I love books. I especially love a book about processes. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People® is one of my favorites. I break down my approach to marketing projects while wearing multiple hats for a single objective. You can apply these strategies to yearly planning, website builds, social strategies, or any creative initiative really.
Habit 1: Be Proactive
Create a space to dream. People feel loved when they feel heard. Define the team and individual roles to provide psychological safety and clear communication. Make sure everyone in the room understands the problem you are looking to solve and that there is no solution too big or small.
People always have examples in their mind of what they think the solution is. Therefore, giving everyone a space to talk about strategies they like and dislike is important for effective collaboration.
Take time to step back and look at the research together. If you don’t give everyone a place to share ideas at the beginning then you can bet they’re going to share opinions at the end. This places everyone in a defensive position instead of partners in the strategic process.
Habit 2: Begin With the End in Mind
Once you have all the pieces of the puzzle ground yourself in the problem you are looking to solve. What are the strategy KPIs?
This will help bring clarity on what’s a “need to have” versus a “nice to have.” Corporate loves the term “low hanging fruit” but if you’re a visual person you can layout project items and rate them using a stoplight color code system. Rate each project piece on a scale of 1-10 for frequency, urgency, and complexity. If you see three red lights, then those are the big impact items. If you see three green lights, well there is your low-hanging fruit!
This type of visual prioritization language is helpful when working with production teams and leaves room for collaboration on how things are built instead of what is built. Be sure to ask questions about effort level and timing when seeking alignment in one on one conversations with experts responsible for building.
Habit 3: Put First Things First
Take your scope list and specialist timing estimates and start laying out items in a calendar view. Your project isn’t going to be successful if everyone is working towards a singular launch deadline.
Everyone should know how one component impacts another for independent decision making that supports an overall strategy.
Schedule quality assurance checks between phases. Heck, make a phase checklist. This kind of transparency allows for everyone to share ideas throughout while maintaining strategy scope and timeline expectations.
Habit 4: Think Win-Win
Effective strategies are measured by both qualitative and quantitative data for performance insights.
Make sure you don’t lose sight of long-term strategic gains for instant results. If you spend more time on a certain aspect does that gain skill-building, white labels, partnerships, or clear out a maintenance backlog? What is the shelf life and how can we extend sustainability beyond KPIs? This is your opportunity to build trust between specialists and leadership.
Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood
Weekly checkins should be easy:
- Provide progress updates
- Answer specialist or leadership questions
- Handoff deliverables
- Confirm project plan next steps
A change in scope is understood to be a change in timeline. These adjustments are mutually agreed upon and are usually in the best interest of the project.
Habit 6: Synergize
Prevent leadership trust falls with a hard launch. Phases are great times to provide visual updates as proof of progress. The end of the project can include a roadshow to preview but should include the team from Habit 1 and be prepared to share the strategic objective and research. Provide a frame of context and expectations.
Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw
People need an ending for a sense of accomplishment. We know the strategy work is never over but everyone likes checking off a to list item. Celebrate the ending of phases as a team or the launch of a project as an organization. You did it together.