2 min read

Project Management at SXSW? Yes, please!

The past couple of weeks have been busy with, uh, project work. I forgot to blog about something that I am really excited about: my 2011 SXSW Panel Proposal. Today is the last day to vote!

This year, I'd like to bring some project management flavor to SXSW. My panel proposal, "Project Management for Humans (No Robots Allowed)" is up for vote! So, please do me a favor and vote us in!

In general, I'm hoping to reach Experience Designers, Visual Designers, Developers, Account People, Planners, Strategist about how to manage your projects. It doesn't matter if you're a one-man designer/developer or a giant agency-type; knowing how to manage your project well will help you to be successful.

In addition to myself and Dave DeRuchie from Happy Cog, the panel will include two gents from the UK: Sam Barnes from Volume, Rob Borley from Headscape, as well as a former colleague and newly Canadian Pamela Villacorta from Blast Radius. I'm so happy to have been able to recruit these folks, because they are doing great work and I feel like I can learn a lot from them as well. We're hoping to cover some of these questions:

What is the most effective way to gather project requirements?
What's better for web projects, Agile or Waterfall (or neither?)?
How can I manage the process as it transitions from UX, to Design, to Development?
How can I effectively communicate with and educate my clients on web development process?

Sounds like stuff everyone could find useful, right? RIGHT. Amazingly, the submission is trending, which means that SXSW wants to hear more about keeping projects healthy. We're happy to talk about our experiences and answer questions. So, please vote us in and prepare yourselves for a US/Canada/UK project management take-down! We're going to SXSW anyway...

Another great panel!
There are so many great proposals out there for SXSW 2010. Happy Cog is bringing a ton to the table, so please vote my colleagues up as well! But, a colleague and karoake master, Jeremy Fuksa, has invited me to join his panel if it makes it in as well. The panel is "Generalist vs. Specialist: Who's Best In Collaborative Teams." Check it out and vote it up. It's just another opportunity to bring the project management perspective to the table! Jeremy is a funny dude with a whole lot going on. He's going places. And willing to take me along for a short ride.

Oh, and one other exciting thing!
I'm happy to say that my Happy Cog colleague Kevin Hoffman has asked Dave DeRuchie and I to take part in a full day workshop on meeting design at the IDEA 2010 conference in Philadelphia. Dave and I will specifically be talking about our post mortem meeting design process. I don't need you to vote for that, but maybe cross your fingers that my wife doesn't go in to labor (with our second daughter) on September 30.