Neglecting the most important project phase, planning, puts your project at risk. Two emotions cause the most important project phase to be the most neglected.
The two emotions are excitement and fear.
Excitement
The project is new! It’s shiny!
This feels hopeful and optimistic. The project’s going to change the world!
Excitement prevails!
This excitement tricks the team into believing its synchronized. Everyone thinks they have a common understanding of the project’s goals and how they’ll be achieved.
The excitement caused by the hope and optimism makes it hard to take a step back and plan.
Planning sounds boring. Nobody wants the boredom to stifle the excitement.
The team is ready to go, Go and GO!
After all, what can go wrong when everything looks so right?
Fear
The project’s already behind schedule. There’s no TIME to stop.
There are community members, investors and maybe even users who needed this YESTERDAY.
Planning will only get in the way. Planning will only slow things down.
And the project CAN’T slow down. You'll only fall FURTHER BEHIND. Progress must be demonstrated, at ALL COSTS.
That’s what the fear says.
After All, What Can Go Wrong?
Lots can go wrong. Lots will go wrong. Investing time to plan at the beginning of a project won’t stop things from going wrong.
Planning will help prevent things from going wrong. It will help a project recover when things start to go wrong.
Planning is worth the investment. The planning investment sets the foundation for a project’s success. That’s why it’s the most important project phase.
Think twice the next time you’re about to skip the planning phase. Check-in with yourself and see if a combination of fear and excitement are causing you to make this mistake.
Take three conscious breaths. Remind yourself that planning’s worth it. Then start planning!
This goes for crypto projects too, especially since you’re asking people to trust you. You may be handling large sums of their money too.
P.S. I published this post a couple years ago. It holds true today too. I recently published it again on my Chainflow blog here.
And now, on to this week’s jobs…
General Pulse - Steady/Slow (and Corporate 😬😇)
Note: I (still!) haven’t been able to add Coindesk jobs to the list yet. I’ll add jobs from this board starting soon. In the meantime, there are a few product and project manager jobs listed.
0x -Product Manager - Developer Experience
Bison Trails Co. - Product Lead
Coinbase - Crypto Product Manager
Product Manager at NEAR Protocol
Product Manager, Growth at Dfinity
Product Manager at Coda
Technical Program Director at Tezos Commons Foundation
Program Manager at Protocol Labs
Filecoin China Program Manager at Protocol Labs
Filecoin Product & Business Development at Protocol Labs
Product Manager at Gnosis
Product Manager at Bloxroute Labs
Product Manager at Oasis Labs
Other crypto projects I don’t know much about or would probably not apply to myself, at least without doing more research, yet are hiring PM’s include Gemini, Coindesk, Airtm, Annacus (very little company info, struck me as an intriguing value prop) Hydrogen, Airfox, DEX, IOHK, Blockstack, and Wyre.
(If you’re interested in corporate jobs at places like Visa, JPMorgan, EY, Amazon and Consensys, you can find links in this spreadsheet. It’s the master spreadsheet I use to track the job listings.)
Catch you next week,
Chris
P.S. - Help advocate for more PM’s in crypto by sharing this issue on Twitter 💪