How did you get in the business?

I've been in the web world for 10 years now. My background is in marketing/branding, so I'm used to leading teams. I prefer web project management because it's extremely fast-paced and I have a diverse skill set that allows me to manage teams and actually be able to relate to them. I can design, market, and whatever else I need to do. Yesterday, I was writing css/php during my "lunch".

What education background did you have before starting?

Went to college for Communications Marketing. However, we're getting to the point in the web world that nobody cares about anything except experience, which is good. The people that are "ahead of the curve" are the ones that skipped the useless core classes and expensive piece of paper and went straight to work.

Once you have experience are you a sought after commodity?

Yes. The more experience you have, the more valuable you are. If you're really going to get into project management, then experience is everything. Along with that, get experience in different PM philosophies - Scrum, Agile, modified, etc. Plus, become fluent in all PM software - Basecamp, Podio, etc. There are several different systems out there. Some are great, some are garbage - know which ones work for different teams/situations.

Basically, can I turn this into something career wise besides my part-time second job status?

Full-time project managers can make upwards of 120k. It just depends on your experience and where you work. Companies are very interested in people that can get shit done.

How many teams do you manage?

Essentially 1, but we break off into smaller teams sometimes during sprint weeks on multiple projects.

What are some efficiency philosophies that you believe in?

The ends justify the means. Also, I'm a huge minimalist. Cut the distractions.

What is your technical background? Do you know how to code, do SEO, design, etc? If so do you get your hands in the project or do you let your team handle all technical aspects of the job?

I can write html/css and some lightweight php, I have run multi million dollar seo campaigns, and I have shot advertising campaigns, photo and video, so I know design as well.

The more you know, the better. Period. If somebody on the team gets hit by a bus, you need to be able to jump in, regardless of what they've been working on.

Learning different disciplines will never hinder your career.

Who handles the content gather with the client? This can laborious at times and requires having good rapport, so how do you push to get content and move projects along?

I do. Clients can be a pain in the ass - everybody knows this. However, if you're lucky, you get the ones that "care" about their project, having everything ready to go for you. Sometimes, more often than not, they're just all over the place, sending 72 emails, all with 1 single design change. It's your job to reign them in. They are part of your team too, whether we like it or not. You have to educate your client on how to be efficient, just like you do with your team.

More often than not, clients really appreciate this effort.

How do clients settle on the design? Do they chose from templates?

I know that a lot of web shops do templates... We do not. Everything we do is custom. We have design briefs, need assessments, and face to face meetings that help us dig through and find out what they really want.

The way I look at it, if you have really talented designers, it's insulting to them when you're making them change colors in CSS and swap out photos on some template.

Long story short, I hate templates and everybody else should ha. Plus, if you try to pull something like that on a client, you'll get called out - not by them, but by other agencies. Custom or nothing.

Thanks for the awesome questions. If you have more, just let me know. I'll be around all day.

I consider us lucky. We're all local.

When you're running sprints and trying to coordinate multiple projects on different timelines, it's essential to have as many team members within arms reach at a moment's notice.

Considering the volume that we process, and to the degree of functionality requirements, having remotes would hinder production if for no other reason that an email is simply too slow.

When we're handed accounts that have been sold, after being scoped properly of course (by us), it's up to us to assemble the most efficient team of designers and developers, getting the project completed in the most efficient way possible while maintaining product quality.

I know that's broad stroking it, but that's the overview.

To go into a little more depth:

• Scheduling
• Asset management
• Talent assessments in order to create fast, efficient teams that can produce high quality work for any given project.
• Client side relations once the account executive essentially passes the project on to us.
• Running the project management software
• Monitoring time sheets, etc.
• Scrum
• Sprints

PM me your portfolio and any way to view work you've done.

Aside from that - Pick up freelance gigs when you can for small clients. If you shit the bed, and it will happen (Hopefully not often from what I see from your music project), then scrap it up to experience. Learn from everything, including the "losses". (Did you interpret the client needs correctly? What could you improve on in the current, personal workflow).

Start putting your work on various outlets online. Get feedback - Reddit, Dribbble, whatever else you can find. (Hell, send me everything, and I'll have my homies take a look at it). If you want to work in the web design world, you've got to have the work to back it up. That being said, design your ass off, all the time. It doesn't matter what it is. Just do it. At the point you're at, some work is better than pixel-perfect, agency grade work. The rest (agency process, etc) will fall into place. Look into the process, and talk to as many people as you can.

If you think you're more suited for UX, first consider what all UX entails. I do a lot of UX when consulting with clients. Most agency designers are UX/UI - keep this is mind. As I said in a previous statements, you need to learn every aspect of the web design world and be able to do everything. Experience and versatility is what wins you a job.

Lastly, and I want to stress this for everybody reading... When I'm looking to add people to my team, I could not care less about where you went, who you've worked for, who you're related to, or how old you are. I care about the work. That's all that matters. We live in an industry where talent speaks louder than anything. This is why I love the industry I work in, regardless of what my "job" is.

Here's the thing: What do you want to do?

Anybody that has been successful in the startup world can essentially "do anything" in the web world. The problem is that you've got to devote time and effort into a single discipline then move on to the next instead of just sticking with one. We see this all the time when people move from coding language to the next. It's literally just learning another language/discipline.

In my experience, I did exactly that move - PM me and I'll send you my actual resume. It's all over the place.

The point is this - I have never been a person to "pick a path" in my life. Ever. I want to be equipped to do absolutely anything I want to. That's why I keep learning - constantly.

If you want to do something, just go do it. The only thing you need to do is narrow down what you like to do and get really good at it. It's important to know your own strengths. It's even more important to admit your faults.

I think I can help, but I need some details:

Are you guys currently using any kind of project management service? Podio, Basecamp, etc? These programs are used for this exact purpose.

Are you setting benchmarks for when certain aspects of your projects should be completed? "Index build done x/x/xx", etc? If so, it's on you if your not hit your dates, it's on them if they're not scoping the project properly or promising deadlines there's no way to hit.

If you actually have a project manager, then they should already have a system in place. If so, tell me about the system.