10 Guiding Principles for Viget Project Managers

A project manager's primary role is often seen as maintaining organization and progress in projects, ensuring they are delivered within the scope, budget, and timeline. At Viget, the project management team does focus on meeting these standards, but we are also consultants, strategists, and project leaders. Our goal is to empower the internal project teams at Viget to work effectively with our clients, including both core client team members and broader client stakeholders, to help them achieve their desired business outcomes.

To better articulate the depth and breadth of how project management functions at Viget, our project management team engaged in an informal brainstorming exercise. I then distilled that work into ten guiding principles that encapsulate our current team ethos. This list does not comprehensively cover the full extent of the contributions, skills, and business value that we bring to projects, but it’s a good starting point.

The principles

We are project leaders. 

We propel initiatives forward, cultivate project culture, and consider the broader business context of our work. We set the tone for communication and process. We define ways of working that consider the specific needs of the project, the team, and stakeholders.

We are digital consultants and industry experts.

We maintain broad bases of knowledge and skills across client and project types that enable us to contribute beyond basic project coordination. Each Viget project manager has a different skill set and we are empowered to exercise those skills at the appropriate points. We have been known to develop product roadmaps, moderate usability testing sessions, write scripts and code, analyze data, create designs and wireframes, and lead complex workshops.

We embrace change.

Agency work requires us to immerse ourselves in new industries, explore different challenges, and collaborate with various stakeholders. At times, we are working with brand new tools and technologies. Our team is nimble and flexible, embracing change and seeking out opportunities to adapt and improve our ways of working to always maintain our high standard of quality. Viget project managers are accustomed to easing the transition to new ways of working for the broader project team.

We prioritize transparency, accountability, and integrity in our interactions with client and internal teams.

When we sense that projects are at risk, we alert clients and work toward solutions together. We are clear and honest about what may be contributing to issues or challenges within projects. We regularly have retrospective conversations to ensure that we are communicating effectively and course correcting along the way.

We deliver high quality work to our clients.

Project managers at Viget ensure that the work we deliver aligns with the client’s business objectives, meets the initial project goals, and meets our own high standards and expectations in terms of quality. We create checkpoints for internal peer reviews and we ensure that feedback from client stakeholders is reflected in our deliverables. We test and review our work to ensure that it meets or exceeds accessibility, quality assurance, and industry standards. Our work ethic is unmatched.

We maintain a human-centered, empathetic approach to collaboration with client and internal teams. 

We seek positive, pragmatic solutions informed by our understanding of client needs and challenges. We consider the people that will interact with the products that we create. We also consider the wellbeing of the teams that create the products. We understand that the client teams we work with may have multiple initiatives that they are responsible for, and that they are also interacting with an internal stakeholder team that has their own expectations for the product we are delivering. We try our best to make decisions that balance the priorities and needs of the different people that are involved in creating the product and the end user.

We serve as advocates for the project and build alignment across teams so that we’re working together towards shared goals and outcomes.

We cultivate a positive, collaborative relationship within client and internal teams. Our goal is to set and maintain the foundation that we're all working together toward a shared objective.

We set our teams up for success by being proactive.

We have a full view of the project, which gives us the ability to anticipate risks and potential issues. We develop and socialize contingency plans and understand dependencies that need to be addressed.

We approach problem solving with humility, curiosity, and creativity.

We typically have to understand our clients’ industry in a short period of time, while having a deep enough understanding that we're able to find solutions that fit client needs and achieve project goals. We facilitate conversations with subject matter experts. We understand what resources we need to gather to have a good level of understanding about our clients’ domain. We don’t hesitate to ask questions. 

We are committed to learning, growing, and sharing.

Our ability to recognize what we don’t know —  and our commitment to continuous learning — helps us bring new tools and skills to Viget. We are continuously creating and sharing project management frameworks, tools, and technologies through pairings, peer group sessions, cross-discipline meetings, and all hands gatherings, as well as with the broader industry and project management community.

Ultimately, our work is rooted in meeting business objectives and project goals. The process we use for meeting these goals can differ across projects, but the principles that guide our team to deliver value and enhance project success are consistent.