OPERATIONS

PROJECT MANAGEMENT

The Monday Morning WIP

Every Monday morning at 10am PST, the Mellenger team meets to get aligned on the week ahead. Team members share something warm and fuzzy about life, what they're working on, any blockers they're up against, and a recent work "win". Our lead Mellengerm, Andrew, provides updates on new business and anything else that's important for the team to know. WIP stands for work-in-progress, BTW.

Weekly Tasks

After the WIP, every team member receives a list of their priorities for the week. For some projects, they may be given a target of hours to log that week. For others, particular tasks to complete will be provided.

Most team members are lead developers for certain SLA (service level agreements) with clients in Canada and the US. Our project managers monitor the tickets that are added into Bugherd, our ticket-tracking program. It is expected that team members who lead the work on SLAs will address critical tickets ASAP and complete other tickets on a regular basis before the next check-in with the client.

Milestones and Workbacks

At the start of most projects, a workback and critical path plan is prepared in Google Sheets. This details, at a higher level, all of the tasks (development and design) to be completed, and where they're scheduled in the project lifecycle. These plans are living documents and flex throughout the project; some tasks are completed ahead of schedule and some take more or less time than expected. We do our best to keep these plans up-to-date, and they are shared with clients so they can see our progress at any time.

Bi-weekly or Monthly Client Check-ins

Mellenger Interactive sets itself apart from other agencies by ensuring that momentum is sustained on client projects and deadlines are met. Key to maintaining this momentum are regular check-in meetings with current clients. These meetings are set at the start of the project, at regular two- or four-week intervals.

At these meetings, we:

Report on the burn rate of project hours
Provide an update on the design and development work completed thus far
Discuss any questions or blockers that have arisen during the last sprint
Identify and assign action items and goals for the next sprint

Our goal is to ensure that there is progress to share at each check-in, and that constant communication is maintained between Mellenger and our clients. Imagine if we showed up at a client check-in and said, "We didn't actually DO anything since our last meeting." You can't, can you? Neither can we. Our check-in model ensures accountability and progress.

WIP and Agenda Documents

Key to our regular client check-in meetings are the Shared WIP (work-in-progress) and Agenda Documents, which are shared by both the Mellenger and client teams. They are running Google docs where the agenda for each check-in is prepared and notes are taken during meetings. Action items, questions and issues are detailed.

In a nutshell, our Shared WIP and Agenda Documents become a detailed history of the project, as well as a record of key decisions and updates. They are useful for referring back to if a client is ever wondering when a decision was made or who made it.

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