Choose the right tracking method for your

project
So far, you've learned about the importance of tracking project progress. You’ve also
reviewed some of the different tracking methods used by project managers, like
project plans, Gantt and Burndown charts, and Roadmaps. This reading will explore
and compare these popular tracking methods in more detail so you can feel more
confident choosing the best method for your projects.

Gantt charts
The Gantt chart is one of the most popular tracking methods and can be used for all
types of projects. Gantt charts typically live in your project charter and are updated
as the project progresses.

Gantt charts are useful for:

 Helping a team stay on schedule

 Projects with lots of tasks, dependencies, and milestones
 Projects with large teams, because ownership and responsibilities are
explicitly laid out visually
Asana, one of the work management software tools featured in this certification, has
useful resources for getting started with Gantt charts. Practice working with Gantt
charts on your own with a free Asana trial or by downloading a free Gantt chart
template from Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel.

Want to learn more? Check out these resources:

Asana help article: New to Gantt charts? Start here.

Roadmaps
Roadmaps are another common tracking method. Like Gantt charts, Roadmaps also
track both individual and project progress toward milestones. However, Roadmaps
are best suited for tracking big milestones in your project.

Roadmaps are useful for:

 High-level tracking of large milestones. Roadmaps outline the project as a

whole and provide an overall snapshot of key points—just like an actual
roadmap contains points of interest and mile markers.
 Illustrating to your team or key stakeholders how a project should evolve over
time
Roadmaps can be built using different tools. You can create a Roadmap in a
document (like this example).

Smartsheet has useful resources for getting started with Roadmaps. Practice
working with Roadmaps on your own with a free Smartsheet trial or by downloading
this Roadmap template created with Google Sheets.

Want to learn more? Check out these resources:

Smartsheet help article: Everything you need to know about Project Roadmaps
Free Product Roadmap templates from Smartsheet

Burndown charts
Burndown charts are typically used by Agile Scrum teams. Burndown charts reveal
how quickly your team is working by displaying how much work is left and how much
time remains to complete the work. The main uses of a Burndown chart are to keep
the project team on top of targeted completion dates and make them aware of scope
creep if it occurs. The chart should be displayed so everyone can see it and needs to
be updated regularly in order to be effective.

Burndown charts are useful for:

 Projects that require a detailed review of tasks

 Projects where finishing on time is the top priority
*Note: If you'd like to learn about Agile and Scrum, which are popular project
management approaches, check out Course 5 of this certificate, Agile Project
Management.

A Burndown chart helps you, as a project manager, understand how your team works
and what influences their ability to complete tasks on time. This way, you can
address issues right away, before they become major problems. They also help you
plan more efficiently for the next project by identifying potential problem areas.

Jira is a work management software tool that has useful resources for getting started
with Burndown charts. Practice working with Burndown charts on your own with a
free Jira trial or by downloading this Burndown chart template created with Google
Sheets.

Want to learn more? Check out these resources:

Jira help article: Learn how to use burndown charts in Jira software
ProjectManager.com article: Burndown Chart: What Is It & How Do I Use It?
Project status reports
In this lesson, you are learning to identify and compare various types of tracking
methods. This reading will cover project status reports and how you can use them to
track and communicate common project elements in a snapshot.

Key components of a project status report

A project status report gives an overview of all of the project’s common elements and
summarizes them in a snapshot. It is an efficient communication tool to convey the
latest status in one place for the team and stakeholders.

Most status reports contain the following components:

 Project name: The project name should be specific to the purpose of the
project so that the overall goal of the project can be understood at-a-glance.
 Date: You will create project status reports many times during the course of a
project’s implementation phase. Reports can be created weekly or monthly—
it all depends on the stakeholders’ needs and pace of the project. Adding the
date to each status report acts as a reference point for your audience and also
creates a history log of the project’s status over time.
 Summary: The summary condenses the project’s goals, schedule, highlights,
and lowlights in one central place for easy stakeholder visibility. Usually, the
summary section will be followed by, or grouped with, the timeline summary
and the overall project status.
 Status: As you can imagine, status is a crucial piece. The status of the project
illustrates your actual progress versus your planned progress. In project
management, a common way to depict this is through RAG (red, amber,
green), or Red-Yellow-Green, status reporting. RAG follows a traffic light
pattern to indicate progress and status. Red indicates that there are issues
that need resolution and that the project may be delayed or go significantly
over budget. Amber/Yellow means that there are potential issues with
schedule or budget, but that the issues can likely be resolved with corrective
actions. And green means the schedule and budget are doing fine and that
the project is on track. You can use RAG to indicate the overall project status,
as well as milestone status. Every project team and stakeholder may have a
slightly different perspective on what the colors mean and how urgent it is to
escalate issues when they see an amber/yellow or red status, so it’s important
to make sure everyone understands what the different color statuses mean
for your project.
 Milestones and tasks: A summary of the project’s major milestones thus far
and current tasks helps the team and stakeholders easily visualize the
progress of those elements. In a project plan, you will typically depict the
tasks and milestones as ‘not started,’ ‘in progress’ or ‘completed’ at an item-
by-item level. But, in the project status report, it is common to summarize
these items into two categories to better communicate the status. You’ll use
 key accomplishments to detail what has happened, and upcoming to detail
what big milestones you will accomplish next.
 Issues: The issues include your project's current roadblocks and potential
risks. Status reports are an important opportunity to set expectations with
your stakeholders. If your project status is red or amber, you can flag what is
preventing you from being where you planned to be. You can also use this
opportunity to state your plan to get the project back to green, and ask for
any resources or help you may need to do so. You will learn more about
communicating big risks and issues in the upcoming videos.

Project status report types

With those key elements in mind, you can format your report in a variety of ways
depending on your audience and what you need to communicate.

If you need to share a status report with your team for a project that contains
multiple layers of complexity, it may be best to format the report in a spreadsheet in
order to keep track of all the moving parts.

If you simply need to communicate updates to senior stakeholders, your status

report may be best formatted as a slideshow, like the one below, containing only an
overview of the most key points.

Key takeaways
To recap, project status reports are a powerful tool to:

 Improve and simplify communication across the team.

  Keep everyone, including key stakeholders, informed.
 Request more resources and support (if needed).
 Create structure and transparency by recording the project status in a
centralized place.

Case study: Using risk management tools

Thus far, you have learned that risk management—the process of identifying,
evaluating, and addressing potential risks and issues that could impact a project—is
a core part of a project manager's role. You also learned about techniques to identify
potential risks and address their effects, including creating risk registers and building
mitigation plans. In the following case study, we will imagine how a project manager
might utilize these tools.

The project: Paw Snacks Puppy Treats

Paw Snacks is an online retailer of tasty and nutritious pet treats. Over the course of
three years, the business has grown from a small startup to a 350-person
organization. Paw Snacks wants to expand its offerings even further by adding a new
line of treats for puppies.

The issue
Six weeks before the new product line is scheduled to debut, Naja, the project
manager leading the launch, receives a frantic phone call from a manager at the
commercial bakery hired to produce the treats. The bakery manager informs Naja
that the bone-shaped cookie cutters required to shape the treats have not yet
arrived. Naja knows that baking needs to start the following day in order to stay on
schedule for the launch.

Naja thanks the bakery manager for the warning and asks her teammate, Abe, to call
the cookie cutter manufacturer to check on the status of their order. Abe learns that
the order is delayed due to a product shortage and that the cookie cutters are now
expected to arrive at the bakery two days after the original expected delivery date.

Naja recognizes that this delay threatens her team’s ability to launch their product
on time. Even worse, her team doesn’t have the option to push the launch date, since
the Paw Snacks marketing team has already purchased nonrefundable advertising
placements for the day of the launch. Luckily, Naja and her team are already
prepared for an issue like this one.

Planning for risks ahead of time

Months earlier, long before the team started work on the project, Naja and her team
brainstormed potential risks that could impact the project. They created a risk
register, a table or chart that contains a list of risks and is often paired with a
probability and impact matrix. During the process, the team determined that a delay
in the cookie cutter order had a medium probability of occurring and would result in
a high impact on the project. Naja added the risk to the risk register and assigned
Abe to create a mitigation plan, which outlines steps to decrease the chances of a
risk occurring or decrease the impact of a risk if it does occur. This plan would
indicate how the team would handle an issue if it were to materialize. The mitigation
plan was then approved by the project sponsor and other stakeholders.

Managing the issue

Now that the cookie cutter issue has occurred, Naja and Abe consult the mitigation
plan for this particular risk. In this case, Abe identified two options for handling the
risk: The first option is to work with the bakery to slightly decrease the number of
treats produced in order to make up for the two days they have lost due to the cookie
cutter delay. The second option is to place an order with a second bakery to help
speed up the pace of production. Naja and Abe discuss the two plans and settle on
option one to avoid the work of bringing in a second bakery.

Before moving ahead with the plan, Naja and Abe meet to brainstorm potential risks
associated with the new plan. Together, they determine that a smaller order of dog
treats will likely have a minor—but manageable—impact on the organization’s
projected growth for 2021. They determine that the best course of action is to accept
the risk to avoid delaying the project further. To ensure that the project stakeholders
are aware of and comfortable with this change, Naja requests a meeting with her
project sponsor to communicate the plan, outline the minor risk to projected growth,
and recommend accepting the risk. The sponsor agrees and approves Naja’s new
plan.

Naja tasks Abe with communicating the adjusted plan to the bakery manager.
Though baking begins two days behind schedule, Naja’s new plan helps ensure that
the team is prepared to launch the new line on time.
Pro tip: While the term mitigation plan is used more often in project management, you may
also hear the term contingency plan. These terms are often used interchangeably, but there
are some key differences. A mitigation plan is a planned risk response strategy. If a project
manager is able to identify the potential known risks that impact any of the key project
parameters (schedule, cost, or scope), they should make a plan to mitigate those risks early
in the project. A contingency plan, on the other hand, is mostly related to funds the project
manager keeps aside (outside of the planned project budget ) to support any of these known
risk response plans if they go beyond the planned amount or to manage any unforeseen risks
during execution.

Key takeaway
In this case study, early risk management planning enabled Naja to act quickly when
an issue presented itself at a pivotal time during the project execution phase.

By consulting an existing mitigation plan and weighing two options for moving
forward, Naja and Abe were able to make an informed decision about the best path
forward. Naja also communicated the growth-related risks associated with the plan
to the project sponsor in a timely fashion.

As you manage projects of your own, issues will come up again and again. When you
do the heavy lifting of risk management planning before starting work on the project,
you will be better equipped to respond to problems quickly.

Writing an effective escalation email

In this lesson, you are learning how to communicate risks and changes to your team
and stakeholders. In the previous video, you were introduced to escalation: the
process of enlisting the help of higher level project leadership or management to
remove an obstacle, clarify or reinforce priorities, and validate next steps.

There are many ways to escalate a risk, and it is important to set escalation
standards with your stakeholders before beginning work on a project. In this reading,
we will focus on the escalation email, and go over best practices for writing one.

Escalation email best practices

All projects—even those managed by experienced project managers—occasionally
have problems. Your role as the project manager is to help resolve problems and
remove barriers that prevent your team from making progress toward your goals.
While many problems might be small enough to resolve within your core team, other
problems—like a major change in your budget or timeline—may need to be brought
to stakeholders for a final decision. Detailing these problems, their potential impact,
and the support you need in a clear and direct email to your audience can be an
effective communication tool.

Effective escalation emails:

 Maintain a friendly tone

 State your connection to the project
 Explain the problem
 Explain the consequences
 Make a request
Let’s discuss these five keys to writing a strong escalation email.

Maintain a friendly tone

When drafting an escalation email, you may feel tempted to get straight to the point,
especially when dealing with a stressful and time-sensitive problem. But keep in
mind that it is important to address issues with grace. Consider opening your email
with a simple show of goodwill, such as “I hope you’re doing well.” When describing
the issue, aim for a blameless tone. Above all, keep the email friendly and
professional. After all, you are asking for the recipient’s help. Be sure to close your
email by thanking the recipient for their time.

State your connection to the project

Introduce yourself early in the email if you have less familiarity with the project
stakeholders. Be sure to clearly state your name, role, and relationship to the
project. This helps the reader understand why you are reaching out. Keep your
introduction brief and to the point—a single sentence should suffice. If you know the
person on the receiving end of the escalation email, you can simply reinforce your
responsibility on the project before getting straight to the problem.

Explain the problem

Once you greet your recipient and briefly introduce yourself, explain the issue at
hand. Clearly state the problem you need to solve. Provide enough context for the
reader to understand the issue, but aim to keep your message as concise as possible.
Avoid long, dense paragraphs that may obscure your message and tempt the reader
to skim.

Explain the consequences

After explaining the problem, clearly outline the consequences. Describe specifically
how this issue is negatively impacting the project or how it has the potential to
negatively impact the project later in the project timeline. Again, keep your
explanation concise and your tone friendly.
Propose a course of action and make a request
This is the central piece of a strong escalation email. In this section, you propose a
solution (or solutions) and state what you need from the recipient. A thoughtful
solution accompanied by a clear request lets the recipient know how they can help
and moves you toward a resolution.

Putting it all together

Let’s see how these best practices come together to form a strong escalation email.
In the scenario that prompts the email, Sayid, a project manager from a company
that sells gift baskets, is having a quality control issue with one of the items in a line
of holiday baskets. If the issue is not rectified soon, the product launch will have to
be delayed and the company will lose money. In the annotated email example
below, Sayid explains the issue to his internal stakeholders and requests a meeting
with them.
Key takeaway
In this example, Sayid maintains a friendly tone, clearly explains the problem and its
potential consequences, and makes a clear request of the recipients. The email is
also brief and to the point.

To recap, effective escalation emails apply these five best practices:

 Maintain a friendly tone

 State your connection to the project
 Explain the problem
 Explain the consequences
 Make a request
Escalation is a useful skill for solving problems quickly, and sending a strong
escalation email that applies these best practices can help get your team the help it
needs.

Recap: Quality management concepts

You are learning to define quality in your projects. Quality is when the outlined
requirements for the deliverable are fulfilled and meet or exceed the needs and
expectations of customers.

In this reading, we’ll review the four main concepts of quality management we
discussed in the previous video: quality standards, quality planning, quality
assurance, and quality control.

 Quality standards provide requirements, specifications, or guidelines that

can be used to ensure that products, processes, or services are fit for
achieving the desired outcome. These standards must be met in order for the
product, process, or service to be considered successful by the organization
and the customer. You will set quality standards with your team and your
customer at the beginning of your project. Well-defined standards lead to less
rework and schedule delays throughout your project.
 Quality planning involves the actions of you or your team to establish and
conduct a process for identifying and determining exactly which standards of
quality are relevant to the project as a whole and how to satisfy them. During
this process, you'll plan the procedures to achieve the quality standards for
your project.
 Quality assurance, or QA, is a review process that evaluates whether the
project is moving toward delivering a high-quality service or product. It
includes regular audits to confirm that everything is going to plan and that
the necessary procedures are being followed. Quality assurance helps you
make sure that you and your customers are getting the exact product you
contracted for.
 Quality control, or QC, involves monitoring project results and delivery to
determine if they are meeting desired results. It includes the techniques that
 are used to ensure quality standards are maintained when a problem is
identified. Quality control is a subset of quality assurance activities. While QA
seeks to prevent defects before they occur, QC aims to identify defects after
they have happened and also entails taking corrective action to resolve these
issues.
Additional reading
To learn more about these concepts, check out these articles:

 What Are Quality Standards?

 What Is a Quality Plan?
 Quality Assurance & Quality Control

User acceptance testing: Goals, best

practices, and management
In the previous video, you learned about different ways to measure customer
satisfaction, including feedback surveys and user acceptance testing (UAT). This
reading will focus on why conducting UAT is essential to the successful launch of any
product, service, or software. We will also discuss some best practices for effective
UAT and how to manage the feedback you receive.

The goals of UAT

To recap, UAT is testing that helps a business make sure that a product, service, or
process works for its users. The main objectives of UAT are to:

 Demonstrate that the product, service, or process is behaving in expected

ways in real-world scenarios.
 Show that the product, service, or process is working as intended.
 Identify issues that need to be addressed before considering the project as
done.
UAT simulates real-world conditions, so when the feature works as intended during
the testing process, you can be more confident that your product, service, or process
will work properly once it is launched. It allows a project team to gather detailed
information about how users interact with a product, service, or process. UAT helps
the team answer such questions as: Do users recognize its purpose and uses? How do
they interact with it? How much time do users take to interact with it? Do they notice
all of its features? Is the product, service, or process accessible to everyone? UAT also
allows the project team to record information about how users feel about their
experience with a product, service, or process. Through testing, the team can learn
about the emotions it evokes, identities it conveys, appeal it holds, and so on.
Best practices for effective UAT
In order to achieve these goals, UAT needs to be conducted thoughtfully. These best
practices can help you administer effective UAT:

 Define and write down your acceptance criteria. Acceptance criteria are
pre-established standards or requirements that a product, service, or process
must meet. Write down these requirements for each item that you intend to
test. For example, if your project is to create a new employee handbook for
your small business, you may set acceptance criteria that the handbook must
be a digital PDF that is accessible on mobile devices and desktop.
 Create the test cases for each item that you are testing. A test case is a
sequence of steps and its expected results. It usually consists of a series of
actions that the user can perform to find out if the product, service, or process
behaved the way it was supposed to. Continuing with the employee
handbook example, you could create a test case process in which the user
would click to download the PDF of the handbook on their mobile device or
desktop to ensure that they could access it without issues.
 Select your users carefully. It is important to choose users who will actually
be the end users of the product, service, or process.
 Write the UAT scripts based on user stories. These scripts will be delivered
to the users during the testing process. A user story is an informal, general
explanation of a feature written from the perspective of the end user. In our
employee handbook example, a user story might be: As a new employee, I
want to be able to use the handbook to easily locate the vacation policy and
share it with my team via email.
 Communicate with users and let them know what to expect. If you can
prepare users ahead of time, there will be fewer questions, issues, or delays
during the testing process.
 Prepare the testing environment for UAT. Ensure that the users have proper
credentials and access, and try out these credentials ahead of time to ensure
they work.
 Provide a step-by-step plan to help guide users through the testing process.
It will be helpful for users to have some clear, easy-to-follow instructions that
will help focus their attention on the right places. You can create this plan in a
digital document or spreadsheet and share with them ahead of time.
 Compile notes in a single document and record any issues that are
discovered. You can create a digital spreadsheet or document that
corresponds to your plan. It can have designated areas to track issues for
each item that is tested, including the users’ opinions on the severity of each
issue. This will help you prioritize fixes.
Managing UAT feedback
Users provide feedback after performing UAT. This feedback might include positive
comments, bug reports, and change requests. As the project manager, you can
address the different types of feedback as follows:

 Bugs or issues: Users might report technical issues, also known as bugs, or
other types of issues after performing UAT. You can track and monitor these
issues in a spreadsheet or equivalent system and prioritize which issues to fix.
For instance, critical issues, such as not being able to access, download, or
search the employee handbook, need to be prioritized over non-critical
issues, such as feedback on the cover art of the handbook.
 Change requests: Sometimes the user might suggest minor changes to the
product, service, or process after UAT. These types of requests or changes
should also be managed and prioritized. Depending on the type and volume
of the requests, you may want to share this data with your primary
stakeholders, and you may also need to adjust your project timeline to
implement these new requests.

Key takeaway
User acceptance testing is a powerful tool to ensure that your project outcome is
desirable and successful. Be sure to leave time in the schedule for proper testing and
issue resolution.

Common data metrics for project

management
There are many types of project data you can use to determine your team’s progress
and efficiency, evaluate the success of your project, and inform project decisions.
While you don't need to be a data expert, knowing how to measure, track, and
evaluate the right kind of data will help you deliver the most value and impact.

This reading will recap some of the common types of data from the previous video
and introduce a few more key data points that can help you manage projects and
work with stakeholders. This reading will also introduce a few ways to interpret the
data so that you can reduce risks and make the right decisions about your teams and
projects.

The benefits of analyzing data in project

management
As a project manager, you can use data daily to make better decisions, solve
problems, improve performance and processes, and understand your users.

For example, if you have data on customer buying patterns, you can identify your
best-selling products, and you'll be able to make smarter decisions when placing
new product orders with your suppliers. This data will also help you better
understand your users and their preferences so you can improve your product
offerings and performance.

You can also use project team data to help you refine your processes. For example, if
your team is experiencing an issue, analyzing data from your project tracker about
the number of tasks completed, escalations, or internal process problems can help
you find the source. This will allow you to make an informed decision about where to
focus your efforts to improve processes.

Through critical analysis, application, and execution, data becomes a powerful tool
to guide any project in the right direction.

Data, metrics, and analytics

Three images: Numbers grouped in a circle to represent data; a graph with rulers lining the
x and y axis to represent metrics; two people working on a puzzle to represent analytics.

Data is information. It’s the numbers and feedback available to you about different
aspects of your project. Metrics are how you measure your data. They define the
important or specific information (data) you need to know about your project, such
as productivity, quality, or engagement. Once you determine your project's metrics,
you analyze the data according to those metrics to find patterns and answer
questions about your project. This process is called analytics: using data to answer
questions, discover relationships, and predict unknown outcomes.

When analyzing data, ask: What do the metrics mean to you? How do you want to use
the metrics you've chosen? Can you find patterns to make predictions about your
project? Can you find ways to improve—or optimize—certain aspects of your project?
What lessons can you draw from your project's data?
What follows are some common categories of metrics used in project management
and a brief explanation of what they are and how they're useful to a project. Keep in
mind that your use of different metrics isn’t limited to these categories. All of your
project data is interrelated. The same metric can also provide different information
when applied to different aspects of your project.

Productivity metrics

Productivity metrics typically measure progress and output over time. They allow
you to track—or predict—the effectiveness and efficiency of your project team.

To track your team's productivity over time, analyze the number of tasks or
milestones completed in a given time frame. Ask questions like, what percentage of
tasks are completed on time, and how long do they usually take? Or, if tasks were not
completed on time, how much longer than anticipated did it take to complete all the
tasks?

On-time completion rates can help illustrate to clients and stakeholders how the
project is progressing and when they can expect certain deliverables to be ready. If
your project's completion rates are high, it means you're doing a good job of meeting
your completion goals. If the rates are low, it means you're missing deadlines.
Analyzing data can help you make decisions about things like improving or
implementing new processes, or re-evaluating how you estimate project scope,
complexity, and timeline.

Calculating duration (how long something takes) can be useful for setting and
evaluating tasks and milestones and determining if you'll meet project deadlines.
Tracking task duration can improve the accuracy of estimating a project's timeline.
This data is broken down into hours, days, weeks, months, and sometimes years.

You can also analyze current information to predict future outcomes and make
projections (or forecasts) about productivity trends, project durations, costs,
performance or quality. This kind of data empowers you to proactively manage your
project and its resources and measure the accuracy of your projections over time.
For example, analyzing your team's overall performance or velocity can answer
questions such as, is the team completing its tasks and milestones? What percentage
of tasks is the team finishing on time?

Predicting the future may be impossible, but building a better understanding of it

and refining your method for making projections is achievable and valuable.
Quality metrics

Quality metrics relate to achieving acceptable outcomes and can include metrics
such as number of changes, issues, and cost variance, all of which affect quality.

Changes refer to differences in any aspect of the project from what was originally
planned or required. Issues are problems that may affect task completion—and often
result in a change. Track the number of changes and issues to identify patterns,
refine processes, and share information about the project with stakeholders.

Cost or budget variance is the difference between the actual amount of money spent
on a project and the amount that was budgeted for the project. Over time, this data
can help you understand how well you're estimating budgets for your projects. A low
variance means you've estimated your project budget accurately. A high variance
means you should reevaluate your estimation process. You could be under- or over-
estimating costs for your budget, or you may not be tracking expenses effectively.

Happiness and satisfaction

Project managers at Google use a sub-set of metrics called happiness metrics that
also relate to quality. These are metrics that relate to different aspects of the user's
overall satisfaction with a product or service, like visual appeal, how likely they are
to recommend, and ease of use. Happiness metrics can generally be captured with a
well-designed survey or by tracking revenue generated, customer retention, or
product returns.

Customer satisfaction scores reflect user attitudes, satisfaction, or perceived ease of

use. These scores measure how well the project delivered what it set out to do and
how well it satisfies customer and stakeholder needs. Customer satisfaction scores
generally represent a combined metric—the sum of several different happiness
metrics. For example, on a satisfaction survey, a customer might separately rate a
product's appearance as 6/10, ease of use as 7/10, and likeness to recommend or use
again as 8/10. The overall customer satisfaction score would then be 7/10.

You will need to determine what scores are acceptable for your project by discussing
with stakeholders what the most important aspects of the project are.
Adoption and engagement

Another set of metrics related to quality are adoption and engagement. Adoption
refers to whether or not a product, service or process is accepted and used.
Engagement refers to the degree to which it is used—the frequency of use, amount
of time spent using it, and the range of use. It might help to think of these in terms of
throwing a party: your adoption metrics would reveal to you whether or not people
accepted the invitation and showed up. The engagement metrics would tell you how
active they were at the party—whether they participated in activities or interacted
with other attendees, if they invited their friends to come with them, and how long
they stayed.

Adoption metrics for a product or service release, like an app, software program,
delivery service, or gym membership, would be similar to the party example.
However, they can be a bit more complex if you need to track metrics for more than
one thing, like whether users make additional purchases or sign up for premium
features.

Each project will need to define its own set of successful adoption metrics, such as:

 Conversion rates
 Time to value (TTV)
 Onboarding completion rates
 Frequency of purchases
 Providing feedback (rating the product or service)
 Completing a profile
Engagement metrics tell you to what degree a product, service, or process is being
used. They reveal the frequency and type of customer interaction and participation
over time. Engagement metrics might include the daily usage rate of a design feature
or tracking orders and customer interactions.

As a project manager, you're not only concerned with the end user's level of
engagement. It's just as important to monitor stakeholder and team member
engagement as well. Measuring stakeholder participation by tracking the frequency
of communication, responses to emails or updates, attendance at meetings, or level
of input can give you a sense of whether or not stakeholders are finding value in the
project. A lack of meaningful engagement could put your project at risk.
Stakeholders may not be aware of changes or the overall progress of the project, and
therefore the final outcome of the project may not meet their expectations.
Measuring team member engagement is vital to the success of your project because
the more engaged they are, the more productive they are, and the more likely they
are to produce high-quality results.

Ideally, you want your adoption and engagement metrics to increase or to at least
meet the goal metrics that were established with stakeholders earlier in the project.
If there is no increase, or the metrics drop, then your rates are low and therefore not
as successful. Check out the resources below for a more in-depth understanding of
how and why to measure adoption and engagement.

Key takeaway
Data, metrics and analytics are all important to the success of your project. You'll
need to have some familiarity with how to collect and measure data, and how to use
the data to tell you about different aspects of your project. Depending on the project
and its unique goals, some metrics will be more important than others. It's your job
to make sure you understand which metrics your stakeholders are most interested in
and what elements impact your team's ability to deliver quality results on time and
within budget.

Want to learn more? Check out the following resources:

A Comprehensive Guide To Project Management Metrics
Data-Driven Project Management: The 4 Most Important Data Points to Look At
Project Analytics: Benefits, Challenges and First Steps
Project Analytics to Improve Project and Portfolio Decision Making
Project Management Metrics
Productivity Metrics: Why They’re Important & 4 Examples

Data ethics considerations

In the previous video, you learned how to use knowledge to discern data and how
signals help prioritize data. This reading will cover the importance of data ethics and
two key principles: data privacy and data bias.

Data ethics
As a project manager, data collection and analysis will be a key part of your projects.
As you’ve learned, you’ll collect data from a variety of sources, including focus
groups, interviews and questionnaires. The data you collect will usually hold PII
(personally identifiable information)—information that could be used to directly
identify, contact, or locate an individual. A lot of times, you will also need to report
on the data you collect to stakeholders, customers, and your project team.
Collecting, analyzing, and sharing this data in an ethical way is extremely important
for maintaining the integrity of your organization, your projects, and your position.

Data ethics is the study and evaluation of moral challenges related to data collection
and analysis. This includes generating, recording, curating, processing, sharing, and
using data in order to come up with ethical solutions.

Businesses apply data ethics practices so they can:

 Comply with regulations

 Show that they are trustworthy
 Ensure fair and reasonable data usage
 Minimize biases
 Develop a positive public perception
Data ethics is rooted in several principles. In this reading, we will focus on two of
these principles: data privacy and data bias.

Data privacy
Data privacy is a key part of data ethics. Data privacy deals with the proper handling
of data. This includes the purpose of data collection and processing, privacy
preferences, the way organizations manage personal data, and the rights of
individuals. It focuses on making sure the ways we collect, process, share, archive,
and delete data are all in accordance with the law.

As a project manager, it is your responsibility to protect the data you collect. You can
help ensure the privacy of data collected from users, stakeholders, and others for
your projects by:

 Increasing data privacy awareness. Make sure every member of your project
team—plus the vendors, contractors, and other stakeholders from outside of
your company—are made aware of your organization's data security and
privacy protocols.
 Using security tools. Free security tools, like encrypted storage solutions and
password managers, can decrease your project’s vulnerability to a data
breach. In a lot of applications, like ones that are part of Google Workspace
and Microsoft OneDrive, privacy settings can be adjusted to only give access
to specific individuals.
 Anonymizing data. Data anonymization refers to one or more techniques
such as blanking, hashing, or masking personal and identifying information to
protect the identities of people included in the data. This helps protect
individuals’ personal information by keeping them anonymous. Once the
information has been anonymized, it can then be used and shared freely.
Types of data that should be anonymized include names, telephone numbers,
social security numbers, email addresses, photographs, and account
numbers.
Data bias
Another important data ethics practice is making sure that the data you collect does
not indicate any biases. Data bias is a type of error that tends to skew results in a
certain direction. Maybe the questions on your survey had a particular slant to
influence answers, or maybe your sample group was not fully representative of the
population you want to study. Bias can also happen if a sample group lacks
inclusivity. For example, if your sample does not include people with disabilities. The
way you collect data can also bias a dataset. Say you give people only a short time to
answer questions, this can lead to rushed responses. When people are rushed, they
tend to make more mistakes, which can affect the quality of their data and create
biased outcomes. As a project manager, you have to think about bias and fairness
from the moment you start collecting data to the time you present your conclusions.

Types of biases
There are different types of biases to keep in mind when setting up your data
collection processes. Here are four of the most common types of biases that could
impact your data:

 Sampling bias is when a sample is not representative of the population as a

whole. For example, maybe your sample did not include people above the
age of 65. Or maybe you excluded people from certain socioeconomic groups.
 Observer bias is the tendency for different people to observe things
differently. For example, stakeholders from different parts of the world might
view the same data differently and draw different conclusions from it.
 Interpretation bias is the tendency to always interpret situations that don’t
have obvious answers in a strictly positive or negative way, when, in fact there
is more than one way to understand the data. Data that does not provide an
obvious set of conclusions makes some people feel anxious, which can lead
to interpretation bias. For example, a team member might interpret
inconclusive survey results negatively, while other team members might be
able to think more carefully and assess the data from different angles.
 Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for or interpret information in a
way that confirms pre-existing beliefs. For example, you might ask only
specific stakeholders for feedback on parts of your project because you know
they are the most likely to have the same perspective as you.
Each of these types of bias affect the way you collect and make sense of the data, so
it is important to be aware of them when setting up your data collection processes.

Key takeaway
According to the Project Management Institute’s Code of Ethics & Professional
Conduct, “Ethics is about making the best possible decisions concerning people,
resources, and the environment. Ethical choices diminish risk, advance positive
results, increase trust, determine long term success, and build reputations.
Leadership is absolutely dependent on ethical choices."

A key way you can show your leadership skills is by exercising sound judgment when
it comes to data ethics. In order to tell a project’s data-informed story to
stakeholders, project team members, and others in an ethical way, you have to make
sure you think about both privacy and bias-related concerns in how you conduct,
analyze, and share that data.

The six steps of data analysis

In an earlier video, you learned that data analysis is the process of collecting and
organizing information to help draw conclusions, solve problems, make informed
decisions, and support your goals. In this reading, we will go over the key parts of the
data analysis process.

There are six main steps involved in data analysis: Ask, prepare, process, analyze,
share and act. Let’s break these down one by one.

During the Ask phase, ask key questions to help frame your analysis, starting with:
What is the problem? When defining the problem, look at the current state of the
business and identify how it is different from the ideal state. Usually, there is an
obstacle in the way or something wrong that needs to be fixed. At this stage, you
want to be as specific as possible. You also want to stay focused on the problem
itself, not just the symptoms. For example, imagine you are doing data analysis for a
gym that is losing memberships. You could ask: Why do we keep losing members?
But a better and more specific question would be: What factors are negatively
impacting the member experience? That way, when you set off to do your research,
you know exactly what to look for.
Another part of the Ask stage is identifying your stakeholders and understanding
their expectations. There can be lots of stakeholders on a project, and each of them
can make decisions, influence actions, and weigh in on strategies. Each stakeholder
will also have specific goals they want to meet. It is pretty common for a stakeholder
to come to you with a problem that needs solving. But before you begin your
analysis, you need to be clear about what they are asking of you. For example, if your
manager assigns you a project related to analyzing the gym’s business risk, it would
be a good idea to confirm whether they want you to analyze all types of risks that
could affect the gym or just risks related to weather or seasonal trends.

After you have a clear direction, it is time to move to the Prepare stage. This is where
you collect and store the data you will use for the upcoming analysis process.

Let’s turn back to our gym membership example. To collect data on the member
experience, you decide to send surveys to the gym’s members asking for feedback
about their experience. To make sure you get specific answers, you ask them to offer
feedback in three distinct categories: upkeep of the facility, customer service, and
membership cost. You also leave room for them to write in a response. When you get
the member surveys back, it is important that you have an organized system for
tracking and filing them.

This stage is when it is time to Process your data. In this step, you will “clean” your
data, which means you will enter your data into a spreadsheet, or another tool of
your choice, and eliminate any inconsistencies and inaccuracies that can get in the
way of results. While collecting data, be sure to get rid of any duplicate responses or
biased data. This helps you know that any decisions made from the analysis are
based on facts and that they are fair and unbiased. For example, if you noticed
duplicate responses from a single gym member when sorting through the surveys,
you would need to get rid of the copies to be sure your data set is accurate.

During this stage, it is also important to check the data you prepared to make sure it
is complete and correct and that there are no typos or other errors.

Now it is time to Analyze. In this stage, you take a close look at your data to draw
conclusions, make predictions, and decide on next steps. Here, you will transform
and organize the data in a way that highlights the full scope of the results so you can
figure out what it all means. You can create visualizations using charts and graphs to
determine if there are any trends or patterns within the data or any need for
additional research.

In our gym membership example, let’s say you notice 50% of the members wrote in
an additional response on the survey citing that the equipment is outdated. The
survey also showed that 75% of the responses cited “expensive membership fees.”
When looking at the 50% of responses citing “outdated equipment” and 75% of
responses citing “expensive membership fees” side by side on a graph, you may be
able to deduce that these responses inform one another. Members feel like the
experience just isn’t worth the price. You might conclude that the gym should invest
in new equipment if they want to keep members and add value to the membership
fee.
Once you have asked questions to figure out the problem—then prepared,
processed, and analyzed the data—it is time to Share your findings. In this stage, you
use data visualization to organize your data in a format that is clear and digestible
for your audience. When sharing, you can offer the insights you gained during your
analysis to help stakeholders make effective, data-driven decisions for solving the
problem.

And finally, you are ready to Act! In the final stage of your data analysis, the business
takes all of the insights you have provided and puts them into action to solve the
original business problem.

Conducting a data analysis is an essential process for understanding a business’

needs and challenges and determining effective solutions. These six foundational
steps—ask, prepare, process, analyze, share, and act—will help set you up for
success!

Different ways to visualize data

Earlier, we discussed best practices for collecting and analyzing data. When it is time
to present your data to your audience, you don’t just want to tell them about your
findings and what they mean, you want to show them. Data visualization helps us
organize data and turn it into information that is clear and easy for our audience to
digest.

In this reading, we will go over a variety of charts and graphs you can use to visually
represent data.

Visualizing your data

Before translating your data into a chart or graph, you should be clear on what you
want to show your audience. Figure out what data you want to use and why. You
might want to inform your audience about a new trend or a valuable piece of
information, or show relationships between data sets. Or maybe you need to
compare values, understand the composition of something, or analyze trends and
behaviors over set periods of time.

The type of data you have, and the information you want to show or understand, will
help you figure out the right data visualization to use. Let's go over some scenarios
and discuss which charts and graphs would be best for each.

Show relationships
A scatter plot, sometimes referred to as a scatter chart or scatter graph, uses dots to
represent values for two different variables. The position of each dot on the
horizontal and vertical axis indicates values for an individual data point. Scatter plots
will sometimes have a line drawn across its center. This line is known as the trend
line and highlights the direction the points are trending towards.

Scatter plots show the relationship between data sets, and can help us understand
the impact of one factor on another. For example, the scatterplot below shows the
relationship between the life expectancy of people living in a country and how happy
those people are. The first variable, the happiness score, is reflected on the vertical
axis —also called the y-axis. The second variable, life expectancy, is on the horizontal
axis —also called the x-axis. By looking at this scatterplot, we can tell that as a
person’s happiness score increases, so does their life expectancy.

Scatter plot best practices:

 Start the y-axis at 0 to represent data accurately.
Comparing values
Bar graphs use size contrast to compare two or more values. In the example below,
the time of day is compared to someone’s level of motivation throughout the whole
work day. By comparing this data, we can tell that this person’s motivation is low at
the beginning of the work day, and gets higher and higher by the end. Bar graphs are
also a great way to clarify trends and identify patterns.

Bar graph best practices:

 Use consistent colors throughout the chart
 Use accent colors to highlight important data points or changes over time
 Use horizontal labels so it is easier to read

Demonstrating composition
Now let’s check out another visualization you will probably recognize—the pie chart.
Pie charts show us the composition of something. In other words, how much each
part of something makes up the whole. The pie chart below shows us all the
activities that make up someone’s day. Half of it is spent working, which is shown by
the amount of space that the blue section takes up. From a quick glance at this pie
chart, you can easily tell which activities make up a good chunk of the day and which
ones take up less time.
Pie chart best practices:
 Avoid including too many categories so it is easy to compare slices
 Make sure that the slice values add up to 100%
 Order slices according to their size

Analyzing trends and behaviors

Tracking trends can help us understand shifts or changes in our data. Line graphs
are a great tool for visually showing change over time, but they can be paired with
other factors, too. In the line graph below, we are using two lines to compare the
popularity of cats and dogs over a period of time. Because the graph is using two
different line colors, we can instantly tell that dogs are more popular than cats. We
will talk more about using colors and patterns to make visualizations more
accessible to audiences later, too. Even as the lines move up and down, there is a
general trend upwards, and the line for dogs always stays higher than the line for
cats.
Line graph best practices:
 To avoid clutter, don't show more than four categories.
 Organize highly variable data at the top of the chart to make it easy to read
Scatterplots, bar graphs, pie charts, and line graphs are common data visualizations
you will use throughout your career as a project manager. To practice creating these
charts, check out this step-by-step overview for creating charts using Google Sheets
or this resource for Microsoft Excel.

Preparing an effective presentation

At various points throughout a project, you will likely be required to deliver a
presentation to team members, key stakeholders, senior leaders, or customers. Use
the following tips and best practices to help you prepare an effective presentation.
Preparation

Get clear on your goals and the purpose of your presentation.

Be clear and specific about what you want to get out of the meeting, then frame the
discussion with that goal in mind. For instance, “We need two engineers who have
worked in this industry before,” instead of “We need more resources.”

Seek input and set expectations.

Ask your manager or check with stakeholders regarding your presentation goals. Get
their input and feedback ahead of time.

 If you were invited to present, make sure you understand in advance exactly
what the requestor is hoping to gain from your presentation.

Create a delivery plan.

Identify a headline for each slide, which is the one-sentence main point that you are
trying to illustrate with that slide.

 Create a couple of supporting points that add interest to the headline, such as
anecdotes, charts, data, etc.
 Build in signposts. These are ways to clue the audience in to where you are
going and what to expect with your presentation.
  Limit the number of slides in the main presentation. At the same time,
consider creating backup slides for potential challenges, difficult questions,
trade-offs, or alternative solutions. You can hide these backup slides at the
end of your presentation if you don’t need them, or add them into your
presentation if you do.

Be mindful of your audience’s time.

Invite only participants who need to be there.

 Send the presentation ahead of time, if possible.

Develop a strategy for making your presentation memorable.

Use stories and repeat key points.

 Start with a strong intro. Spend extra prep time on the beginning. The
beginning is when your nerves are typically the highest, and delivering the
introduction successfully can help you quickly gain confidence.

Practice

Guide your audience through your presentation.

Help them notice what you notice, and transition between slides by using phrases
like “Building on this point . . .” or “As I mentioned before . . .”

Do a mock presentation with your team.

If there will be more than one presenter, coordinate what each person will cover and
how you will manage handoffs.

 Practice a question-and-answer (Q&A) session, anticipating the kinds of

questions your participants might ask so you are prepared with a quick and
confident response. In addition, practice what you will say if you are asked a
question that you don’t know the answer to.
 Be prepared to run the whole meeting yourself. If a co-presenter fails to show
up, are you prepared to step in?

Schedule time to practice.

 Once you’ve outlined what you want to say, practice it—ideally in front of a
mirror—or record yourself. This may help you identify awkward phrasing that
could be improved and other issues.
Be prepared for surprises.
Show that you can adapt and that you know your subject matter.

 If time runs short, can you quickly summarize the key points?
 Can you pivot the content according to what is most important to your
audience?

Presentation and pace

Get right to the point.

Identify what problem you are solving and state it up front.

 Tell the audience why you are in the room with them and what you will be
covering.
 Lay down the ground rules. For example, how do you want to handle
questions and comments? Will you take them throughout your presentation
or afterwards?

Check your pace.

Be mindful of clues from your audience and adjust accordingly.

Follow up
 If appropriate, send a follow up email with summary notes, action items, and
time frames.
 Debrief with your manager or key audience members on what they heard
from the presentation. Ask them what went well and what could have gone
better.
 Review next steps.

Providing “air cover” to your team

As you have learned so far, project managers build teams that meet project goals in many
different ways, from delegating responsibility and prioritizing tasks to promoting trust and
psychological safety.

But there is another skill great project managers have that we will cover in this reading: the
ability to provide air cover to protect their team. Air cover refers to support for and protection of
a team in the face of out-of-scope requests or criticism from leadership.
What is air cover?
A lot of what we have covered throughout this program has focused on leading and managing a
project team. Much of project management involves overseeing the work of others, but it also
involves managing the needs and expectations of those above you. Those people are your
stakeholders, project sponsors, and other leaders within your organization.

Though the needs and requests of your stakeholders are crucial to the project’s success, there
may come a time when you will need to prioritize the needs of your team over the wants of your
stakeholders. This is called providing “air cover” for your team, and it is an important part of
managing a project. The ability to effectively provide air cover requires a trusting relationship
between a project manager and their stakeholders. In this relationship, the project manager aims
to demonstrate their abilities to lead a team and communicate effectively.

There is some risk involved in providing air cover. Sometimes a project manager provides air
cover and the project team is still unable to deliver on the goals of the project. In this case,
stakeholders may question the project manager’s ability to complete projects successfully. So,
when preparing to defend your team against out-of-scope requests, be sure that you are
confident in your team’s progress toward the project goal.

Providing air cover: A case study

Imagine, for example, that you are a project manager for a brand of coffee sold in supermarkets
throughout your region. You and your team have been tasked with launching three new flavors of
ground coffee: vanilla, hazelnut, and mocha.

However, well into the execution phase, your project sponsor sets a meeting with you to make an
out-of-scope request: They would like to add a caramel-flavored coffee to the product lineup.
Your team is already at maximum capacity preparing to launch the agreed-upon flavors, and a
fourth flavor would add an unreasonable amount of work and stress to your very busy team.

Let’s discuss how you might provide air cover for your team in a situation like this one.

Saying “No” without explicitly saying “No”

One way to provide air cover to your team is to say “no” to your sponsor’s request without
explicitly saying “no.”

There are a few ways to do this:

  You can gently push back with a polite explanation that their request won’t be possible
to complete under the current constraints—the scope, time, and/or cost—of the project.
 You can politely offer to get back to the stakeholder with your response. This gives you
time to better understand the request and to consult with trusted team members to lay
out the benefits and costs of this request. And, if you are lucky, this might even give the
stakeholder the opportunity to reconsider their request or forget about it entirely.
Whether you choose to push back immediately or get back to your stakeholder with your
response, it is crucial to offer alternative solutions. Maybe the project timeline can expand to
accommodate the request. Or maybe you and your team have a strong relationship with another
team at the organization that can help fulfill the request. Whatever the alternative,
brainstorming other options can help soften the blow and provide stakeholders with new ideas.

For example, you consider telling your sponsor that the current project timeline will only allow
for the launch of three new coffee flavors, and that the launch of a fourth flavor would only be
possible by pushing the launch date back by two months. If you were to respond to your sponsor
in this way, you would be both gently refusing their request and offering them an alternative that
could work for your team.

While a simple “no” response might frustrate the person making the request, gentle pushback
paired with alternative options can protect your team from new work while preserving your
professional relationship with stakeholders. If your stakeholders trust your leadership abilities
and perspective, then they will be more likely to accept your pushback and alternative solutions.

Intervening from behind the scenes

Another way project managers provide air cover for their teams is to master the challenge of
delicately intervening from behind the scenes when a stakeholder is making unrealistic requests
or offering unreasonable critiques.

Continuing with our coffee company example, you know how hard your team has been working
to launch the new products. To avoid causing the extra stress that might come with the
knowledge that the stakeholder wants to increase their workload, you avoid sharing this request
with your entire project team.

This doesn’t mean you need to come up with a solution all by yourself, however. Instead of
calling a team meeting to discuss the stakeholder’s request for a new flavor, you consult with
only two trusted members of your team to help brainstorm solutions. One of these team
members mentions that they know two new flavors are slated to be added to the fall product
lineup in six months, and that perhaps the caramel flavor could be launched then instead of with
the current group. This would give your team more time to work on developing the product while
still fulfilling the stakeholder’s request.

Ultimately, you bring the suggestions of adding the flavor to the fall product lineup or pushing
back the launch date of the current lineup to the project sponsor, and they accept your solution
to launch the new flavor in the fall.

Managing the expectations of your stakeholder while looping in relevant teammates on a need-
to-know basis was essential here. This allowed your team to focus on their work without the
possibility of an increased workload or an unnecessary distraction.
Key takeaway
Providing air cover for your team takes practice. It requires a careful balance of the needs of your
stakeholders and the needs of your project team. As you become more experienced in leading
projects, you will develop a stronger sense of how to manage nuanced situations like these and
provide the air cover your team needs to do their best work.

A framework for ethical decision-making

Ethical leadership is a form of leadership that promotes and values honesty, justice,
respect, community, and integrity. As the leader of a project team, you will be
expected to help your team succeed by leading with ethics. Building respect and
trust with the teams you work with—from individuals to external partners to project
stakeholders—begins with practicing ethical conduct.

In this reading, you’ll gain an understanding of a common framework for ethical

decision-making that can help you ensure your actions align with the ethical
standards of your organization.

Ethics within your organization

Ethics can be defined as the principles of conduct governing an individual or a
group. However, there is no single, universally-accepted grouping of ethical
standards—these definitions differ based on the culture and community at your
company. In the working world, ethical standards may differ based on profession,
industry, and organization. Usually, an organization will have its own code of
conduct which specifies the standards to which it holds its employees accountable.

Here at Google, our code of conduct makes clear the expectations that we have for
our employees and board members. It is possible that the organizations you will join
throughout your career will have codes of conduct, too.

Part of the challenge of leading with ethics is ensuring that your actions align with
the ethical standards of your community, both within your organization and beyond
it. In your role as a project manager, a clear framework for ethical decision-making
can help guide you to make positive decisions throughout your project.

A common framework for ethical decision-making

The Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University developed the
following framework as a helpful guide for ethical decision-making.
Recognize an ethical issue
According to this framework, you can begin to question the ethics of an issue by
asking yourself questions about the nature of the issue. Could your decision
negatively impact another person or group of people? Does the issue go beyond
what is legal or efficient? From there, you can proceed onto fact gathering.

 Example: A vendor you have worked with in the past sends you a generous
holiday gift shortly before you are about to select a vendor for a particular
task in your project. If you accept the gift, would others be negatively
impacted? To determine the answer to this question, get more facts.

Get the facts

Decide what you should do about the issue, and seek answers as needed. Consult
with the right people to consider all of the options available to you.

 Example: Continuing with the example above, you should check to see if your
company has ethics guidelines regarding accepting gifts from external
parties. If not, consult with your HR representative about the matter.

Evaluate alternative actions

You can evaluate alternative actions by asking yourself the following questions:

 “Which option will produce the most good and do the least harm?”
 “Which option best respects the rights of all who have a stake?”
 “Which option treats people equally or proportionally?”
 “Which option best serves the community as a whole, not just some
members?”
 “Which option leads me to act as the sort of person I want to be?”
Note that your answers to these questions are subjective, and you may want to elicit
the opinion of others before deciding on an alternative action.
  Example: In the case of the vendor gift example, the answer to the question
“Which option treats people equally or proportionally?” might be “decline the
gift,” given that accepting it might influence your decision about who to
award the contract to.

Make a decision and test it

Once you have chosen an option, test it by imagining the reaction to your choice
from a person whose opinion you value.

 Example: Once you have decided to decline the gift, discuss your decision
with your manager, HR representative, or a trusted colleague.

Act and reflect on the outcome

Consider how to carry out your decision with thoughtfulness and care, and after you
act, consider the results of your decision.

 Example: Respectfully decline the vendor’s gift, noting your reason (for
example, your company’s ethical guidelines state that employees are not
permitted to accept gifts valued at more than $20 from vendors or
contractors).

Key takeaway

A framework like this one can help you feel better-equipped to make ethical
decisions regarding your project and team, which is a central component of ethical
leadership.

Like so much of project management, ethical leadership takes diligence and

practice, and it is crucial to build this skill. As you become more comfortable leading
project teams, you will strengthen your ability to make decisions that you can feel
good about. Gaining trust and respect from the people you work with can make it
easier to influence without authority. If those around you trust your decision-making,
they may be more likely to try to help you achieve project goals, even if you aren’t
their direct manager.

Creating an effective influencing statement

Introductions in literature are important. Think of the opening lines of a good book—they help
set the tone for what the reader can expect going forward. Introductions are important in project
management too, especially when you are hoping to influence a stakeholder to consider and
approve a new plan or idea.

In this reading, we will help you apply techniques you can use to influence others. We will take
you through the steps of creating a strong influencing statement that opens the conversation
and sets you up for success with your audience.
What is influencing?
First, let’s review what it means to influence another person. Influencing is the ability to alter
another person’s thinking or behaviors. If you have ever tried to persuade another person to
understand your point of view, then you know that influencing is easier said than done.

Conger’s four steps

In his article, The Necessary Art of Persuasion, Jay A. Conger identified four steps to effectively
influence another person to consider new ideas.

As you learned earlier, those steps are:

1. Establish credibility
2. Frame for common ground
3. Provide evidence
4. Connect emotionally
Throughout your career in project management, there will be times when you will need to
influence someone to consider an idea, approve a plan, or complete a project task. Conger’s four
steps provide a useful framework for thoughtfully approaching conversations that are important
to project success and influencing stakeholders. Let’s explore each step further before applying
them to an influencing statement:

1. Establish credibility
When trying to persuade another person to listen to you, it helps to establish credibility. Ask
yourself, why should this person listen to you? According to Conger, it is best to draw credibility
from both expertise and relationships.

You can build credibility by showing a level of expertise on the topic at hand. It also helps to have
“a history of sound judgement.” If you find that you lack expertise on a subject, don’t worry! You
can work to increase your knowledge through education or research, or you can even ask an
expert for help.

You can also build credibility through strong relationships with your audience and others around
you. Conger found that influential leaders tend to show their trustworthiness and willingness to
do right by their colleagues over time, and in turn, people are more likely to listen to them.

2. Frame for common ground

The next step in effectively persuading people is to frame for common ground. You can do this by
making a case for how your idea would benefit your audience, and you can determine how your
ideas will benefit your audience by gaining a strong understanding of them and what they value.
Pay close attention to what matters to your audience by listening carefully and gathering
information during meetings and conversations. Then they frame your ideas based on your
audience’s needs and interests.
3. Provide evidence
The third step is to provide evidence that supports your ideas. As Conger notes, though numbers
are important, the best persuaders pair numbers with vivid language. They share stories,
examples, and metaphors to help influence their audiences. Using vivid language can help bring
your figures to life and draw stakeholders’ interest to your proposal.

4. Connect emotionally
The fourth step is to connect emotionally with your audience. In this step, you illustrate that you
are emotionally invested in the idea that you are presenting. But crucially, Conger notes, you
must also do your best to determine and match the emotional state of your audience.

Applying Conger’s steps to an influencing statement

Conger’s four steps—establish credibility, frame for common ground, provide evidence, and
connect emotionally—are meant to be applied throughout important conversations with those
whom you aim to influence. But to set yourself up for success during these conversations, you
can apply the four steps to the influencing statement that sets the stage for your idea.

Let’s discuss how Conger’s four steps come together in the following example:

Carmen is a project manager at a small marketing agency. She would like to convince a human
resources director at her organization to approve a new process for onboarding new graphic
design employees.

Though the company has an existing onboarding process, this process is the same for all new
hires, regardless of role. As a project manager working in the human resources department, she
learns that it is hard for newly-hired graphic designers to onboard since there are only a few
people who hold graphic design roles at the company. Carmen identifies that there is a lack of
information available for new graphic design hires to turn to for learning about procedures and
software specific to their role.

Carmen would like to propose that all new graphic design hires receive a digital welcome packet
containing guidelines for installing software, processes to be aware of, and other design-specific
onboarding documents. Carmen developed a similar process in her role at a previous company,
and it received a positive response from employees. She thinks a similar process will work for her
new organization too, so she sets up time with her director to present her idea.

To influence her director to approve the new process, Carmen opens her presentation with a
strong influencing statement:

I’d like to propose a new onboarding process for graphic design hires.

(Provide evidence) In reviewing our new hire surveys, 80% of recent graphic design hires have
assigned a negative rating to our onboarding process. When I followed up with respondents, I
learned that our graphic designers lack access to relevant information that could help them
acclimate to our organization faster. To address this issue, I would like to create a digital welcome
packet containing design-specific onboarding documentation.

(Frame for common ground) I have met with leaders on the graphic design team to discuss this
idea, and they agreed that a design-specific onboarding process might help increase the
productivity of new hires, since a better onboarding process would enable them to be better
prepared to take on projects in their first few weeks on the job.

(Establish credibility) In my previous role, I designed a similar, role-specific onboarding process,

which increased our new hire satisfaction rates by 60%. I think a new process could benefit
employees here, as well.

(Connect emotionally) It can be overwhelming to join a new company. A smoother, more

personalized onboarding experience might help set the tone for the kind of support new graphic
design hires can expect from our team.

Key takeaway
In this influencing statement, the project manager:

 Provided evidence from company surveys to set the stage for her proposal.
 Framed for common ground by noting how a new onboarding process might increase
employee productivity.
 Established credibility by outlining her previous experience with launching similar
processes.
 Connected emotionally by encouraging her audience to reflect on past experiences they
may have endured as a new hire.
By opening with a strong influencing statement, you can set yourself up for a successful
conversation that is more likely to persuade your audience and achieve your goals.

Principles of effective email writing

Email has long been the primary method of communication for many people in
business, yet messages are easy to misunderstand or ignore. In this reading, we will
discuss four principles of effective email writing that will help your emails to stand
out, be remembered, and elicit the response you need. These principles are:

 State what you want clearly.

 Keep the content short and concise.
 Structure your writing.
 Check grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
Principles of effective email writing

State what you want clearly

When you set out to compose an email, it is because there is something that you
want from your reader. You might want to receive a simple answer, to persuade
someone of something, or to arrange a meeting. Before composing an email, think
about what you want, when you need what you want, and the best way to get what
you want when you want it.

Here are some tips on how to clearly state what you want in your email:

 Include your request in the subject line of your email.

 State your request within the first two paragraphs of your email message.
 Indicate the specific call-to-action associated with your request (for example,
reply, review, RSVP).
 Write clear, concise sentences when providing details.
 Define terms. Avoid using acronyms and terminology that users may not
know. Provide additional information as necessary to avoid
misunderstanding.

Keep the content concise

Make your words work for you. Remove any writing that doesn’t help to define what
you want or contribute to your reader's needs.

 Summarize the content you want to convey, and remove anything in your
email that doesn’t contribute to your goal.
 Aim to write “question-less” and “self-standing” emails. This means that the
message contains enough information to stand on its own. The reader
shouldn’t have any questions about what you want and when you want it.
 Know your audience. Some people—such as executives and other busy
leadership—may not want to read emails of more than a few sentences or
click on external links for further information. Try to tailor your emails
accordingly.

Structure your writing

Structure has to do with the visual flow, or aesthetics, of your email. A well-
structured email conveys critical information to the reader quickly and allows them
to scan the explanatory text—or ignore it altogether. Here are some tips for
effectively structuring your email:

 Use bullets. Bullets break up the visual flow. If you have more than one of
something, consider using bullets. Write strong action verbs at the start of
each bullet.
  Use labels. Labels help guide the reader to what information is most
important.
 Add hyperlinks. Hyperlinks allow readers to directly access additional
information, rather than adding lengthy details to your email.
 Write a strong topic sentence. Place the main idea of the paragraph in the
topic sentence.

Check grammar, punctuation, and spelling

Grammar, punctuation, and spelling are critical. Turning grammar and spelling
suggestions on in your email application can help you quickly identify errors. Be sure
to correct any errors before sending off.

Applying effective email writing principles

In order to learn how to apply these principles, let’s check out the following example
email:

Issac was given the task of sending an email about the company’s annual team
building retreat. Please note: Blue, underlined text indicates a hyperlink to an external
site or document.

Subject : Annual Team Building Retreat - Register Now! Team, I am thrilled to invite you all
officially to the 2021 Annual Team Building Retret. As in previous years, we are taking time
out to celebrate and strengthen our team spirit—to learn from each other and to plan for the
challenges ahead. Weve got something special planned for this retreat! Beyond the staples
of world-class training, fabulous working sessions, and executive presentations, we've also
arranged: An Annual Awards Dinner at the Hotel San Francisco; pre-booked rooms for
those who want to stay at the hotel after dinner; and an afternoon at Shoreline Lake with
sailing, rowing, and paddle boats available. We hope you can join us for all three
excursons. Don't forget to register and sign up per the instructions on the site. Our theme
this year is Transform. We look forward to sharing a transformational week with you all!
Best, Issac Soto

This email example is not as effective as it could be. The date and location of the
event are not included. The main link Issac wants the reader to click—to register for
the event—is buried at the bottom of the email. The other links in the message are
also overwhelming because there are so many. There are no bullets or labels to help
organize the information. Additionally, there are a few spelling and punctuation
errors.

Let’s examine how Issac’s email could be revised to be more effective.

Subject: Annual Team Building Retreat - Register Now! Team, I am thrilled to invite you to
the 2021 Annual Team Building Retreat, October 13–15 at the Hotel San Francisco. This is
an opportunity to celebrate and strengthen our team spirit and to learn from one another as
we plan for the challenges ahead. To end the event, we will hold our Annual Awards
Dinner. Sign up now! For the retreat For hotel rooms For lakeside activities Best, Issac
Soto

In this example, there is a clear, concise description of what the email is about at the
very beginning of the email. The dates and location of the event are clearly stated at
the beginning of the email. The opening paragraph is directly followed by a label in
bold: Sign up now! Then, bullet points help set apart the hyperlinks for better
visibility, and the hyperlinks clearly state what the reader will access when they click.
Lastly, the grammar, spelling, and punctuation are all accurate.

Key takeaway
When you write an email, think about the people you are sending it to and what they
need in order to quickly read and correctly understand it. Remember to:

1. State what you want clearly.

2. Keep the content concise.
3. Structure your writing.
 4. Check grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
Keeping these principles in mind when you draft emails will help you communicate
more effectively with your team members, stakeholders, customers, and others. It
can also demonstrate your level of professionalism and competence and inspire
others’ confidence in your abilities.

Facilitating inclusive and accessible

meetings
In the previous video, we discussed how to organize an effective meeting. Recall that
effective meetings generally have four elements in common: they are structured,
intentional, collaborative, and inclusive. In this reading, you will explore the fourth
element: how to make your meetings more inclusive.

Creating an inclusive environment

Inclusion of employees from different backgrounds and identities is extremely
important for any organization looking to build a strong sense of connection in the
workplace. Also, when team members feel included, they tend to want to do their
best work. This is great for the organization, too. Creating an inclusive environment
can be particularly challenging in meetings because they can be intimidating for
participants. As a project manager, it is part of your job to facilitate meetings that are
inclusive of all participants and that create a sense of emotional safety and value for
everyone’s active input. In order to help facilitate inclusive meetings that feel
empowering to everyone, you should put procedures in place that are consistently
followed and predictable.

 Formalize initial check-ins for the group that build understanding and
ensure everyone knows their input is needed. Create a process that
consistently asks each person for an update on their work and/or how they
are doing in their daily lives. Questions should be open-ended and vary over
time to include some humor, analogies, and “finish the sentence”
opportunities. As the project manager, your modeling will set the tone for the
team dynamic, so always check-in with your team and model
professionalism, vulnerability, and empathy. Popular check-ins include: “A
highlight of my week has been . . .” and “This week I have gratitude for . . .”
 Give everyone your full attention. Listen carefully to what everyone has to
say and be careful not to interrupt someone who is speaking. Body language
—such as maintaining eye contact and turning your body in the direction of a
speaker—can help someone feel safe in voicing their opinion. Avoid head
shaking, looking away, or looking at your phone when someone is speaking.
 Help all participants to be heard. Solicit ideas from participants, and ask
questions to encourage participation. If someone gets interrupted, redirect
everyone’s attention to that person and prompt them to finish their thought.
If someone has not spoken yet, ask them what they think. It is important to
note that, for some people, speaking up in meetings can be daunting. This
 can be especially true in virtual meetings or conference calls. This is also true
for people who are not the majority in the room and may feel like they are
representing an entire group of people who look, sound, or present like them.
You may also find that people who are entry-level may be nervous about
speaking up too since they are just beginning their careers. You can help
people feel more comfortable and supported by letting them know ahead of
time that they will be asked to share during a meeting so that they can
prepare in advance. You can also solicit input after a meeting from anyone
who did not speak.
 Help participants feel comfortable sharing different perspectives.
Encourage differing or opposing ideas by making clear that alternate
viewpoints are valued. To set the tone for this, start the meeting by
encouraging competing perspectives. Try to get at least three points of view
on an issue that might have some variation in the room. Follow up after the
meeting with a request for additional thoughts.
 Use images that reflect the diversity of the world. In your presentation
materials and handouts, select images that illustrate diversity in race, gender,
age, ability, cultural background, religion, geographical location, and so on.
The people in your images should represent diverse backgrounds to further
support inclusion, allowing everyone in the room to feel welcome and
represented.

Making meetings accessible to everyone

Meetings can’t be inclusive if not everyone can fully participate. It is important to
make sure that your meetings are accessible to everyone. Accessible means that
something is easily used, accessed, or adapted for use by people experiencing
disabilities. In meetings, this means that people experiencing disabilities are not
excluded from participating or understanding the information shared.

When planning your meetings, you should consider the needs of people experiencing
the following types of disabilities:
  Visual impairments and blindness
 Hearing loss and deafness
 Mobility disabilities, which means having difficulty getting around, such as
people who require wheelchairs or canes
These tips can help you ensure that the following participants have full access to
your meetings:

People with visual impairments

Presentation materials
 Use a large font size (minimum 22 points).
 Use high-contrast colors.
 Provide alternative text descriptions for all images, pictures, graphics, tables,
and so on.
 Provide low-vision or blind attendees with an accessible electronic format of
the presentation.
 Provide presentation materials in an accessible electronic format to
participants ahead of time.
 Describe all meaningful graphics in your presentation (such as photos,
images, charts, and illustrations).

Handouts and printed materials

 Use a large font size (minimum 18 points).
 Use black lettering on white, matte paper.
 Use a simple font and avoid compressed fonts and italics.
 Use 1.25 to double spacing between lines.

People with hearing impairments

 Always face the person you are communicating with. This is especially helpful
for audience members who are speech readers.
 Speak clearly, at a moderate pace and volume, and allow the other person
time to respond. Avoid exaggerating, slowing your speech, or speaking loudly.
 Ask for clarification if you don’t understand something the person is
communicating.
 Include all of the information presented in a spoken presentation on slides.
 Add closed captions or subtitles to videos. YouTube Help provides
instructions for adding your own closed captions to your videos.

People with mobility impairments

 Provide ample circulation space in your meeting room so that people using
mobility devices can easily pass through.
  Offer accessible seating locations throughout the room.
 For presentations, use half-round seating so that all participants may face in
the direction of the speaker.

Key takeaway
Creating meetings that are inclusive and accessible to all participants will improve
your team’s engagement, productivity, and morale.

Checklist for productive meetings

You may have attended a few meetings that you did not think were the best use of
your time. Frequent and unproductive meetings tend to have a negative impact on
individual and team productivity and well-being. In this reading, you will learn best
practices for ensuring productivity before, during and after meetings.

Plenty of things can make meetings unproductive, but an internal study at Google
revealed that productive meetings have three elements in common:

1. Active participation from attendees

2. A clear and concise agenda that is followed throughout
3. The correct attendees (meaning the participants can contribute to achieving
the meeting’s goal)
Follow this checklist to help achieve these aims and facilitate more productive
meetings for you and your project team:

Before the meeting

 Prepare an agenda that states the purpose and goals of the meeting, and
share the agenda with participants.
  Only invite people who need to be there and who can help reach the goals of
the meeting. Make participants’ roles and responsibilities for the meeting
clear. Add non-essential participants as optional to the meeting invitation.
 If you are working with people in different time zones, share the time zone
burden by alternating recurring meeting times.
 Evaluate the need for the meeting and cancel if it isn’t necessary. Consider
whether the meeting content can be covered via email.
 Schedule shorter meetings. Meetings tend to expand to the time allotted to
them, so try to get more done in a shorter amount of time.
 Set aside time to prepare for the meeting. Read the necessary materials,
review the agenda, and come ready to participate.

During the meeting

 At the beginning of the meeting, clearly state the meeting goals. Stick to the
agenda throughout the meeting to avoid getting derailed. For recurring
meetings, review the action items from the previous meeting to ensure
accountability.
 Encourage participants to put phones and laptops away during meetings and
silence notifications, if possible.
 Practice and demonstrate active listening. Respond verbally (e.g., “That
makes sense. Tell us more.”) and non-verbally (through head nodding and
eye contact) to show engagement.
 Encourage participation and give everyone a chance to speak, including
remote participants. Ask open-ended questions like, “What does everyone
think?” instead of “Does everyone agree?”
 Help everyone relax and feel more comfortable by starting meetings with
open-ended, personal questions like, “How was your weekend?”
 Capture key points, action items, and decisions from the meeting, and assign
action items to the appropriate meeting participants.

After the meeting

 Recap key decisions, action items, timelines, and notes and send out to
participants.
 Schedule necessary follow-up meetings with relevant context.
 Assess the need for and frequency of recurring meetings. Schedule meetings
less frequently, if possible.
Pro Tip: If you are new to the company or team, find out about and try to apply their
typical meeting practices before making any major changes.
Key takeaway
Productive meetings generally require active participation from attendees, a clear
and concise agenda that is followed throughout, and the correct attendees.
Following the best practices for before, during, and after meetings described here
can help you have more productive meetings. When less time is needed for meetings
because meetings are more productive, more time can be devoted to project tasks.

Case study: The impact of skipping project

closure steps
In the video, we discussed the importance of the last phase of the project life cycle:
closing the project. You learned that, in order to close a project, you must ensure
that:

 All work is done.

 All agreed-upon project management processes have been executed.
 You have received formal recognition and agreement from key stakeholders
that the project is done.
In this reading, we will discuss the impact of skipping important project closure
steps.

Sometimes project closure is improperly conducted or never happens at all. This can
have a major impact on your organization’s overall profitability and success.
Skipping the closure phase can compromise a project that had otherwise been
running smoothly. No matter how successful the project may look in its final stages,
your job as a project manager is not complete until all steps of the closure phase
have been completed.

Case study: Tilly’s Toys

In order to better understand what can happen when a project is not properly closed
out, let’s examine a possible scenario: Tilly’s Toys, a small children’s toy
manufacturer, developed a new interactive piggy bank that speaks and plays songs
to help children learn number recognition, counting, and adding. Below are several
oversights that occurred as a result of not properly closing out the project.

Oversight #1: Not all of the work was completed.

What happened: When Tilly’s Toys received the final toy box from the packager, they
realized that it did not include the safety disclaimer that the toy includes small parts
and should not be used by children under the age of three. The design of this
disclaimer had been included in the original Statement of Work but was never
completed.

Impact on the organization: When the missing disclaimer was discovered, Tilly’s
Toys was not able to use any of the boxes that had been created. They incurred
significant costs to have the packager create all new boxes including the disclaimer.
Having to recreate the boxes also meant that they were not able to meet their
original launch date, which would have had the toys in stores before the holiday
season. This oversight cost the organization additional revenue and extended the
project timeline and resources.

Oversight #2: The organization did not complete an important agreed upon project
management process.
What happened: Tilly’s Toys customer, a regional chain of toy stores, required that
all contractors working on the project sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). The
NDA stated that the contractors would not disclose any information about the toy
until its launch date. One of the educational experts contracted to review the toy was
never given this NDA. Not having received—or signed—this important form, the
contractor posted about the new toy on social media months before the toy’s launch
date.

Impact on the organization: Sharing information with the public before the toy was
launched was a breach of contract between Tilly’s Toys and their customer. This
breach put Tilly’s Toys at significant legal risk.

Oversight #3: Stakeholders and the project manager did not provide formal
recognition and agreement that the project was done.
What happened: Ames, the project manager, communicated with the customer
throughout the toy’s development about their objectives for the toy. After the
previous oversights were rectified and Ames assumed his team was done with the
project, he released the team to work on other projects. Shortly after, the customer
sent a list of additional changes they wanted to see in the toy’s design.

Impact on the organization: Ames had to tell the customer that it was too late to
implement their design requests. The customer was unhappy and told Ames that
they may consider using a different toy manufacturer in the future.

Avoiding the impact of project closure oversights

Oversights or skipping steps in the closing phase of a project can:

 Impact the product’s or service’s scheduled launch dates.

 Put your organization at legal risk.
 Result in significant financial losses to your organization.
 Undermine your team's credibility, and yours.
 Damage your relationship with the customer or client.
All of the steps of the project life cycle—initiating the project, making a plan,
executing and completing tasks, and closing the project—are essential for a
successful outcome. Unfortunately, closing the project is a phase that too often gets
skipped, which can negatively impact both the project manager and their
organization. To avoid these issues, make sure to plan for this phase just as you
would any of the other project life cycle phases.

Demonstrating project impact to

stakeholders
Previously, you learned why completing the closing phase of the project life cycle is important. As
we discussed, a formal closing process is essential because improper closing may leave you at
risk for incomplete contracts and scope. It is also important to make sure that all stakeholders
feel like their needs are met and to review areas for improvements in the future.

In this reading, we will further discuss how to demonstrate the impact of your project to your
stakeholders through impact reporting. Impact reporting is a presentation or formal report
prepared for key stakeholders at the end of a project.

Highlight key performance areas

The purpose of your impact report is to show your key stakeholders the impact your project had
on the organization. Goals, objectives, budget, schedules, and key performance indicators (KPIs)
need to be determined at the beginning of your project. Your impact report should demonstrate
how well you did against those early targets. In your report, you should also answer the question:
What was the problem we were trying to solve, and how did we solve it? This will help you
showcase the value your project outcome brought to the business.

Highlight these key performance areas to demonstrate to your stakeholders how you achieved
successful results and outcomes:

 First, describe the goals and objectives you set for the project and what you hoped to
have achieved by the end.
 Then, describe how you met those objectives against your KPIs. A KPI is a measurable
value that demonstrates how effective a company is at achieving their objectives. In your
impact report, review how you defined the success of your project at the beginning, and
highlight the outcomes you achieved that demonstrate this success.
 Finally, showcase your schedule and budget performance by outlining your cost savings
and efficiencies. Demonstrate that you met the deadlines set in your project scope and
that your project was completed within budget.

Use metrics to showcase your results

Use facts and statistics to highlight the results you achieved related to the performance areas
described in the section above. Examples of common metrics you might include to demonstrate
a positive impact could include:

 Improvement in schedule performance

 Revenue growth
 Positive return on investment (ROI)
 Increased external user counts
 Increased percentage of internal users
  Cost vs. margins
 High percentage of customer satisfaction
 Reduction in overhead
 Reduction in technical issues
 Time saved

Metrics and data points are one of the best ways to present impact. Throughout your project,
collect data and track progress in each of the areas you want to measure. If you can complement
your metrics with the appropriate visuals and tie them back to the project’s larger goals, you can
quickly demonstrate your project’s success and value.

Prepare an effective impact report presentation

An effective presentation can help your stakeholders understand your project’s impact. In order
to successfully convey all of the information you have prepared:

 Be concise. While you should share metrics that illustrate how you achieved your project
goals, you do not need to include extraneous details. For clarity, organize information by
using bullet points instead of paragraphs.
 Understand your audience. Make sure that your report does not use too much technical
language or jargon to help your stakeholders understand it.
 Use visuals. Use a digital presentation application, such as Google Slides, Microsoft
PowerPoint, or Canva to present your impact report. Add diagrams, such as charts and
graphs, to illustrate your results. Use images to add visual interest. Add icons to draw
attention to information and help your stakeholders quickly understand information.
 Describe your learnings. Discuss lessons you learned during the course of the project
and any areas you have identified for improvement.
 Keep your stakeholders engaged. Grab and keep your stakeholders’ attention by varying
the way that you present your data:
1. Show: Play videos of demos, testimonials, or case studies.
2. Storytell: Tell a story or anecdote related to the data in the report.
3. Engage: Ask for audience participation through questions, surveys, or quizzes.

Key takeaways
As a project manager, impact reporting is a great opportunity to demonstrate the impact of your
project and the value you bring to your organization. By highlighting key performance areas,
using metrics to showcase results, and preparing an effective presentation, you can impress your
stakeholders and convince them of your project’s success.