Prelude: everything that follows in this tale is 100% my fault. I still have love for the agency in question and continue to admire their work. Several of their key people in creative are local legends that I greatly respect. The quick skinny is that project management is vitally, painfully important.

In 2009, I was working in-house with a software company and doing a little side business with indie projects, nothing major. I got a tickle from a project manager at an agency I had been worked with previously, my first project with him but the latest in a long line with the house. He had a block of Flash work needing done and I was on their shortlist. Would I, could I, on remote? Sure. I go in and meet…

Timmy

If there is a higher intelligence that holds sway in our existence, it shines a shaft of blind love and protection on Timmy, because I can’t think of any other reason that he had his position as a PM with a reputable house. Timmy had really good hair, and was a very dapper dresser. Shoes that demanded admiration and envy. Monogrammed moleskin notepad. Professionally pretty. Unfortunately, the front was all Timmy had for himself.

In the brief, there were no budget limits to work within, just a fairly substantial order for development and localization on rich media Flash banners utilizing Google’s DoubleClick tech. Roll over the banner, it expands out from its native size, plays a video. Everybody remembers those things, they had their moment in the sun. There were 5 or 7 sizes needed, translated into a dozen different languages.

When you get a massive work order with no attached hours for budget, create them yourself! If you’ve never done a project to this scale, do a test run over a weekend to see how much you get done in 4 hours, extrapolate the rest of the budget from that test. Regardless, come to an understanding with management about the hours and time. Without that conversation before you begin work, you will regret it. This was my failure, I thought Timmy would be tracking the time and would let me know when the bucket was running down.

The only thing Timmy was tracking were shirts at Harrod’s online store.

First Signs of Smoke

We were rounding out on the primary project block, and were combing out the glitches expected in the home stretch to getting the masters complete. As it turns out, there was one bug in particular that was unsmashable, it was a glitch in DoubleClick itself in that scenario. And to be completely fair, it was the kind of glitch that only comes up when you stack two impossible things on top of each other and force them to work. I definitely want to shoutout their internal support team, they were very helpful.

But, once that last unsmashable got filed as “limitation of tech”, I knew that it was time to sync up on hours. There’s something about approaching the 70 hour mark on a project without a discussion about hours that is alarming, so I submitted my hours, an activity overview, an invoice for block 1, and a timeline sketch for block 2. The response from Timmy amounted to a WTF, it seems that we had already exceeded the budget for the entire project, including the localization work intended for block 2.

Then I got an email from Jill, Timmy’s superior, explaining that I needed to come in and give an in-person accounting for the time I had worked on project. They were willing to honor the invoice, and they did, but I had to walk them through everything so they could understand what happened when in the project.

In ~6 years of agency related work, this experience was unique.

The Inquisition

I prepped for the meet by printing out all of the emails between Timmy and myself regarding the project, it was mostly status reports from me with the regular “u killin it bro” type responses from Timmy. All relevant pieces were highlighted. From that, I reconstructed a timeline of what was happening when and practiced the walkthrough. Public speaking with a gun to my wallet is not my strong suit.

Instead of one of the usual smaller meeting rooms, I was lead to a larger conference space. Timmy was there, along with Jill, two of the partners, an accounts exec and someone very serious from legal who informed me that everything was going to be recorded. Let’s hear it for prep work, that was one of those cold colon moments where you realize the extent to which you are screwed without it.

I played out the story for them, Jill led the discussion. One of the partners and the accounts person asked a few questions here and there, but it was mostly Jill and I talking back and forth. Timmy was silent throughout, someone had already taken a newspaper to his nose. From their questions it seems that he had tried to throw me under the bus in his earlier talk, and the emails they were looking at were not lining up with the version of events they’d heard previously.

The talk came down to that “limitation of tech”, the hours that ran into that task were the real sticking point, they wanted to know if I was willing to compromise. I stuck to the assertion that the only mistake that I made was in not reporting a running tally of my hours, all actions that I took were Timmy-approved. I deserved the money that I had earned. They acknowledged that this was an internal failure on their part, thanked me for my service, and I was presented with a check for the full amount there and then. Tense but amicable.

Return Orbit

About three weeks later, I get an email from Jill. It turns out that their internal resources were tapped and they had been approved for a new budget to bring me in to finish out the localization piece of the project. We had banners that needed translating and approved copy on hand, the next piece had to roll. She was to be my contact on the project, I was to come in for the handoff from the tech who had been hammering at it.

It was a very tense environment to return to, but we were all professional and pulled together to complete the SOW and fulfill the end client order. I did not see Timmy again. I know he continued to work there but he always seemed to be scarce the two or three times that I went in to finish out that order. Unfortunately, this was not the best way to get the attention of leadership, and certainly not the outcome that they wanted, so it comes as little surprise that I have not been called back in to do anything for them since.

Another fine pickle to found myself in, and due to the slightest of oversights in oversight on my part. I assumed that Timmy was competent and on-task, I did not realize that he was counting on me to do his job.

It’s important that a project manager have good people skills and be easy on the eyes, it’s part of their job to be solid in a meeting. But the other piece of it is just as important, which is managing the continued flow of information between the clients and the resources, and taking the brunt of the pressure if a project gets tense. The best PM’s I have ever known have been super chill, laid back, easy going folks, but detail oriented and clear in all communications.

So what did I learn?

1. Always log your time on a project and track it as you go along. If you are doing work with an agency, it’s a good habit to finish out each email with a report on total hours for each task. Full transparency!
2. Don’t assume someone is competent, let them show you their level of skill through work experience. Be as organized and transparent as possible, those that don’t naturally match you will sprint to catch up.
3. Don’t assume someone is moral. Timmy tried to save his own ass, and ruined my relationship with his employer to keep his job. This then deprived the house of a valued resource and caused a further shot to an already troubled talent pool. Timmy didn’t care about his team or any player on it, he didn’t care about the quality of the work he was producing.

God DAMMIT I hate Timmy. Worst. Project Management. Ever.