EP 279: Does your agency need a project manager with Ben Aston

Who is responsible for keeping the agency’s work on time and on budget? That is an oft debated topic among agency owners. At AMI we believe that a specific role (Project Manager, Traffic Manager, etc.) to keep everyone and everything on track is a luxury if you have fewer than 10 employees and by the time you’re at 15-20 employees, it’s usually a necessity if you want to keep your team and clients happy. But who you hire and how they go about implementing a traffic system is a challenge many agency owners struggle with. Ben Aston is a self-taught digital project manager with over 15 years experience in the agency world. Realizing how difficult his own learning path was and how few resources exist for those interested in developing these skills, he turned his focus to training others on how to develop the craft of project management.

In this episode of Build a Better Agency, Ben and I talk about what a project manager does and how this role will help grow your bottom line. We get into the nitty gritty of what makes for successful project management, including defining the skills for an ideal project manager, injecting flexibility into planning, reframing time tracking, and solving the problem of the dreaded “scope creep.”

A big thank you to our podcast’s presenting sponsor, White Label IQ. They’re an amazing resource for agencies who want to outsource their design, dev, or PPC work at wholesale prices. Check out their special offer (10 free hours!) for podcast listeners here.

What You Will Learn in This Episode:

• At what size agency would a project manager make sense
• What skills creates an ideal project manager
• Why project management is such a challenge for a majority of agencies
• How to recognize project management issues
• The necessity for creative and craft briefs
• Solving the problem of “scope creep”
• How to inject flexibility into project planning
• Defining negative scope
• How to create effective templates
• The need to reframe time tracking
• Best practices for successful project management