much bigger picture. So, for example, this BRAC program I was doing, our task was to move 25,000 people, close 70 bases, and stand up 30 new ones. And we had six years to do it. So, I mean, this was huge, right? And at one time, we had 80 projects running at once. And I wasn’t managing all those, but I was overseeing all of the project managers that were managing all of those. And none of those people work for me either.

Dan Connors:
And I just found it was fascinating to be able to lay it out. And we would talk to the folks at the bases, their bosses, their bosses, bosses, all kind of levels of people. And I really enjoyed understanding the point of view of the guy at the bottom of the heap. You know, it’s like, you’re closing my building on February, and I can’t be here anymore. I got to be somewhere else. And that’s not theoretical, you know, I mean, there’s a guy with a bulldozer coming in on February 1st because they’re closing the base. So, yeah, and it was just a tremendous amount of fun to lay it out and say, so we got to get you moved by here and, you know, lay out all these things. And you can’t move until the IT stuff is there.

Dan Connors:
And the IT stuff requires a transport boundary and a connection and cabling and switches and all kind of stuff. And it was. I just loved it. I just love laying all that out. And you could lay it out, and then I’d have a weekly meeting with them and say, okay, we were supposed to get this done, and we got that done, but we missed that. And I really learned. I think the biggest thing I learned from that experience is it’s very helpful to be able to stand up and say, I screwed up, because they’re just dumbfounded. You know, it’s like, you screwed up.

Dan Connors:
I said, yeah, and, you know, so I’ll fix that, and you’ll screw up, too, and I’m not going to hate you for it. And establishing that we’re both on the same team trying to get to the goal line really, really makes life more fun. And it makes the job get done better, too.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
I love that concept of just being able to admit when you have screwed something up. And that’s actually something I struggle with. Having come from a background of in some businesses where I was pushed and pushed and pushed to deliver work faster and faster, which meant I would kind of drop balls and therefore become very defensive. Having Then moved into my own business. I can just think of many times where I’ve instantly felt very defensive. And if I have screwed something up, I’ve tended in the early days not really to be very forthcoming with the reasons and why I may have screwed up and may have tried to cover that up, etc. I mean, nowadays it’s a very easy conversation to say, you know what, we estimated it was only going to take a week, but actually, in hindsight, I was wrong. Yada, yada, yada.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
It’s a lot easier to do it nowadays. But in the very early days, I do remember that kind of constant battle for at least the first year of Lee Jackson Dev, you know, just being so defensive and so scared to admit when I’d been wrong because I thought everybody wanted me to have it perfect every single time.

Dan Connors:
Yeah, it makes you human. You know, I keep saying we keep having humans doing this work and I just like keep it that way.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
So, you know, I can imagine that people hearing you saying, yeah, I loved getting all of these many, many things together. I can imagine many people like myself would think, how, how could you possibly love that? It sounds so stressful.

Dan Connors:
I wonder too. Yeah.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
So, I mean, what, what would you imagine if you think back, what was your most difficult moment? As you know, as you were learning over those first five years, what was your moment and did it potentially put you off project management? Was there anything at any point that made you think, why the hell am I doing this? And how did you get through it?

Dan Connors:
Actually, there hasn’t been an event that put me off. But the most difficult moment was when the location where these guys were moving, I mean, and they had to move, was absolutely not going to be ready. And there was, we had beat all the bushes and there was no solution that would get them ready. So we actually had to move them to a temporary place. So we had to find a place and then outfit that place. And we ended up taking a place that we were closing, but it had a slower time frame. And so we moved the current occupants of space A into their new location and then moved the people from space B into Space A while we finished Space C. And I thought that was even more fun.

Dan Connors:
You know, it’s like. And they’re all going, well, I guess that’ll work. It’s like, great, you know, let’s, let’s go do it. And I don’t know, I just love finding weird things. And I really enjoy talking to people who do things that I don’t, I don’t understand. At all. You know, like a lot of the engineering guys and, you know, the seven layers of connectivity. And I, my head hurts when they talk about it.

Dan Connors:
And then they get all through the conversation and I come up with some dumb question like, what about that? You know, and nine out of ten times they laugh and say, you’re an idiot. And the one time they go, oh, crap, I didn’t think of that. And so, yeah, and I think that really adds value to bring somebody in who does not know what, what you’re talking about, but just could detect an inconsistency that just makes you wonder. So I, you know, I never, I never hesitate to sound stupid, but it’s amazing how many times it turns out to be a good question.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
I mean, I can, I can parallel that with one thing you’ve done with us. So we, we were building up our project timeline and we’d got two whole sections in our, The Gantt chart that we were making, which essentially, I think after you asked one very basic. I can’t remember what it was, but I just remember thinking, oh my gosh, why, why have we got like two separate areas to manage, essentially what, R1 and the same thing. We could make this whole process far less complicated by just doing all of that at the exact same time. So we were, we were doing a whole lot of HTML. We were doing, we were doing like front end qa and we’re also doing some backend development, but we split everything out in such a complex manner, it just made no sense to anyone but us. So, yeah, again, I can definitely testify to just having that one person from the outside looking in who doesn’t necessarily understand the technicalities, but can just ask simpler questions and say, hey guys, why have we got this? Because most of the clients that we’re dealing with don’t necessarily understand all of the complexities that go on internally as well.

Dan Connors:
Sure. Yeah, that’s great.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Great. That’s a good one. So one thing I think I’m hearing from all of this conversation is that you absolutely love project management. And if you’re listening right now and you don’t absolutely love project management, then perhaps we. And that would be me as well. I don’t love project management at all, but me and Dan are very good friends. Obviously he doesn’t judge me for that. I love programming and he doesn’t.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
So, you know, we’re not going to have a fight over this. But, you know, if you like me thinking, oh my gosh, I still can’t find project management fun, then all of us entrepreneurs should be outsourcing what are not our strengths. So, obviously, me and Dan are building up a great relationship. And if you have somebody who, you know, a local project manager or someone that you can connect with that you know has got those skills, you can start to look at outsourcing, those sorts of, you know, those sorts of things, Be it just building up your schedule or checking up your tasks list or anything like that. Having a third party helping you with that, and it doesn’t have to cost the earth either, is. Is such. I don’t know, it’s such a weight off the shoulder. I just remember you coming into our business and helping us out so much.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Just, you know, my own sanity. My own sanity. And having somebody show me exactly how I was meant to put this Gantt chart together, and having someone on a call every week moving things around for me and asking me questions that I didn’t even know I needed to ask was. Was. Was great. So, you know, I can testify, guys, if you, like me, are listening to that and thinking, oh, I don’t think I can ever love project management, then perhaps it’s time to get somebody involved in your business and, you know, to help you out with this. So, Dan, you are the expert in project management. Could you hit us with three mistakes think that newbie project managers might make? And I say newbie project managers to describe probably most people who are listening.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
We’re all technicians, we all like to build stuff, but we don’t necessarily come with the project management gene. So we’re all trying to be project managers. What do you think the three most common mistakes are that people like us might make?

Dan Connors:
Well, I think the first one would be estimating how long a task will take.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Oh, my gosh.

Dan Connors:
Yeah, that could happen.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
I’m just gonna go and weep. You carry on talking whilst I weep.

Dan Connors:
Okay, so what I’ve found, and it’s kind of funny, it’s all about language. If you ask somebody, you know, if they could go to a car mechanic, say, how long does it take to tune up a car? He’ll tell you, you know, on average, it takes about this much time. So if you just said, how long does it take to turn up the car? He’ll tell you. If you say, how much will. How long will it take you to tune up this car today? He will give you the longest time it has ever taken him to tune up a car because you. You put your finger on him and you’re focusing the question direct. So that could be like three times as Long as the first answer. And so what I found really helps is if you ask the person to estimate the time or the duration of the task with 80% probability, that means if you did it five times, you could be late on one of them, but you’d get it right four times.

Dan Connors:
And that gets you a number. If you think about probability, if the first number was an average, that would mean if you had a project that was made up of averages, half of the time the task would be late because that’s what the average is, the midpoint. So you don’t want that point. And if you take the longest time it ever is going to be, that’s a hundred percent success and no failure. But you can’t spend three years on every project. And this 80% thing takes the finger off the guy’s forehead that says, I’m going to beat you up if you’re late. And just. I understand.

Dan Connors:
Sometimes things are. Things happen. And then when you’re having the meetings with the people and the guy’s late, you don’t beat them up for. You say, well, like I said, you get to be, you get to be late 20% of the task and you’re late on this one. Great. You know, we’ll try not to be late on the rest of them. So that, that’s the first thing is learning to estimate time. The second thing I think is it’s very easy to lose the focus on who’s going to do the task.

Dan Connors:
So every task in a project plan, I focus, one person has to deliver that task. So it’s very easy to fall into, well, this, this is done by engineering. And then the question is, who in engineering? And it’s like, well, nobody, just engineering. So you got to get it down to a person who’s going to do it. And, and I’d like to take a second and talk about the difference between task management and project management, because I think they’re different. And the difference is project management allows you to see the interconnectivity between tasks or, yeah, between tasks. And so you can say, if this task slips, this other task that isn’t going to start for a month is going to slip. And if you’re focused down on task management, like, what am I going to do this week? You can miss that.

Dan Connors:
And so, so I think the core of project management is that every task has two factors that you need to know. The first factor is what has to be done before I could start working on this task. And the second factor is once I start working, how long will it take to do the task? So they got those two variables. And so what happens is if you’ve got Bill is supposed to deliver this task, but the predecessor for this task hasn’t happened yet, obviously Bill’s task is going to slip. And that’s not Bill’s, that’s the fault of the guy who was doing the task that he was depending on. And so to tell me what happens, what has to happen before you can start work and once you start work, how long is it going to take you? If you have those two factors, then that’s all you need for each individual task. So those are three things, I guess.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
So you’ve got the estimating and the 80, 20. Don’t predict too long because people are going to get annoyed with you. If you’re saying it’s going to take three years, then you’re probably going to win a hell of a business. You’ve got the who and you’ve also got got the understanding the difference between what a project and a task is. That’s true. Sometimes we might think a project is just a list of tasks, but it’s not true.

Dan Connors:
Just a thought. I’m not sure most of your listeners are aware that the project management software has capabilities that no other software has. And that is it can link tasks together and move things around automatically. And it’s really kind of slick. So just a general idea. It’s a different category. If you think of spreadsheets and word processing and databases and stuff. Project management is a different kind of software and it’s not that hard to learn, you know, how to do basic stuff that does all kind of weird and wonderful stuff that you probably don’t care about.

Dan Connors:
But the basic task management stuff is fairly easy to get.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
So that was going to lead on to my next question, which is this. We’ve got projects, we’ve got tasks. First of all, what would be your recommended project management software? Because me and you use one together, which has been brilliant and that allows us the high level project look. So we can see what’s going on. We can see all of our projects, you know, multiple projects across multiple timelines and that’s stitching the different milestones, et cetera, together. And I can see where I am at. So that’s that. And then there’s also the task management aspect which is like different software.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
So for the project management side of things, what would be your recommended go look at? Product.

Dan Connors:
Okay, so if you’re running on Windows, the undisputed champion is Microsoft Project. This is a very expensive program. It’s over 500 bucks, but you can buy it cheaper on ebay. Some older versions, there’s not much difference. But Mac, it’s much more difficult to find. And I tried probably seven or eight of them, and I finally settled on one called Itaskx3, which is not a very helpful name. But anyway, as you and I have been working together on it, I found issues with the project software. And I’ve communicated with those guys and I think they’re Germany and they’ve been very responsive.

Dan Connors:
And they’ve actually made changes to their software based on comments like why in the world would it do that? And it’s a little bit. It’s got a different mindset, but it comes up, you know, the basic things you want to happen is when you change the task, you want the rest of the project plan to recalculate immediately, automatically. And there’s a lot of them that don’t do that. And I don’t know of any other Mac software that does that. So that’s. That’s the two I recommend.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s true. So what One of the things that me and you explored, I remember was, was it teamwork, which kind of gave us the best of worlds, didn’t it? Gave us the task management, but it also gave us the ability to design a Gantt chart based on those tasks and have tasks with subtasks in, which was great. But one of the downsides to that this is an online product. One of the downsides to that, though, is that we couldn’t find a way that if we did change a date, it would automatically change everything else.

Dan Connors:
Right?

Lee Matthew Jackson:
So, guys, just to help you understand that in a little bit more detail, so if I’ve got a part of my project schedule that says that my client’s going to provide me all of the content for the website by the end of this week, that means that I can then then say that the content input section of the project is reliant on that being completed. So if that’s not completed by the end of this week and then pushes in on to next week and the client says, I’m really sorry, I’ll be able to give you it by Wednesday. That therefore means that I can change the date to Wednesday and it will automatically update all of the rest of the project schedule and take into account my resources. It’ll take into account as well, holidays, all of that sort of stuff, and will therefore project a new end date for the project, which means I can then go back to the client and say, okay, that’s fair enough if you can make it by Wednesday. But please bear in mind that because of that and the existing resource, that will now change the project completion date to xyz, unless, of course, you have built in some sort of slack for that. Did you want to just explain, Dan, what slack means and why it’s very useful?

Dan Connors:
Sure, yeah. So I think the key to project management is managing expectations. And we all live in an environment where we don’t know what everybody else is doing, and there’s no way we can ever do that. But imagine if you’re working with a client and they want. They come to you and said, I’d like you to create a website for me. And you say, I’ll have it done by, you know, December 1st. And they plan some big rollout of some new product or some new look or something, and they plan on doing it on December 1st, and your project slips to January 15th. You’ve caused them a big problem.

Dan Connors:
You don’t even know it. So I think it’s very important to understand that the point here is to manage expectations. So all that slack really is, is you take the project, you lay it out the best you can, and then you add a FUD factor at the end. You know, maybe 10 or 20% of the total time of the project. You just stick it on the end. And then the date that you tell them that you’ll have the project done is at the end of all of this fudge factor. So let’s say the fudge factor says January 1st, okay? So January 1st, you’re going to do it. Then each time a task slips, let’s say something goes from five days to 10 days, you change the task to 10 days.

Dan Connors:
And your projects, now, you know, you’ve added five days, so it’s five days late. But then you go to your slack, which is not, you know, which is just a fudge factor, and you subtract five days from that so that your end date actually didn’t move. And you have to make a big deal out of doing that because you don’t have an unlimited amount of slack. Well, the net effect of that is that in most cases, you’ll get it done either on time or early. And I’m not aware of any case of somebody getting beat up for getting it done early. So, you know, if you deliver it early, then you know, your customer is happy and, you know, and you just avoid a lot of hardburn doing it that way.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s great. But that does, though, lead Back to the original point about the software. It’s so good to have software like Microsoft Project or iTask 3 on the Mac where you’ve got the ability to see what’s happening. So if something has been completed earlier, that’s going to adjust all the dates and also if something is a bit late, it’s again, it’s going to adjust all the dates of the overall. This is the like the top level view of the project so that you can be instantly communicating back with your clients and setting people’s expectations, helping them understand that the result of their actions might mean the project is delivered late or that you’re on time or actually, hey, everyone’s ahead of schedule. This is really exciting. So that’s cool. So we’ll put the links in the show notes.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s Microsoft Project. And Also we have iTask3 which we’re really enjoying using because we’re obviously Mac based and a lot of people listening. Web developers and designers will be predominantly Mac based and itask3 has definitely been. It’s actually itask x3, sorry, that has been the one that we’ve settled on internally as well. And it’s been great for us having you, Dan, connecting with them and recommending different features because we’re getting the new updates as you recommend them. We’re getting a little pop up saying, hey, a new version is available, do you want to download, load it? So I was like, yeah, that’ll be Dan Cool giving them more advice. So is we’ve talked about the software for managing the overall project, but is there anything that you would recommend for the actual task management side of things? So just to kind of put that in the picture, I’m managing in iTask 3, the kind of top level, but I want as part of one of those items, I need Larissa to do a list of tasks. Is there any online software that you would recommend to people to go check out for people, the technicians who have to, you know, munch through a set list of tasks?

Dan Connors:
So the short answer is no. But the reason, I mean teamwork to me seemed to be the most, the most useful. But I’m not an expert in task management. What I found is the task management software has a lot of other stuff built into it like messaging and, you know, statusing and there’s. There are tons of features that are in task management software that are different than or in project management software. So the approach I took with you guys and I think, I think for most of your listeners that’s the right thing. If you have an established system that works for you, except that you’re missing the project part. Then the way you did it is probably the right way to do.

Dan Connors:
Don’t disrupt your whole organization. Add project management to get the high level tasks and then, you know, once a week or however you do it, break it into the individual task, move those tasks into your task management system and manage them the way you are. So rather than totally ripping everything out and saying, you know, because you could put all those tasks in project format and manage directly from that. But it gets down to the point where it doesn’t give you all the other features that the task management software does. So, you know, it’s like putting a square peg in a round hole. So maybe you need both of them. But I’d recommend you try and stay with what you know first and then just stick your toe in the water with project management and then maybe down the road you decide to merge them together. Maybe not, but.

Dan Connors:
So teamwork is the one that seemed most comprehensive to me.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s really good advice. I really value that. Yeah, I remember we were using Basecamp at the time and you actually encouraged us to stick with Basecamp Basecamp for the day to day tasks. So the list of quality assurance things that we were doing or a list of specific features that we’re building and then the actual iTask software was our kind of overriding our roadmap to getting to the end point. I think in our experience we, we got on well with Basecamp 3, but we have moved across now to Freedcamp. I’ll put a link to that. That’s a very low cost project manager. It does have the sub tasks in there, which is quite useful for us as well.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
So if people want to check out that as well, that’s Freed Camp. If you don’t have any particular T list software, I guess with tasks lists, that’s exactly what they are. They are task lists. And the, the missing element. I think the missing thing for us was that high level project view, the project management aspect of it. And before I met you, I always thought project management was managing lots and lots of tasks. So I definitely learned something on our very first call.

Dan Connors:
Cool.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
And many things since.

Dan Connors:
Me too.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
It’s been awesome. All righty. Well, this has been fascinating. Now you have launched your own website which with a little bit of help from your friend Lee. And can you tell us a little bit about Kwando and the direction you’re thinking of taking that in? So that’s danconors.com and your quando Service. What’s the direction you want to take that in over the next few weeks and months?

Dan Connors:
My goal is to be able to transition out of, you know, out of a 9 to 5 job into my own job. And so my goal is to find out more about what value I can add to the companies. I use the word quando. It’s Latin for when. Because I think that’s. I think the key here is expectation, management, being able to tell the customer something and hitting that what you told them. I think that’s the key for the small business. There are a whole bunch of capabilities that project management software has that I don’t think is.

Dan Connors:
Are useful to most small businesses. Like, you can keep track of costs and work breakdown structure and all kind of magic stuff. But, you know, the point is you promise to do something to your customer for your customer, and you want to hit that. So I’d like to understand more about the design agency business. And like you keep saying on your podcast, you know, the secret is to find the place where you can add value to your company, to your client. And that’s. I want to learn more about that. I want to try some other types of businesses like yours and work with them and see where the value, you know, where I can add value.

Dan Connors:
So that’s my goal. And it was interesting. You and I started this venture and I was working with you weekly. And then we’ve transitioned it over to Larissa doing the work. And I think that’s. That’s probably the right way for most small businesses is to just teach somebody the skills and then be available if somebody, you know, if you run into a tree and say, I don’t know what to do here, just give me a call, you know, So I think that’s likely where it’s going to end up. And I’d be very happy there, actually. I think that’d be great.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
And that’s why when we were helping you build the site, we kind of split it out. I remember we split out your pricing model. This just as a temporary because again, you’re still. You’re still kind of in the journey of defining what your offering is. But we’d split out a. The get it now package, which you’ll probably read name. But the idea is, is that you would give a whole bunch of training to the whole team, right. And give them the ability to then be able to go on, go ahead alone.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
And that’s exactly what you’ve done with us. You’ve given us, you’ve trained everyone in the team You’ve given us the ability to be able to push on and manage what we’ve got. But then with you, I’ve then got this relationship where for a set amount per hour I can book you in for calls and you can then continue to counsel me, listen to my crying, everything else and give me lots and lots of good advice. And obviously I presume in the future you might look at being a part of people’s team. So for the bigger companies that actually need someone to do some of the day to day project management, I presume you’re not going to be adverse to rolling up your sleeves and getting involved in that sort of thing as well.

Dan Connors:
Absolutely. I’m willing to just see where it goes, you know, and I’d welcome feedback from folks listening to this, you know, that would be very helpful to me.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Awesome. So WP Innovator listeners, this is Dan Connors and like you said, he is looking to transition into Quando. He’s given us some really cool advice and stories about project management. So if we can help him. Why don’t you connect with dan [email protected] if you’d like to have a conversation with him, tell him about your business, answer some of his questions and maybe ask him some questions as well. Just hit contact at the top of the page and you’ll be able to connect with him on that. I’m sure he’s going to want to connect with you. Dan.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
How else can people connect with you? Are you on any of the social media platforms?

Dan Connors:
Well, I’ve kind of dipped my toe in the water but honestly not really.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
You’re in the Facebook group, although you don’t post cat pictures, I’ve noticed. That’s very disappointing.

Dan Connors:
I’ll get some more in there. I’m sorry. So no, I really don’t. I understand that’s important but I just don’t have the time yet to do that. So I’m in Facebook but pretty hard to find. So I think the straight way is just email.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yep. So email either via the form. And what’s your email address?

Dan Connors:
It’s dan connors.com dan connors.com or if

Lee Matthew Jackson:
you like filling in pretty forms, go over to danconors.com mate, it’s been absolutely brilliant talking to you. Like I said, was really excited to get you on. Just to share the story of how you’ve helped us and also to find out as well, you know, a little bit more of your journey and to steal some facts from your brain for the benefit of the community. So I do hope that other people will connect with you and help you on your journey as you’re evolving this idea and really excited to see where Kwando goes over the next few months. So thanks for being on. I guess one thing I would ask, therefore, is could you just give us a little parting piece of wisdom before we say goodbye?

Dan Connors:
Sure. And, well, first of all, I want to say thank you for all of the stuff that you helped me with, both creating my website and all of the feedback you’ve given me. I could not have gotten here without you, and I really appreciate it. My one piece of advice is if you’re dealing with your client and there’s some nagging feeling, feeling in your gut that something’s wrong, that’s the place where you need to focus your energy, because if you sensed it, you were right. So go fix that. And it’s most of the time that’s a very awkward transition, but it’s really got a big payback.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Such good advice. I can think of many times I’ve had that gut feeling and then ignored it, thinking nothing will happen and then have to deal with the consequences later. So go with that gut feeling. Concentrate on that gut feeling, mate. Thank you so much.

Dan Connors:
Thank you, sir.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Have a wonderful day.

Dan Connors:
You too. Take care. Cheerio. See ya.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
So there you have it. The end of episode number 48. Dan is an absolute legend, so totally recommend you connect with him. Go check out his website as well, and again, come join us in the Facebook group. You’ll be able to chat to Dan as and when he decides to log into Facebook. That is, obviously, but he is a great guy, really good to connect with. Okay, next week we’re going to be talking with a friend of mine. He is a agency owner locally here in Wellingborough, and that is Richard Bland.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
It’s really fascinating to find out his history, how he got started, and he has some really great advice in the podcast coming up. So next week, that’s with Richard Bland. Look forward to seeing you then. Have a great week. Ciao.