10 Practical Project Management Tips

We all manage projects. Whether we are working on a team or independently, we have our part that needs to get done. Chris Ford, Project Manager at Reaktiv Studios shared her practical project management tips at WordCamp US in November 2019.

10 Practical Project Management Tips
Photo by Shopify Partners from Burst

1. Projects are about people

Projects are about working and collaborating with people to achieve a goal or build something. It’s not about the technology. People are trying to do the best they can with the tools they have.

2. Work with people you like.

People don’t like to work with jerks. You don’t always get to choose who you work with. When you do, choose to work with people you like. Projects work out better when you work with people you like.

3. There is no such thing as a perfect project.

Something always happens. The client adds new features. Team members quit. Delays and other problems occur. When that happens, be flexible. Stay calm and do the best you can.

4. Measure what matters to you.

You can’t measure what matters to you if you don’t track it. Do you know how much time you spend on a task? Are you using a project management tool to keep track of team’s progress? There are plenty of tools like Harvest to help you collect and analyze your progress.

5. You will be wrong. It will suck.

You’ll make mistakes. Everyone does. Chris likes to say “The wrong mistake is the one you make more than twice.” Accept this and be ok with it.

6. Bad news doesn’t age well.

When you’re wrong, don’t hide it. It is better to tell people bad news right away than delay it.

7. Celebrate the small victories.

When you have a success no matter how small, celebrate it with your team.

8. Create a culture of helping.

Be helpful. Share knowledge and encourage helping others.

9. Take care of yourself.

Remember to take care of your team and especially yourself. Schedule time for breaks and whatever else your or your team needs.

10. Everyone is a project manager.

Remember, we all manage our own projects.

Completing a Pricing Plan Coding Challenge

I found Frontend Mentor where you can improve your front-end coding skills by building real projects. You can pick a challenge that appeals to you. Then, download the design documents, images and other assets that you need.

Pricing Plan Coding Challenge

Pricing Component With Toggle

The challenge I chose was the pricing component with toggle. It has three options: Basic, Professional and Master. You have to use a toggle switch to show the prices for Annually or Monthly.

How I Built It

I built it using HTML, Bootstrap and JavaScript. With Bootstrap, I had to override some of its styles to get rid of the column margin and create custom styles for the button.

I wrote JavaScript that watches for when the toggle is selected. When you open the page, it defaults to monthly pricing. If you select Annually, you see the Annual prices. When you select Monthly, it switches back to Monthly prices.

What I Learned

The style guide defined colors in HSL and included a linear gradient. The linear-gradient is a CSS function that allows you to create a transition between two or more colors along a straight line. You can choose the direction or angle of the transition. For two of the buttons and toggle, the gradient moves from left to right. The professional plan card moves from top to bottom.

I used two structural pseudo-classes in CSS to create the design. The :first-of-type and :last-of-type selectors allow you to target the first and last occurrence of an element in a container.

Bootstrap has a toggle switch available. It was not customizable with CSS. You have to compile custom Bootstrap in order to change how it looks. I found CSS toggle solution that works like the design. I modified it to work with my CSS.

Frontend Mentor asks developers to post their solutions to their site. If you get stuck on a project, you can look at their solution to see how they approached it.

You can see my version of the pricing plan with toggle.