Transcript
as IT leaders, you might have a ton of projects on your plate and things to manage. So we're going to kind of walk through the project management process and how you can kind of make that process go a little bit easier. So I kind of wanted to also just talk a little bit about the IT Leadership Lab. Since this is only our second stream, y'all might still be a little bit new to the Leadership Lab and kind of what the whole community is about. So this community is dedicated to IT leaders. Basically, it's a place to share content. You can learn from peers and build community and a lot more. So it's a really, really good opportunity to be able to connect to other IT leaders, learn from them, share your experiences and things like that. You'll find blueprints, which are basically templates that other IT leaders might use for budgeting or hiring. You'll also find expert Q&A. So if you ever have any questions, we have a list of experts that would be more than happy to answer any questions that you have. We've also been pulling in helpful videos from other resources and other places so that you can kind of learn a little bit more about not only IT leadership, but kind of management in general. Because I feel like a lot of IT leaders feel like they're kind of floating in a space all on their own. So that's a little bit about the IT Leadership Lab. So today, though, we're going to be discussing project management specifically. So you're responsible for more than a team and a budget. You also might be in charge of every single IT project from inception to execution and reporting at the very end as well. So in this live stream, we'll kind of be talking about what IT projects entail. And yeah, if you guys have any questions, feel free to drop them in the chat, and I would be happy to answer them as we're going along. But Justin, would you like to introduce yourself? Tell us a little bit about how long you've been in IT, what your experience within IT has been like, and what you're currently doing. Yeah, sure. Hi, I'm Justin. In a previous life, I was the IT director for an RV dealership here on the West Coast. I was there for 10 years. They sold and I am now an independent consultant. Kind of fell into the crypto and AI space. So I've been helping clients build the crypto and AI data centers the last three years. Sweet. How has that been like changing over from working in internal IT to doing more consultancy? It's been fun. It's been a lot of challenges. Currently working on setting up three or four new data centers this fall, and the pace is definitely a lot different. Yeah, yeah, I bet that sounds like a lot of different moving parts, especially when you have various different clients and stuff like that to deal with. So, well, thank you so much for being on. I really appreciate it. And it sounds like you're going to be a really, really good resource for people that are trying to learn how to manage IT projects. They may not be rolling out several different data centers at once, but they probably have a lot on their plate regardless. So I'll go ahead and jump right in with the first question. So I'm sure that before you start a project, you kind of have a baseline of what you need to plan around. So my question is, what are your basic pieces of your project plan, whether that's budget, resource allocation, stakeholders, things like that? And then how would that differ based on the type of project? And of course, this doesn't necessarily have to be your current projects, only it could be whenever you were the IT director as well. Yeah, sure. I mean, the first step of mine is usually just information gathering, figuring out who's all going to be involved. In the RV space in particular, it was coordinating between the director of sales and the director of service and the owners, gathering their expectations. And I think that kind of works across most project fields is getting the support from all the key players and gathering their expectations for what the IT stuff is going to look like, gathering staff size or gathering equipment, and then making budgets from there, and then keeping that all in a timeline. Even if you don't make all the points on your timeline, as long as you're giving constant updates and have a full view of the scope of the work that needs to be done. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Are there any pieces that are kind of most important to make sure that you have at the very, very beginning that would kind of get the project off to a good start? I think some kind of organization, whether it's a specific project management software that you can track all the needs and expectations of all the key players. Spreadsheet, I learned pretty early on, it's really hard to just survive in your email. Because that stuff tends to get lost or fall through the cracks. So having some having it laid out somewhere that you can look at, like said, set goal dates and expectations and give updates based on on that. Mm hmm. Awesome. That actually is a great lead into another question I had. What kinds of project management tools do you usually use? And is it a mix of different tools as well? Personally, I prefer Microsoft tools. So Teams has Planner built in, which is helpful for just setting tasks and goals and due dates. But it's kind of limited. Microsoft Projects, a lot larger scope, but kind of spendy. Right now, with one of my crypto clients, we're using a product called Monday. Pretty lightweight, inexpensive, does the job, helps with the charts and the graphs and due dates and, and projects. And we can kind of see all the responsibilities across the, you know, the construction manager, IT facilities, that kind of stuff. So it kind of gives everybody a good global view and pretty good reporting to for the price. Yeah, yeah. I personally love project management. I love checking things off boxes. But when you were in kind of a I don't I don't know if you have direct reports now or if you're just kind of a one man shop. But did you have any trouble getting people to actually use those tools whenever they were in participating in projects? Um, buy in on using some of the software is is definitely an issue, especially one of my clients, they're they're pretty chaotic, and everybody's got a full plate already. So getting them to sit down and, you know, spend time updating the software and the data in the software has been a challenge. But I think they're starting to finally realize the more they're they're in it, that, you know, they can dump their brain into this program, and they don't have to remember it or, you know, hey, where was that email, that type of thing. So as people have started using it more. We have basically a lead, that his job is just to kind of keep that updated, or, you know, ask people to update it. So as people are becoming more and more used to it, it's starting to get more and more buy in. Okay, yeah, I think that that is completely fair, getting people just to, to see the value in it is kind of tricky when, you know, they might have so many different things going on. But I definitely, as somebody that loves project management tools, I think that it's, it's super helpful to get them bought into it. Yeah, once they start, once they start, you know, getting to use it and realize it actually does make their, their lives easier, especially on your memory. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I there are so many times where I, I won't remember what I have going on, unless I have that task list open. And the number of like small tasks, I also have dumped into that to do list. It, it helps me kind of stay on track getting that granular, because otherwise, something's gonna slip through the cracks. So yeah, getting, getting buy in on that, on that stuff is really important. So when you were at your previous job as an IT director, how would you decide who the stakeholders were? Was there? Was it a pretty big group? Or how was that process? So the the organization there was pretty well laid out. There were two owners, there was a COO, and then a CFO type guy, and then a sales director and a service director. And those that was the core group. And then so you know, say we're opening a new location, there would also be a sales manager and a service manager. So it was pretty well laid out to know, you know, who to go to, to ask for what, you know, ask the sales director, hey, how many staff members are you going to have? How many computers do you need? How many phones do you need? You know, is there anything special that you need at the site, depending on what they were selling? And the same goes for service, you know, how many service advisors, how many technicians, how many, you know, how big is the shop going to be? You know, where do you need Wi Fi, that kind of stuff. Okay, so you pretty much, I think you mentioned this before, but you pretty much involved the stakeholders, right at the beginning of the project, just to kind of do that kind of information gathering. Yeah, especially for procurement. In the years when it was hard to get stuff, we had, you know, months lead time on network gear, computers, or, you know, even microphones at that point. So it just building an expectation from the managers at the building, you know, what do you need to succeed? Yeah, absolutely. So whenever you're kind of in those planning stages, and you mentioned resource allocation, how do you decide who is doing what and how often? And how do you kind of balance all of the different projects and their various priorities based on your resource load, whether that's, you know, budget or personnel? So when it came to new sites, it was, you know, pretty cut and dry, we'd build the budget around what was needed for the site to launch. So computers, phones, all that kind of stuff kind of went into the budget as, as an actual, we had, we had pretty much a standardized line of equipment that we used, you know, certain brand of laptop, certain brand of computer phones. So that was pretty much a fixed budget. I had a couple guys that worked with me and would allocate their time as needed. And one guy would travel, could set up sites, do that kind of stuff. The other guy would man, basically man the ship if either of us were gone doing a new site. Yeah. Okay. So it was a pretty standardized resource allocation, kind of had it set. So I guess another question is, if you have that set budget and everything, what happens when that budget is changed? Do you have to kind of sacrifice other things down the line, or does that just increase your budget? We try to stay pretty close to what, you know, we estimated. But if we blew the budget, it would just kind of be an explanation of why, you know, if, if they, at the end of the project, getting close to launch, you know, I added three more salesmen. It was, you know, that's just what it is. We'll accept it. It's just capital expenditure. And that's what we'd have to do. But it's not like we wouldn't, you know, hire the staff and not give them the tools to succeed. Because at that point, you know, your personnel is your most expensive cost there. So making them as productive as possible is definitely worth the sacrifice of, you know, a little bit to supply them equipment. Okay. Okay. That makes sense. So whenever you're first beginning a project, after you do all of the information gathering, do you usually set up some sort of goals at the very beginning of the project? Yeah, I try to make a timeline of, okay, so we have to, like one of the new data centers that we're building right now, it's, we gather the scope of work. And then we determine the size of the data center, what kind of network equipment we're going to need. And then after we built a budget, then it begins in procurement. So we set a date, you know, okay, okay, waiting for the higher ups to approve the budget numbers, and then set a procurement date, and then work with the vendors. You know, check, checking availability and working with the vendors to get an idea of, hey, when is this going to show up? When do we need to place the order? If we need it faster, can we get it faster? If we need to delay it? Can we move slower? Which is especially, I would say, getting internet service is one of those things, because it's, it's, they don't let you move along in the process until certain milestones are done with the building. Okay, you have to have power, you have to have, you know, data, or all the grounding equipment, you sometimes have to put in your own conduit. So it's setting a general go live date, because you don't want to go live too early. Because then you got to pay the internet bill for a site that isn't, isn't producing any revenue. Yeah. So you have to either try to work with the ISP to move up your install date or push it back if you're, you know, not ready to start making money. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So your goals are kind of more, for the most part, it's timeline based. So specific time rather than any other kind of metrics. Yeah, for the most of the projects that I do are, are, are, you know, we have to or we want to go live at a certain date. With the crypto space, it's been okay, we've signed an electrical agreement with our power provider, to start taking power by a certain date. So my timeline shifts back to, you know, shifts back or forward, depending on when we have to start paying for power, just to make sure that, you know, we're generating revenue on what we're paying for on power. Yeah, yeah. So you mentioned that you have kind of a scope of work that is as sent out, is that something that's standardized? Like, do you have something that you usually will send out to your clients and, or something that you guys have to fill out on your own? Yeah, I mean, it's pretty templatized. And for the crypto space, because it's, and the AI space, because it's, it's, you know, acquire the building, rehab the building or site, start construction, install the network, finish construction, get the equipment online. And it was similar in the RV space to it was acquire the site, rehab the building, make sure all the equipment is in place. Very similar timeline. Okay. So how do you throughout the process, kind of ensure that people are looped in and communicated with, and are communicating to others when they they need to be? Because, of course, you are managing a bunch of different projects. So you can't kind of keep your eye on everything at all times. So how do you ensure that your team members are communicating throughout the process? The project management tools really do help with that, because I can see the other milestones. We'll go back to the internet example, you know, I can't install or the ISPs won't install the fiber until you know, we've got power and grounding to the building. And so the project management software, I can monitor, you know, the electrical team, when are the transformer showing up when are you know, the electrician is putting power in the building. And then I can coordinate with the external project manager at, you know, the ISP to say, you know, we're estimated to install the electrical and the transformers on this date. Just so you know, and then we can, you know, move up their installation date based on on our information. Okay, so the project management tools, a pretty big, pretty big factor in your, your like communication workflow. Oh, definitely. And then, you know, I can go into the tool and see, oh, you know, the electrical team hasn't updated this, this project thing in a while or something, then I can reach out directly. Hey, you know, I haven't seen an update in a week or something. Where are we? And, and, hey, yeah, you know, I'll put in an update note in the software for you. Not a big deal. I know you're busy. So yeah, yeah, I think that's really important, too, is like recognizing that they might not be putting updates in there, because they are so busy. And so I think that's part of the balance, too, is you don't want to be too overbearing. And well, yeah, I think it's it's also when you work with some of the boots on the ground, like tradesmen type people, they're not, you know, they might not spend all their time on a computer or, or have the time or, or use computers as quickly as an IT staff. So it takes me 30 seconds to, you know, call him, get a status update, put it in the project management software, so everybody can see it. And, you know, they can go back to actually being on the ground, installing the transformers, or, you know, running wire, that kind of thing. Yeah. Is there anything that you do, whenever things go past the predicted timeline? Is it does everything usually shift back? Or do you try to make up for that time? It depends on what it is. If it goes past, if it goes red on the project management software, it's usually find out why, and then update with a new timeline in the software. And it could just be that somebody forgot to put the note in or if there is a problem. So, you know, at that point, we update that piece of the project, and certain project management softwares will, you know, show you, hey, what other things does this conflict with? Okay, you know, part A got pushed back, is that going to affect B, C, D, or E? And if it does, it helps us, you know, to flag that and help us adjust the timelines as necessary on all the other pieces of the project. So what happens if there are kind of ongoing issues that kind of tend to pop up during projects, like maybe there is one piece that's pretty frequently delayed? Do you usually try to adjust for that in future projects? Yeah. So it goes back to the supply chain issue. And a lot of the stuff, transformers are a good example. They're in short supply. And we had, one of the clients had about 10 of them stuck in customs for eight months. So we had to decide, you know, how are we going to get the site online with our transformer stuck in customs? So it was, it came down to, we can wait or spend the money, and we ordered a whole new set because the money that would be lost by the site not operating was worth buying transformers from a different source and having them delivered and installed so we can get the site online. And then the ones that finally got released from customs, we put it in an inventory and used some amounts. Okay, so a lot of adjustments, but it sounds like you have contingency plans at least for if things do go. Yeah, and that's all looking at, you know, the numbers and the importance of the project and the lost revenue of not operating. So there was a upfront loss by having to source equipment somewhere else, but that was made up later by having the site online. And then the other transformers were used at another site that was opened. Okay, so how would you, once the project is done, how would you measure success and how do you kind of communicate that success to either the clients or if you're an internal IT team, maybe the executives, what do you usually do to communicate that success? Yeah, just reporting and, you know, go to market time. Hey, we hit all our goals, sites open, generating revenue, and we did it. Okay, awesome. I didn't know if it was any more complex than that or if it was pretty, pretty cut and dry. No, there's not. The places that I've been have been more small leadership, family leadership style, one, two owners. So there's not a whole lot of detailed reporting other than, you know, hey, this is what we spent, we hit your timeline, and we're off to the next project. Okay, cool. So usually a lot of those success metrics would be either completion date or budget, things like that would usually demonstrate success of a specific project rollout. Yeah, those are the two big ones, hitting the timeline and then not trying not to go too far over budget. Yeah, yeah. When you present those numbers, is it usually just through email or do you usually have to put together any sort of presentation? Yeah, I think it's usually just presentation on those metrics. For the most part, it's just a spreadsheet. We've got it. So like on the crypto side, it's a pretty fixed number. Cost per megawatt is basically what they go by, which is basically the size of the site, and it scales pretty well. So if it costs, you know, 20 grand in equipment to do a small site, and then you just extrapolate that size, and that's what it is to a medium size or a large size site. Okay. How was that different from internal IT whenever you had to kind of communicate those metrics? So obviously, it's going to be a little bit different based on the industry you were in as well. Yeah. So in the RV industry, the cost to start up a site was more based on estimated staff. So I kind of had it figured out to where a certain staff costs, you know, a sales guy needs a phone, a computer, whatever. It's going to cost, you know, $2,000 a sales staff, or it's going to cost, you know, $800 per service staff for a tablet and, you know, stuff that they just need to put notes into the system. So it was kind of based on staff size at the RV place. Okay. Well, cool. I wanted to also ask about some of your either most recent projects, or maybe a big project from your past role as well. I was wondering if you could kind of walk through that specific process as kind of a use case example from start to finish how it went. Sure. Actually, one of the projects I'm working on now, we're building a data center in Memphis, Tennessee. So it was, they acquired the property, acquired the electrical agreements. And right now, it has been just coordinating the install the equipment, acquiring the equipment. We are about three quarters of the way done with construction. They are installing all the power now. So my next goal there is to go install all the fiber optics for all the mining containers. And then once that's done, and they pass inspection, it's going to be go live time and we'll have some around 14,000 machines, I believe at that location. Whoa. Is that pretty high comparatively, or is that about normal for what y'all do? That's what I would call a medium sized site. It pulls about 45 megawatts of power. Jeez. So if you think about that on a size in terms of a city, one of the smaller cities up here in Northern Washington, it's about 3000 people and they pull 30 megawatts for the whole town. Man, that's wild to think about how many different things go into just that one single project. Yeah, it's a lot. It's a lot of power too. The data center that Elon's building also in Memphis is about the same size power wise. Jeez, man. Well, that is really cool. Has there been a project that you've worked on that you ran into a lot of stumbling blocks? Anything that you hit a lot of snags along the way of getting things set up? Not on the technical side. It's more on the procurement and just getting things approved. One client is fairly small, so it's getting the key players that convince that, hey, we need to buy this stuff and we need to place the order now in order to get the stuff here on time. That's one of the biggest stumbling blocks. That's why we've since implemented the project management systems and the budgets. We can say, hey, this is in the budget. This was expected. We need to order this. Are you okay? It's starting to get better to where it's, oh, hey, yeah, it was in the budget. Sure, that's approved. Get it here. Let's get the stuff rolling. It's starting to smooth out now that there's better processes in place. Yeah. I would agree sometimes the people part of something is a little bit tougher than the actual rollout of specific technology and stuff like that. We're probably going to end up closing out a little bit early, but as my last question, I wanted to know if you had any specific pieces of advice for someone that is maybe just starting off as an IT leader and they suddenly have a bunch of projects on their plate. What would you recommend that they focus on to really hone those project management skills? Start off and keep organized. That's going to be one of the best things to save your sanity. Before I got into IT, I was actually managing a restaurant. The first thing I would do every morning when I would open up is I would walk in, make myself a coffee, sit down at a table as I was a customer, and then look around and write down my to-do list for the day. I carried that over into IT. I feel like that writing everything down and getting everything out of my brain and onto a paper or a checklist or into the project management software, whatever you need to use, just to keep your brain organized and helps things not fall through the cracks. Because something small falling through the cracks can make the crack a lot bigger down the road, and you might not even realize it until it's too late. Then it gets way harder to fix something that, oh darn, I forgot this little thing at the start. It's keeping organized and keeping all your to-do lists in an easy place to check off the items, because it does feel good to check off or cross off items off your to-do list for the day. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's what gets me through my day is just the smallest things. I'll say, yep, I did that. That's great. Yeah, that's interesting you say that, because last week or a couple weeks ago when we did our first stream, that was one thing that was recommended was not even with project management, but just in general is keeping a checklist of things to do, making sure you're setting that up at the beginning of your day or beginning of the week so that you kind of have all of your priorities listed out. So it's really good to hear that from you as well, and it seems like it's a really common piece of advice that will help people get set up for success right at the very start. There is actually a question in here that's not about project management, but I figure you might actually have some advice here. So what is the most impactful strategy you use to attract business? So as an IT consultant, you have different clients looking for help setting up data centers. So what advice would you give there? So most of my businesses kind of come from word of mouth, especially in this industry on the crypto side, it's very small. And once you get kind of in the industry, you start figuring out how small it is, and then you just building the relationships, having that referral network I think is huge. Coming from the RV sales industry, referrals were always a huge part of the business. So it's, it's, you know, I know a guy, let me get you his number or that kind of thing. So I think I took that away from the sales mentality of building a word of mouth business to where it's, I actually do kind of one-off work for another MSP that they call me when they're either too busy or there's a project that they know that I'm kind of specialized in. I came from Microsoft background, but that was set up through a word of mouth for another client that I do work for. Yeah, I definitely have found that doing networking is something that's never been one of my strong suits. And it's something that I'm trying to focus on a little bit more this year is because that kind of word of mouth and relationship building and things like that are really, really important. Not only when it comes to attracting business, but also just professionally having those connections is really important. So well, there's another comment also from Kelly. He said, if you ever, if you're ever thinking about going for a PMP, track your project work in a personal account. You need to present a paper trail of multiple years and projects to even be able to try for the cert. And I guess my question for you, Justin, is have you ever, do you have your PMP certification? Would you ever consider getting one? I don't have it. I have considered it. I just haven't looked too deeply into it. I definitely think there is a lot to learn by the, a lot of certification courses. If you, I feel that they, you get out of them, what you put into it, whether that's, you know, Microsoft stuff or CompTIA or PMP, that kind of stuff. I just haven't had the time to sit down and put enough effort into it, but I really think it would be helpful. Yeah, I completely agree. There's a number of things that I probably would be helpful to have a certification on, but just finding the time between work and normal life stuff, it's hard to find time to focus on certifications. So, but it's good to hear that you would find it valuable at the very least. All right. Well, I think those are all of the questions that I have. And definitely if anybody has any last minute questions in chat, feel free to send them over. But for now, thank you all so much for joining. I really appreciate it. Justin, thank you for sharing all of your information. Something I think would be helpful is if you do have any of those templates that you think would be valuable for other IT leaders to have. So, scopes of work or reporting spreadsheets, definitely feel free to drop them into the Leadership Lab. We're definitely, we have kind of categories for different kinds of blueprints or templates like that. So, we have budgeting, we have hiring. So, you know, interview questions, things that an IT leader might have that would be a little bit more standardized. If anybody has any assets like that or content they feel like would be helpful, you can definitely submit them to the Leadership Lab and we can get them published. So, but yeah, thank you so much again for your time. And if that is it, I'll give y'all 22 minutes back to hang out. I know you have a meeting soon enough, Justin. So, hopefully you can decompress a little bit more. Yeah, no, thanks again for having me. It's been great. Awesome. Well, thank y'all. Have a good day. All right. See y'all in the lab. Bye. Bye.
