Managing Your Projects

Derek Damron

July 26, 2016

Or…

 

How to plan just a little bit so it’s easy to get shit done

Why bother?

1. The good habits you build now will pay dividends in the future

Why bother?

2. It feels good when you finish things

Why you?

 

Important regardless of whether you’re an individual contributor or a manager

What this talk is not

 

  • A list of random tasks to make you better
  • An advertisement for a particular tool
  • An exhaustive manual of being productive

What this talk is

 

A framework for working

quickly and effectively

What’s the secret?

 

Stop and think before you dive in

What’s so special about that?

 

Thinking first helps you:

  • Prioritize tasks
  • Maintain perspective
  • Anticipate roadblocks

How should I think?

 

  1. Map out the big steps
  2. Break the big steps into bite-sized chunks
  3. Identify potential surprises

Example 1

 

We want to assess whether some new variables improve a previous model fit

Let’s break it down

1. Big Steps

2. Bite-sized Chunks

3. Surprises?

Some observations

Communication is often an afterthought when, in reality, it’s one of the most important steps

Some observations

2. Bite-sized chunks should be both mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive

Example 2

 

We want to develop an ongoing sentiment analysis of Allstate’s public brand

Break it down redux

1. Big Steps

2. Bite-sized Chunks

3. Surprises?

More observations

1. Sometimes we have to reapply the process to substeps

  • Like constructing a data pipeline
  • Or picking metrics
  • Or almost everything

More observations

2. What makes a chunk “bite-sized”?

My rules of thumb that tell me a task is “small enough”:

  1. Will take at least a few hours of work
    • e.g. vetting a particular source

or

  1. I need to hold myself accountable for it
    • e.g. putting something on Confluence

Wait a minute…

 

  • Are these examples oversimplified?

    → Absolutely

     
  • Did we gloss over some major steps?

    → Quite likely

     
  • Does this diminish the usefulness of this framework?

    → Not even a little bit

Extensions

 

  • Estimate time to complete tasks

    → Less overcommiting

     
  • Identify dependencies

    → When might we need an outside consult?

     
  • Teach other people to think this way

    → Helping others help themselves = Exponential growth

     

Parting words

 

  • Practice, practice, practice

    → Focus on the process

     
  • Cut yourself some slack

    → Modifying your own behavior is hard

     
  • Believe you can get better at this

    → Otherwise you’re likely to stop when you hit a snag

Reading!

 

Questions?