Hey everyone. In this video we're going to be discussing project management. Now the project management plan ties in from the very beginning. Even when you're just taking a look at building at your concept and you've got some ideas and you're starting your prototype, it's still a good idea to start factoring in all those aspects into the plan and look at the capabilities that your company is going to need from an operational and logistical standpoint so that you don't have so many growing pains with calibration as your company scales up and starts to grow. One thing that I've seen happen a fair amount with startups is that if somebody is developing a tool or technology in their free time, but without really considering that it could be something big one day, a lot of expenses come up in just trying to course correct, to ensure that it can be something feasible and profitable that can come to market. Designing for scalability from the get-g it's definitely an ideal best-practice. Even if you are pretty humble about your concept and you're thinking, I don't know could be anything. I have a big egos so anything I do on what this is going to be huge. I'm going to design this for being absolutely phenomenal. From the get-go. It's like you've just made cupcakes. Well, yes. You'll welcome America. Have some level of confidence in your ability to build something great and you'll go in with that mindset that you need to lay at the logistics and supply chain resources, risk mitigation, conflict resolution sought to tie that into the design of your product or service. That way you'll be able to scale and grow quickly. Yeah, that's absolutely my source, unlike whatever I'm doing is going to be big. Then I'll switch to something else because I love new projects. Team staffing organization criteria, ideally 10, definitely fewer than 10. Even 10, I'd say is way too many because then you're dealing with 10 different personalities and interactions and all this, it can be difficult. However, the great thing about virtual meetings and Zoom and using Google Forms and solicitations for feedback in that regard can reduce the amount of people just talking over each other all the time, just trying to get heard and hear their own voice versus listening to what else is out there. I use Google forms a lot when I'm working in large teams. We'll have a video conference or meeting and look at which key areas need to be discussed, how they translate into actionable items, and then come up with a list of all the different ideas that people have, and then put it forward in a form to elaborate the data and look at what the results were. That makes it a lot more time efficient to actually get things done and meet deadlines than is going back and forth and having meetings, about meetings. I don't have time for that. For forms are brilliant. Then you're also compiling all that data and meeting minutes and keeping good logs. Shed collaborative files like Google Drive spreadsheets. I'm a huge fan. Project schedules, when you're looking at your matrixes and pie charts to identify dependencies among tasks. This gives you a good opportunity to see within maybe issues or things falling through the cracks that could potentially grow into big quality control issues when your company starts to scale. Maybe a small little thing falling through the cracks now, but if you grow quickly and that hasn't been accounted for in your product or service and into course correction methodology and risk mitigation, then it can become a very expensive era. I learned this the hard way because I was like, okay, now we're going to stay on top of it. That's fine. I remember that I went you began but then when I went from dealing with one set of technical things, I had to keep track of it to suddenly having 50 under my portfolio. There was no way of being able to all just remember that later on. Mean I'm smart but not that smart. I'm just playing. No, but things were falling through the truck. Having the right best practices from the get-go is going to be key and instrumental and ensuring that you keep the trust of your customers. Because once you lose the trust of your customers, it can be really hard to gain that trust back, and with everything being online now, it can be brutal. So quality controls, test plans, making sure that you map everything out to bring it all from a to z without dead-ends and things falling off the map, that's going to be key in making sure that you hit that strong corporate branding going. Budgets, project risk plan. I love planning for non-ideal conditions. Robust design is where we design a product or concept service to account for the non-ideal conditions that arise. The non-ideal conditions usually have to do with the independent variables and noise factors that can just come in and mess things up. The non-ideal conditions are designing around the user experience with the product or service and the frame of mind they'll be in, and the technical capabilities and abilities at the time. If you're developing a tool for industrial or professional use, then you may be able to have it a lot more complicated and complex without having to worry too much about really lowering the level of computer proficiency that's needed. But if you're developing something that's pretty basic and elementary for a wider market audience across different fields, then having intuitiveness tied into the process is going to be really important as well. Understanding the capabilities of your customers, mental faculties, age, what they're doing at the time as well. If you've got an application related to travel, you may have to take into consideration that they're going to be on the road at the time that they may be using it. So there could be an alert come up and say we've detected that you're moving, maybe pull over. Are you driving? No. Okay. I'm a passenger. Ways has that as well. So when I pull up that app and it says, "You driving is like. Yes. Then I have to pull over and use it properly. Got to keep it honest. So setting up your baseline plans and tie it in from the very beginning. Don't just look at building your prototype just as a product or service. Start laying the groundwork for your corporate operations, logistics and supply chain. In developing a team, really be honest with yourself about what your skills are, who you are able to work well with, and whether or not the people that you're engaging with are just in something for the prestige, or whether they're actually in it to get things done. When I've assembled boards, there are some people where I know they're absolutely brilliant at what they do, but there's no way I'd have them as part of a team and depend on them to get anything done, because ultimately, I want to meet deadlines, I want to be in scope and schedule, and it doesn't matter how brilliant somebody is if they can't play well with others and deliver things on time and be accountable. So you've got to factor all these aspects into play when you develop and build out your team, and also recognize what your weaknesses are. Now for me, I don't have any. No, I'm just playing. I definitely have a lot. I know that going into it, I need people who are organized, structured, data-driven, patient, and able to go and run tests and quality controls on the back-end and do the different experiments, because I like to focus more on big picture, and throwing an idea there and then other people help me with hitting execute it, because patience is not my forte when it comes to technical capabilities. It's good to be very honest with yourself, and know when to delegate. You can trust the right people. Don't take it all on yourself and do all the work and have a board that's not really serving anything. Knowing when to ask for help is going to be key as well. It took me a long time to realize that asking for help wasn't a weakness, it was an asset because then things were actually getting done and I wasn't completely exhausted. Again, try to just set the right accountability metrics for people's performance and trust that people are going to do their job and know who you are getting on your board. Don't just do it out of being excited about a new opportunity. Really do your research on everything. Thanks.
