I thought I’d start 2025 with lots of bite-size lists of stuff you may want to be considering if you are a PM or Digital Delivery Manager. In this post (you can listen to the podcast here) are my top 5 things I think you need to do, in your first week in any new project. Read on to find out more. Think I’ve missed something? Don’t agree? Join me in the conversation on X, or Bluesky. I’ll fight you!
1 – Understanding the projects context, not just the project itself!
Seems to be a bit of a oxy-moron this but there’s often a difference between the officially chartered project (i.e the snappy headline of what the project is trying to do & the one that’s constantly communicated whenever anyone asks) & the deep & often true meaningful reason of the projects existence. A good example was a time I was delivering a digital service & the on-paper strapline was to ‘revolutionise & digitise process X for a more meaningful experience to the UK public.
Now don’t get me wrong, one of the projects outcomes was that, for sure, but the primary driver for the project to exist was the fact the Public Dept. in question couldn’t afford to keep on all the folk needed to run the existing way of doing things, so they needed to leverage technology so they could cost cut & slash a dept. using automation & cloud. Although an extreme example, I find large-scale technology projects often avoid discussing the topic of cutting people out of roles so thought I’d use that as an example just to make my point. For me, it was desperately important for me to know this content & the politics around it as it shaped how I behaved & how I delivered the outcomes.
- Get a clear grasp of the projects reasons to exist, sit down with stakeholders & ensure you understand. Ensure you are fully clear & able to articulate the scope & deliverables also.
- Why? Don’t forget to ask this important question & don’t be afraid to ask it plenty of times. Why is this project important, why are we doing it & what does it deliver of value? The stronger you can ask these questions consistently without rubbing folks back up, the more successful you will be.
- Review existing documentation; I’ve been terrible at this in the past, favouring more to talk & make assumptions. DO go through the backlog, the retrospectives, the project charter, the roadmaps. Look for key dependencies, milestones & such like & if these documents don’t exist, start to think about creating them!
- Understand the timeline; like the context, the actual timeline could differ from a published timeline which could differ from what teams are saying. As the delivery manager your job is to bring these variations together, understanding the true immovable ‘dead drop dates’ which are not shiftable.
Actionable Advice
I personally like to then;
- Write a one-pager on a Confluence (or similar sight) just overviewing everything I think I have learnt in the first week, then I play that back to key stakeholders.
- Where there is not sufficient enough documentation I use this opportunity to write & learn as-I-go & use that as collateral for everyone else & a mechanism to get everyone on the same page
- Get the political landscape; Make sure you speak to everyone, not just the folk who have the write job title or speak the loudest!
2 – Be nice, make friends & understand the people landscape
Now I’ve talked about this many times, a classic Mario-trope is ‘technology is about people first’ so you know my CV here. You have to expand your vision in that first week beyond the formal stakeholders, beyond the project sponsor(s) & beyond the c-level executive & touch & feel (HR permitting) everyone who the project touches. The more relationships you can build at this early stage, the better. Remember, everyones going to be weighing you up to see whether you’re good for the project, a political animal, a threat, a flight-risk etc.
The other thing I’ve started doing is asking people how they like to be communicated to. Do they like email, prefer instant message, Teams call, in-person etc. I ask this more & more because I have more & more requirements & desires of how I expect people to interface with me (manual of me is a great way of defining this early on https://www.manualof.me/).
It won’t hurt you to physically draw/map out the stakeholder landscape, understand who the noise makers are, the nay’sayers, the torpedo’ers. It can really help. An example is I’ve got a person in a project I did recently who was adamant they wanted to halt the project, they did everything they could to torpedo it. You have to learn as a DM how to cope with that.
Actionable Advice
- Schedule introductory meetings off the bat, you’ll rarely get the cordiality after the first week when you’re box fresh new as everyone will be too busy
- In those meetings, ask about concerns, & simple questions like’ do you think we’ll complete this project’
- Keep a note on what people’s priorities are & try & understand their world – this will be the only time you can really build rapport, which will help when the conflict comes – and it will (it does in every project).
3 – Set Clear expectations & goals
Tough this one, let’s assume you are actually the delivery manager & actually responsible for the whole thing. Be really clear on your role & demarcation of responsibility as that will allow you to temper you ‘firmness’ shall we say. No good going in like a bull in a china shop when in actual fact you have the seniority of a newt.
You have to be clear what your expectations are, demonstrate you understand the project goals & really set out realistic delivery milestones that everyone gets behind. Don’t avoid conflict at this point, if people are poo’poo’ing your timescales, interrogate, retrospect & come to mutual agreement – that’s your job. Hold a retro, masking as a kick off & get everyone to align on as much as possible. Make lots of notes so you can re-quote those agreements later down the line – not to be an arsehole, but more to hold people accountable. You should also clarify your role to everyone. I’m often guilty of neglecting this, often a couple months in someone asking me ‘so what is it you do again’ 🙂
Actionable advice
- Be adjustable, your planning is likely to change
- Establish a comms plan – how will communication occur, the frequency, to whom & what it will contain
- Discuss planning with the team & seek buy-in & mutual agreement. If you can’t, tackle it early on.
4 – Don’t avoid hairy dragons
Often, due to fresh eyes & experience, I’ll often spot something 1-3 days into a project that makes me think WTF. Mario 98′ would of avoided this, assuming that everyone must know about it, know what they are doing & well, no one likes conflict right. It starts off small, you’ve ignored it. That dependency on a supplier you know will skew the project. You don’t say anything. A few weeks go by. Your prediction grows hair. You still ignore it because you want to be liked & no one likes being compared to a pigeon who comes in, shits all over the chessboard then struts off like it’s won the game anyway! But then your in-project dragon has grown, slavering, it’s started growing big pointy teeth, & it bites you in the project status meeting when you least expect it. So these days, & I recommend all DM’s do this, simply & politely ask & tackle the dragon early. Draw out the folk who maybe spinning a yarn, being overly optimistic or telling stakeholders what they want to hear. Doing the latter requires more often than not data & evidence, so where you see it, show it.
Actionable Advice
- Tackle conflict super early
- Call out anything which doesn’t make sense, timelines, dead drop dates, milestones,
- Test your hypothesis before you start shitting all over the teams chessboard.
5 – Set your stall out on day 1
You’d think this would be numero uno in our list here but I wanted to finish on it. You will only get the chance when you are new to a project to do a number of things (including everything in this list). Take advantage of this time. But what I find really important is set your tone early on. Be consistent, from your availability to your temperament to your well, everything. This will be the only opportunity you get to build trust & set your stall out.