Project Management Handbook

Project Management Principles

Project Managers in Meiro

The role of PMs in Meiro is broader than the typical PM function. Beyond managing the project's scope, time and resources and facilitating communication/coordination between parties, you are also a trusted consultant to the client, and play the role of Account Manager at times.

Basic PM Rules

Always communicate. Do you have a blocker? Do you need any info from the client.
Always turn an action (feedback, new request, investigation needs..) into an issue in Jira. What is not in Jira should not be worked on.
When creating an issue in Jira, provide enough details and contextual information for the assignee to be able to complete it without misunderstanding the task. As much as possible, describe your objective, what needs to be done, the expected outcome, references to discussions in Slack etc...
Keep the status of the task up to date. PMs should review all your project progress, including all issues, on a weekly basis.
Include the client in the loop - set fast communication channels to get information on a timely basis, and to get feedback from the client earlier in the process

Types of Project Billing

Fixed Cost Projects

This applies to most core CDP implementation projects (in which we set up the CDP for the first time or integrate date sources/destinations to ensure a functional CDP)

Time-Material

Time-material based projects are typically employed when:

The client employs us for a well-defined scope of work to build on an existing CDP. For example: Change Profile Stitching logic, modify the format of CSV output, and run a predictive modelling exercise / RFM analysis on a customer dataset.
There is predictable maintenance work that needs to be done after the implementation has been completed. For example, if the client knows there are occasional new landing pages on the website which requires our analyst to update the workspaces scripts to accommodate for that. In this case, our client typically pre-purchases a package of 10 Man-Days (MD)
The client needs our consultant to implement use cases for them on a regular basis

For time-material projects, we need to report on Man-Hours consumed after a major item in the Scope of Work is completed, or on regular basis (weekly/monthly, depending on the rate of utilisation). Notify the client when 75% and 90% of their pre-purchased MD has been consumed - this should never be a surprise to them.

Project Communication & Reporting Cadence

Frequency	Type	Reference
Daily	Analysts async standup Analyst to report individually on #team_analyzátoři Slack channel answering: What you worked on yesterday. What you plan on working on today. Any blockers.
Weekly	Project Standups 30 mins stand up for each project attended by the PM and analyst. Optional for Account Manager. Review Jira and address: What we completed last week What we need to do this week --> Deadline to be set on Jira What are the blockers? How are we doing with respect to the project timeline / resources available?
Weekly	Weekly Status Update Send each client (and agency partner, if any) consolidated minutes for weekly update via email	Template: Weekly Update
Monthly	Monthly Update Monthly email update on high-level project reviews addressing: Key groups of tasks / initiatives / deliverables done Key results / achievements Major blockers CDP license utilisations You can add a link to the project tracking sheet for anyone interested to get more details on the overall progress of the project. The audience of these updates are higher-level stakeholders (project lead, CMO, CTO, CIO)	Template: Monthly Update
Monthly	License parameters monitoring To update each instance's utilisation of the license parameters in Meiro's All Instances, Project, Analysts at the end of every month basis to monitor growth. This is important as the client's license needs to be upgraded to a higher tier when these parameters are exceeded.
Quarterly	Stakeholders meeting Meet all stakeholders ideally every quarter to sync on high-level priorities, project issues, client's future plans etc..
Ongoing	Update Project Tracking sheet	Template: Project Tracking sheet

SOPs for Time & Resources Management

Create Issues in Jira

A few rules for creating a new issue in Jira:

Minimum requirement: All Jira issues MUST have a Summary, Description, Assignees, and Priority
During weekly stand-ups, deadlines for tasks are assigned or updated
Discussions relating to the issues should happen on Jira and not in Slack

Refer to How to use Jira for Implementation team.

Time Reporting in Jira

We use an add-on in Jira called Appfire Timesheets for reporting of time.

References

List of Projects, Analysts and PMs