Trust the Process

In your first week, plan out your quarter. Write out your deadlines in a calendar that you can keep in an easy-to-see place. Create the documents and Kanban’s you will need.

Follow the media production process: Ideation, Pre-Production, Production, Post-Production, Distribution, Promotion, and Evaluation. Create a Deliverables Kanban as well as a Kanban for each sprint.

The Deliverables Kanban provides a birdseye view of the entire process and the movement of each version of your product through it. Create a column for each step in the media production process you can move each version through as you go. This will show overall progress throughout your project.

To effectively lead is to be assertive. Schedule one-on-one’s as well as a group get-together early in the quarter to maximize your time as a cohesive team rather than a group of strangers. Request updates from specific people that have tasks in WIP. Ask those who don’t actively have any WIP tasks what they are going to work on and when. Ask your team if they are willing to work hard for their teammates and for you. Have these tough conversations early and often, as this will set the tone for the entire project. While I discussed my expectations with my team early on, I was afraid to be too demanding of them until later in the quarter, but by then it was almost too late – the quarter was nearly over.

Turn in the shitty first draft. Agile is all about creating early and often. You can’t improve your work if there is nothing to edit. I didn’t turn my blogs in on time – looking back I wish I had. Even if they were shitty, they could have helped my team at least get started. You can always go back and improve your content, but not if the content doesn’t already exist.

Be Specific

When creating your Kanban tasks, be specific. Like, annoyingly so. Break your deliverables into tiny little pieces – smaller than you think is necessary. Include steps for every single aspect of the sprint – not just tasks to get you through distribution. Don’t just write “pre-production package” or “promotion” as tasks, have your team list each aspect of the pre-production package and all the platforms you will promote on. Put in due-dates for the tasks to keep your team on track. If it’s helpful, add checklists and resources to the card.

Integrate, Integrate, Integrate

Even in your rough draft documents, integrate the brand elements into them. This ensures your brand elements won’t be forgotten during editing. Don’t assume that anyone on the team knows or will remember to add the brand elements in later. Work with your team to create a checklist of all elements that must be integrated for each piece of content and put it someplace where your entire team can see it. Integrating brand elements seems like an obvious step, but often it is forgotten during the rush to finish content for distribution.

Give Yourself Grace

This was my first position I had as a manager, so this was a huge learning-curve for me. Learning how to lead my team and guide them through the process of creating so much content in such a small amount of time. Remind yourself often that you are learning, and you are going to make mistakes. You don’t know everything, and that’s ok. That’s why you are in school – to learn. Take advantage of being in a position where your boss (Dan) holds more than enough space for you to fail and try again. Being a leader is a tough position to be in, and this environment is the perfect place to learn and grow.