Stop scope creep: Project management tips for creatives with Rachel Gertz

[00:00:00] Rachel: It’s really nice to see everybody. Some familiar faces, some new faces. Who here loves project management? Come on. Come on. I want to see. Yeah. No, we’re all being honest. I get it. I actually stumbled into the career myself. Um, so folks, just to get us warmed up tonight and getting, uh, to know each other, I just want you to put your hand up if you have a cat.

[00:00:23] Rachel: Put your other hand up if you’re also a project manager. I just wanted to see. Okay. Uh, put your hand up if you have traveled anywhere fun this summer. Couple people? Uh, put your hand up if you have moved anywhere this year. So like new city, new location, new condo. Yeah, okay, a couple people. Okay, here’s where we get a little vulnerable.

[00:00:47] Rachel: It’s been a year. Like, I don’t know if you all are having a year. I’m having a year. Um, if anyone feels comfortable, put your hand up if you’re having a year and you’re going through some stuff and maybe nobody [00:01:00] else knows about it. It’s a safe place for us to, to be here together, and I want you all to feel that way.

[00:01:06] Rachel: So, I’m thinking of you, I care about you, and uh, yeah, let’s have a little fun tonight, okay? So, we are talking about Scope Creep. You might have heard of it. How many of you folks know that word? Okay, how many of you folks have nightmares about that word? Yeah, that’s what I thought. Okay, so we’re going to talk about scope creep, and I’m going to introduce it in just a second for those of you who don’t really know, but what I would love you to do is get to know each other.

[00:01:37] Rachel: So if you’re sitting alone in a row, maybe consider turning around. I want you to pick a person beside you, near you. I want you to introduce yourself. I want you to figure out one thing. I know you’re going to love this. One thing you have in common, because we all have stuff in common. Then, I want you to share some sort of like horror story about a recent project.

[00:01:57] Rachel: So, I’m going to give you a few minutes just to get to know each [00:02:00] other, okay? There should be no strangers in this room. We’re here for each other. So, get going. Introduce yourself.

[00:02:09] Rachel: I love this group. This is going to be fun. Everyone’s like, I need to talk more about my horror stories.

[00:02:19] Rachel: Alright. So you all know each other now? Do you feel like you just bonded over your collective trauma? Is that what just happened today? Okay, here’s my question. Who here thinks that they might have the best horror story? Is there anyone in the room where you’re like, You can’t beat this one. This is real bad.

[00:02:48] Rachel: Anyone?

[00:02:52] Rachel: Okay, I saw a hand. Sir, your name please. Peter, okay. Who is this gen It’s [00:03:00] okay. Before you say your worst story Do we have a mic, by the way? Okay, great. So, before you do that, we’re gonna get your part Did you introduce each other? Can I get you to introduce Peter? Would you be okay with that? Okay. We’re gonna see how well this worked with intros.

[00:03:15] Rachel: No pressure. You cannot fail.

[00:03:17] Attendee: Hello. I cannot fail. So, I’m gonna introduce to you Peter. Someone that I’ve met for quite a while, a few seconds. He is an amazing project manager. He’s worked in retail e commerce for a while. He’s from South Africa. Peter, give it a Huge round of applause. Thank you so much.

[00:03:41] Rachel: Excellent introduction. Thank you very much,

[00:03:42] Attendee: Pablo.

[00:03:43] Rachel: Alright, I would like to hear your worst project nightmare.

[00:03:49] Attendee: Um, I’m a UX designer. I was working for an online retailer in South Africa. One of the top online retailers called Pick and Pay. Uh, we redesigned the [00:04:00] online, full online shop. We migrated from, uh, Spartacus to Spartacus.

[00:04:06] Attendee: And, um, MVP ended up with all the different departments. You got loyalty department, marketing, uh, you name it. MVP took us two years to launch. Um, yeah, I still have nightmares about it. It ended up being a huge success. Um, companies making millions. But, uh, yeah, that was bad. Do

[00:04:30] Rachel: you remember any pivotal moments that made it take two years to get out an MVP?

[00:04:35] Rachel: Which we remind each other. I don’t, I don’t know.

[00:04:37] Attendee: Every time, uh, you want to launch another company, another department will step in and say, well, listen, you can’t launch, you have to think of the customer, and you need to introduce This feature or whatever. There’s always a new feature. There’s always a new feature.

[00:04:55] Rachel: Minimum valuable product ends up just being like the longest thing alive. The longest [00:05:00] thing, yeah. Okay, I want you to remember this. Because this is going to come up later. And I’m going to tell you how and when. Don’t forget your story. Okay, everybody? Alright, so a lot of the time, not every single time, but many most almost always, it’s always scope creep.

[00:05:16] Rachel: It’s always, it’s always, always scope creep. Scope creep, right? When we’re talking about it, it’s the idea that we basically get surprises happening to us, but we don’t change anything about the expectations in the project. So we might stick to the same timeline, the same budget. The same stakeholders, the same, I don’t know, everything stays the same, right?

[00:05:35] Rachel: Or if we do shift it, we’re not shifting it nearly enough to consider our actual needs. Here’s the thing about projects. How many times does a project stay exactly the same? Yeah, I’d say 0%. Like, we should be designing projects to change, right? Project A starts at the beginning. We don’t know what we don’t know.

[00:05:57] Rachel: And then we get along in here. Oh, we learned something. It’s changed [00:06:00] already. Goals are different, right? New people popped in. They have opinions. They wanted to change. We discovered new functionality. Uh oh, we can’t use that entire tool because it won’t work. Um, that tool took way longer than we thought.

[00:06:13] Rachel: Now we’re gonna actually have to start over from scratch, right? All of these things keep happening over and over and over again. So many of you folks, I’d probably imagine almost all of you, have had something like this come up. And I want you to start thinking about your own examples. If you haven’t already discussed one, think about what that might be for you.

[00:06:33] Rachel: What I want to do today, though, is I want to talk you through four different kinds of scope creep. Some of the things to watch for, like language to watch for when you’re like, Oh, that’s this kind of scope creep. And then what do we actually do about it? And when it comes to fixes, there’s sort of like the immediate fix, and then there’s also like a longer term fix.

[00:06:55] Rachel: We don’t really have time today to get into the like preventative stuff. I could [00:07:00] tell you about it for days if you want to just take me out for a drink, we can do that. But today we’re gonna focus on some fixes, and then the fun part is We are going to do a little exercise. I have some books. I like books.

[00:07:13] Rachel: I hope you like books. These books have a lot of tips in them and we’re going to use these to actually work through a project problem together, okay? So we have a lot of fun stuff ahead. But, let’s get started. Who here has, have heard of the four types of scope creep? Please raise your hands. Who’s heard one type?

[00:07:34] Rachel: Yeah, okay, like, what’s one type of, Mark, what’s one type of scope creep? Feature creep. Yeah, who here has heard of feature creep? Yeah? Okay, we’re gonna get to that. We’re gonna start with the four types. So, there is, number one, business creep. Okay, look at this creep. All right, business creep. Your client changes their mind, their understanding, their roles, the process, the priorities related to the project scope.[00:08:00] 

[00:08:00] Rachel: And you just fail to properly vet or understand them on your side. So this often happens, and it can really tank a project. Because in this case, we don’t have a lot of say when a client side deliverable or entire business focus changes, right? You usually get this inherited, and you’re like, uh. Then you’re trying to get into like mitigation and management, right?

[00:08:24] Rachel: So, I want to give you an example of this one. So, new client faces show up at the project table and the old ones leave. How many times have you been working on a project where there’s just new faces and you’re like, Who’s Sandra? Anyone? Yeah? Happens all the time, right? So, we have to think about this, like, when we’re working with different companies, again, I’m gonna, how many of you work with clients?

[00:08:47] Rachel: How many of you work with clients? Okay, most of you. Alright, I just wanted to see if I had to adapt it for like, internal teams, because you can do that with this as well. But, when you think about new faces at the table, um, there, there’s usually [00:09:00] something going on in the organization, right? Like, it might just be like, um, I don’t know, let’s say like, Tammy decided to take a leave of absence for no reason except she just wanted to go to the Swiss Alps.

[00:09:12] Rachel: But maybe Tammy also took a leave of vacation because there was some internal strife because goals were misaligned and she didn’t actually know what kind of effort level she wanted to put in anymore, so that role became vacant and then Sandra showed up, right? So all of a sudden you’re learning that the clients that you have have other needs and they might not have ever expressed those needs.

[00:09:31] Rachel: So this is kind of a flag, right? It’s not always bad. It just means you’re gonna experience change, right? Right. So, um, it has a certain sound when we think about it. Um, I want you to imagine if you’ve ever heard any of these phrases before from your client. Well, um, our goals have shifted. Anyone? Yeah? Um, or we’ve introduced a new stakeholder.

[00:09:55] Rachel: So Sandra’s here. She’s great. Or after reviewing things [00:10:00] we’d like to change direction. Anyone? Or, we’re doing some restructuring. These are all indicators that you’re going to have change on your project, and you’re going to need to make some kind of adjustments. Again, business creep? Big change. Usually.

[00:10:19] Rachel: Not little change. So, you have to kind of take these into account. I keep trying to eat the microphone. So the fix here folks, this is like a really key thing. I talk a lot about this in training when I’m doing my classes. Misalignment is when you’re not actually fighting for the same things or uniting around the same purpose or going in the same direction.

[00:10:41] Rachel: We want alignment. We want to understand where our clients are going. If they’re okay, how far that path is, and how we’re going to help them get there, right? So, if you’re noticing misalignment, then there’s some things in this particular example where new faces are coming to the table that we can [00:11:00] actually start taking into consideration.

[00:11:02] Rachel: So, step one, right, we need to pause. If there are new people, new ideas, new things ever, pause. Just stop, because you need to get your bearings. New ideas, new people, new opinions mean new scope, new direction, potentially. Sometimes it can stay the same, but usually people are like, Huh, these are big shoes and I’m gonna fill them real nice, right?

[00:11:30] Rachel: They have a lot of, um, they have a lot of skin in the game, especially in a new role. Especially if you have like, executives or investors coming in. They’ll just come in and pop in and be like, well we don’t like that. That’s not going to get us where we need to. We need to 10x this unicorn, right? Oh man, it’s like painful, hurts.

[00:11:48] Rachel: Okay. So, um, the other thing that you might want to do is an alignment session. How many of you folks have actually run an alignment session with your clients? Okay. [00:12:00] I want to see, okay, I see a hand. Hello. What’s your name? Danielle. Can you share a little bit about what your alignment session look like?

[00:12:11] Rachel: Oh, here’s the mic.

[00:12:13] Attendee: Um, it was a retainer client we’ve had for many years. Um, and they’re kind of notorious for this. Lots of new faces in and out all the time. Um, so we have a weekly session. Um, and when this seems to start happening again, we have like a bigger session with the bigger stakeholders. Um, and we just kind of tell them what the issues are.

[00:12:36] Attendee: Tell them what the what are what the issues are like what what’s confusing to us. Yeah Doesn’t always go great. But you know, we try our best to get it all out there

[00:12:46] Rachel: Yeah, so so there is the idea like having this like weekly check in we can weekly status meeting But when we’re talking about like an alignment meeting, right?

[00:12:53] Rachel: We’re like we got to get people up to snuff because they don’t have any Any of the project context that the original stakeholders [00:13:00] have so it takes time and it takes money to do that We actually have to factor that into our project budgets and just imagine What it would take to get Sandra or whoever up to date right on that project?

[00:13:13] Rachel: So you want to actually add more time and budget? If possible, you are thinking about reusable onboarding templates How many of you folks actually have onboarding templates for your client? Few people? This is the handiest stuff because half the time when we’re doing onboarding documents, we’re like, yeah, this is our process.

[00:13:33] Rachel: This is our strategy. How many times do you set the behavior and expectations for your client in those documents? Right? We want to show them what good behavior looks like. How can you support the project? What does it feel like to be working together and going in the same direction? All of that can be outlined beautifully in our onboarding docs.

[00:13:54] Rachel: And then, just if possible, like, just drill down. Like, think of how many project documents you have, [00:14:00] right? Where are they all? How long would it take Sandra to read every single one of those? Is she gonna read every single one? She’s got big shoes to fill and she also has 90 other jobs to do in your one project for her.

[00:14:14] Rachel: One project for her, one of 20 projects for the entire organization, one of your, what, five, six projects? So their priorities are not your priorities, and that’s a natural tension that is inherent to the way that we work with clients. So our job is to make their job easier. That’s why project management is actually something everybody needs to be able to do, even if it’s not your main thing, right?

[00:14:40] Rachel: It’s so handy when you’re like, how can I help you get this work done in a way that’s going to meet our targets? What do you need in place? Because they’re like, project management, I don’t, I don’t know, I’m the marketing director. I don’t do that. Right? So we have to support them in the best way we can.

[00:14:57] Rachel: Okay, so number two. Who has [00:15:00] heard of Effort Creep? I like that. Effort Creep? Anybody? Okay, no matter how hard you work, how long it’s been, how much effort you put in, you just cannot finish the project. How many of you have had a project like this that like, I don’t know, was like two years long? Yeah, right?

[00:15:20] Rachel: Like, ugh, not good, not fun. So effort creep often happens internally, but it can happen with clients on your client side. Like, has anyone ever had clients that are late with content? Yeah, yeah, they’re usually late with content. Or they’re late with, like, all the digital assets you need to actually get the work done.

[00:15:40] Rachel: So, um, There’s a kind of a running joke. This is Tom Cargill. The first 90 percent of the code accounts for the first 90 percent of the development time. And then the remaining 10 percent of the code accounts for the other 90 percent of the development time. Right? And that’s usually how it goes. We get so [00:16:00] close and then we never get over the finish line because there’s just so much change that happens.

[00:16:05] Rachel: Right? So when we’re getting into this, we want to start thinking about how Like, what’s an example? You might want to try out a new prototype on your next project, but then you totally, totally, because we’re human beings and we’re so bad at estimating. Honestly, we underestimate how long it’s actually going to take to set up and how long it’ll take to run.

[00:16:24] Rachel: And so we ask our developers or designers or whoever is actually in charge of this to be like, well, how tell, like, what’s the setup cost on a couple hours, a couple days, but truly, right? Like we think in straight lines, we don’t think about there’s going to be an alligator and then after the alligator, there’s going to be like boulders on the ground.

[00:16:43] Rachel: And then we’re going to have to cross a river in order to get to the other side so that this software. So we have to think about complexity here, and this requires, um, almost like a new way of approaching problems. Um, what does effort creep [00:17:00] sound like? Watch for this, your clients might do it, you might catch yourself doing it, or your teammates might do it.

[00:17:08] Rachel: I’m kind of stuck. Stuck means that something is not going the way you expect it, right? It doesn’t always mean effort creeps happening, but it’s a really good indicator. I’m not sure, I don’t know, or I can’t. It’s okay to not know the answers, right? But when we actually get stuck, this is a good indicator that we might be slogging through mud, spinning our wheels, and not getting anywhere.

[00:17:33] Rachel: Uh, this is really complicated, difficult, different than I thought, okay? So if you, if you catch that, that’s also probably another indicator. Or, my favorite, uh, I’m working on it. Yeah. They probably are. They’re probably working on it all the time. Or they’re like, I can’t work on this because it’s breaking my brain.

[00:17:52] Rachel: And I can’t tell anybody because if I tell anybody, then I’m going to get in trouble because I only said it was going to take three hours to set this up. And I [00:18:00] want to solve the problem. And I don’t want to cause problems for anybody. But now I’m causing a problem. You’re gonna love how this flows into the next kinds of scope creep, by the way.

[00:18:09] Rachel: So what the heck do we do about it? Well, who here has heard of a spike sprint? Spike sprint. Couple, couple people? Mark, do you wanna, Okay, Mark’s gonna answer this one. Hey, Mark.

[00:18:25] Attendee: Spike. Spike is when you have a really complicated feature and instead of building up the product using the feature, you just try to get the feature itself working with the technical platforms that it’s based on.

[00:18:38] Rachel: Nice. So essentially, could you also say it’s like a research sprint to figure out what are we talking about? Test

[00:18:45] Attendee: tech.

[00:18:45] Rachel: Testing the tech. Okay. So you can, you can do this even if it’s not technical. You can just be like. What are we talking about? And spend some time in the project and allocate project budget for what are we talking about and answering that question before you [00:19:00] start anything else.

[00:19:01] Rachel: Almost consider it like you’re doing a research sprint, but maybe you build these in naturally throughout your project budget in order to save your butt. They will actually save your butt. Then you want to bring in, estimate and bring in a subject matter expert if possible. If you start figuring out, okay, we invested in this particular.

[00:19:20] Rachel: Uh, whatever it is, like software tool, technical, um, approach, AI in general, and we’re like, uh oh, we don’t know how to do this, or we’re getting stuck. It is cheaper and faster. I know it won’t feel like it, but there’s a whole thing called the stop loss, um, what is it? Stop loss? Not equation. Anyway, you invest way more than you need to in it, and it’s gonna bite you.

[00:19:45] Rachel: So if you bring somebody else in to fix the problem, it may actually go faster than you trying to slog through this on your own. Then you have to ruthlessly prioritize, because there is no way that you’re gonna get that 90 percent to 100 percent [00:20:00] without having to probably make some hard decisions.

[00:20:03] Rachel: You’re gonna have to figure out, we’re not where we need to be, we have to cut things down. What things have to go. And you’re going to have some really tough conversations to do, then you want to try a safe to try model. So it’s like, okay, if we can’t get this right, and this is the thing, right? We want to start anticipating complexity before we even start.

[00:20:22] Rachel: So imagine, anytime you’re setting up something new you’ve never done before, anytime it’s bleeding edge technology, assume. You’re gonna get stuck. Assume you’re gonna need to try to develop something that’s safe to try. So there’s kind of risk reduction models like this where you look at it and you go, Okay, if we were gonna approach this thing in a way where we could tackle the riskiest thing first, to get it out of the way, could we put, A chunk of our budget on that, or could we do the reverse and do a bunch of cool stuff that’s low risk, but it actually gets us fairly close to the minimum valuable product.

[00:20:57] Rachel: So you can kind of tackle it in different ways, but make [00:21:00] it safe to try and safe to fail if you can, right? It’s okay if it doesn’t work out. And then the idea here, you fo you folks have probably done this before. How many of you have like, as a more experienced person, worked with a more junior person or vice versa?

[00:21:15] Rachel: And you just like pair up and try to solve the problem together. Honestly, you can save so much time, even though it’s like, oh my God, double the hours on that? How do we have the butt well, you know what? You’re at 90 percent of that 100 percent. So, at this point, it’s gonna go faster if you actually can get two brains on the problem.

[00:21:32] Rachel: Okay? So far so good, everybody? Alright, so the next one I want to talk about, and this is like, we only got two more, and then you’re gonna get some, you’re gonna do some work. You’re gonna do some fun work, okay? So, Hope Creep. This is my, is it my favorite one? Nah. Okay, maybe. Hope Creep is the idea that like, You just really believe that everything’s gonna work out.

[00:21:56] Rachel: It’s totally gonna work out and you’re just like crossing your fingers and like saying to [00:22:00] everybody everything’s gonna be fine. We’re good. We’re like, we’re working on it together. So like imagine how many other scope creep types you might have encountered and now you’re like everything’s fine. But this is the thing with hope creep.

[00:22:13] Rachel: It starts like this. Everything’s fine. We’re, we’re gonna do it. Yeah, I know we’re sliding 10 percent behind schedule. I know that. I, I know that we’re, uh, we’re stuck in a development rut and we can’t move forward. I know that, uh, the client has asked for 70 revisions on this, uh, please don’t ever do 70 revisions, um, but on this, like, photography special feature.

[00:22:33] Rachel: Um, it goes from this To this. It really does. It starts being like, okay, we’re hiding the results on our timesheets now, because we just, nobody feels safe to talk about what’s actually happening here. So then we start lying to ourselves, we lie to our clients, and that’s where trust really starts breaking down.

[00:22:50] Rachel: And this will make a okay project go to hell. It will tank you, it will make it so hard to move forward, because now you’re [00:23:00] not getting the information you need in order to actually get across the finish line. So, an example. You are constantly late with assets, turnarounds, and approvals, and it’s killing your timeline.

[00:23:12] Rachel: You should be reporting on your timeline if it starts sliding 5 percent over. Because imagine a 10 percent slide, you’re going to lose so much money. People don’t remember this, but you’re going to lose so much money from delays. Because every single day, money’s coming out of your pocket. If you’re freelancing, you’re paying for expenses, and if that work is not happening, sorry I’m like sounding so freaky, I’m like, oh my god, you guys, maybe it’s not that serious, but it can feel like that when you’re dealing with million dollar budgets, right?

[00:23:43] Rachel: And you have a six month delay on a project. And that six month delay, every single day, might cost thousands of dollars. And you gotta pay contractors to keep that work going, right? So there’s this really, um, like, cyclical path with Hope Creep that can be [00:24:00] pretty damaging. Um, Hope Creep sounds like, Ah, things are fine.

[00:24:06] Rachel: Maybe they are. But do you know when things are fine and when things aren’t? Do you know inside yourself when they are or they aren’t? And do you know it when your team is saying that? If you work with a team. I’m okay. Don’t worry about it. Sometimes your clients will do this. Yeah, everything’s great.

[00:24:22] Rachel: We’ll get you that approval by Tuesday next millennia. Like, they’re not gonna give it to you. Um, we’ll be ready or on time. And just kind of this like resolute, like you can look for it in the face, they’re like really grimacing a lot maybe, I don’t know, sometimes, or they’re like dead eyed, you know that like, I don’t know if everything’s okay, but I’m gonna tell you it’s okay.

[00:24:47] Rachel: Like that’s, watch for that. Who here has ever experienced burnout? Yeah, seriously, like it’s a global epidemic right now. So we have to be gentle with each other and we have to make it safe for us to [00:25:00] actually not be okay. Okay. Last one, how’s everything going? And then it’s like cricket. I’m not making a cricket noise.

[00:25:07] Rachel: I can’t, I don’t know how, but cricket noise, right? Silence. That’s also sometimes an indicator of what? People are so busy, they can’t get to it. They’re scared to say what it is. They’re so distracted with everything else that’s going on. It’s like, I don’t know how to answer this question. But usually, people who are like not responding are usually exhausted.

[00:25:29] Rachel: Dude. Or they’re confused. So have, have compassion, right? You might be, you might be exhausted and confused. I am. That’s how I feel. Um, alright, so now we’re gonna talk about the fix. Help your clients prioritize their own issues. Um, they’re not good at this all the time. Sometimes they are, and sometimes they’re terrible at it.

[00:25:49] Rachel: Remember, they have 20 things going on. You’re one of those things. And they’re like, everything’s important. This is important, and so are my other 19 things. So if you can [00:26:00] work with them, and actually ask them, use language. We’re gonna, we’re gonna teach you some of that. Uh, we, the royal we. Uh, we’re gonna teach you some of that in a minute.

[00:26:08] Rachel: Um, and then really do focus on getting that, like, that, uh, weekly check in so that you actually are telling folks how we’re doing with time, right? Like, are we, are we okay? Um, break the client deliverables into smaller pieces. How many of you folks write content? Or work with other people who write content?

[00:26:28] Rachel: Lots of you. Um, content is always late and it’s not usually the content writer’s fault you get a pass because usually content writing is very, very difficult and it’s not always considered with design, it’s usually considered, uh, kind of last for some reason, even though if you take the words away and you just have a pretty box, you kind of lose the point, right?

[00:26:49] Rachel: So, um, thinking about that, we want to bring smaller chunks of sign offs. together so that clients can actually be like, all right, I, I got you like [00:27:00] the first three lines or paragraphs. Again, I want to also say, try not to just let your clients write the content, work with subject matter experts because they are literally paid because they’re experts.

[00:27:09] Rachel: They do it really well. It’s so worth investing in that. Totally worth it. But if, if a client’s going to write it, they’re going to struggle. So maybe hire a contractor and have that, um, freelance client Content writer, work with them to help get that content out. That’s gonna speed up your, your timelines considerably.

[00:27:27] Rachel: Um, working sessions, live working sessions are incredible ways to do like quality assurance, like have, have your clients sit in the room with you and actually do like revisions. I know it sounds counterintuitive. You have to be good at boundary setting. You have to be good at defending and backing up your business case for why a thing is good or not good.

[00:27:47] Rachel: And if you’re not sure. You can buy time. you know what? That’s interesting. Can I come back to you on that? Or, I’m gonna go talk to the team about that one. You don’t have to say, Yeah! And then be like, oh no, [00:28:00] don’t do that. Um, and then charge for client side delays, right? Like, sometimes it’s a good idea because if they slow you down, we just talked about the cost of delay, right?

[00:28:09] Rachel: It’s a significant cost to you. Um, it can incentivize clients if you actually have like, okay, this is a 48 hour turnaround. And if you take longer than 48 hours and you agree that that’s the commitment and we’ll help you, we’ll do our best to make sure you can do that, If you take longer than 48 hours, there is going to be a late approval fee.

[00:28:29] Rachel: And maybe on the reverse, like maybe if you’re confident, you take that on yourselves too. If you’re confident. If you’re not, then don’t. So, then, uh, the last thing that I want to talk about here. Feature creep. So I think you, you highlighted that, right Mark? You, you were like, yeah, feature creep. How many of you folks have heard of feature creep?

[00:28:50] Rachel: Or gold plating? Okay, so some of you folks have. This one is notorious. It is the one type of scope creep you have [00:29:00] complete control over. This is when you’re like, Man! I really need to do a good job. It’s so important to do a good job. I have so many ideas about this. I want it to be perfect. Or you’re like, oh my god, my client, I just want, I just want them to be happy.

[00:29:17] Rachel: I just want everything to work out. And so we can people please, right? Or we get into perfectionism cycles. And so we get unnecessary additions to features, uh, for no additional revenue. That is completely within your control. So let’s look at an example here. Uh, you work late, adding extra revisions to impress your picky client, but you don’t adjust your budget.

[00:29:39] Rachel: So straight up, you added unnecessary Complexity, right? And then that complexity was not accounted for in your budget or your timeline. So you’re going to take a double hit, if not a triple hit, on that if you have to work more, if you have to work for free, if you have to deal with unhappy clients who [00:30:00] basically just want to, um, want you to keep going until they’re happy, right?

[00:30:04] Rachel: So what do we do about that? Oh, first of all, what does it sound like? Well, we thought that you said you could do that. Do you remember that? We thought you said you could do that. Um, could we just add, move, delete, change the following? Can we just, is a huge indicator. Something’s gonna scope creep on you, big time.

[00:30:28] Rachel: And that is, we have a response to this in our, in our little booklet. You folks are gonna get a copy. Uh, while you’re here, while you’re there doing that thing already, could you just, see it sneaks in, gets together. Um, this will only take a second. How many times has, have you heard that one before? This will only take a second, and then you’re like, It’s been 14 hours.

[00:30:49] Rachel: I’m so tired. Yeah. So these are all things that we can watch for with the language. But basically, there’s a few fixes here. So again, this is an opportunity to get [00:31:00] alignment because your clients are are experts, or should be, at their business. They should know their business better than anybody else in the room.

[00:31:09] Rachel: You should know your business better than anybody else in the room. So your job is to figure out where you stop and they start. Right? That’s the whole point of this whole thing. So you want to figure out, okay, how do we work together so that you can help me prioritize the things that are most important to you.

[00:31:28] Rachel: But you have to be able, client, to back it up. You have to give me the business case for why you want to prioritize X over Y. And if not, you’re, you’re hiring us because we’re the experts, or I’m the expert, right? I will tell you why we should prioritize X over Y. I will give you the business case for that.

[00:31:48] Rachel: It’s really healthy, obviously, to define those scope limits up front. So you’re talking about how many revisions you’re going to do before you actually start running your project. You’re talking about [00:32:00] getting how much clarity on what type of features you’re going to build out, or how your strategy is going to take place.

[00:32:06] Rachel: There’s this whole idea around flexible versus vague language. Does anyone want to take a guess what the difference between using flexible language versus vague language in your contracts and agreements and conversations is all about? Nobody wants to take it? What do you think?

[00:32:25] Attendee: Flexible is concrete.

[00:32:27] Rachel: Flexible is concrete, thank you. Yeah, so you can actually say, it’ll be um, like, two rounds of revision, and any round after that will cost X, or will charge it at a daily rate. But if you’re like, two or three rounds of revision, Well, my dear, which one is it, right? It’s confusing for your audience, and clarity is kindness.

[00:32:48] Rachel: So we have to be as clear with our language as possible, and there are so many, uh, wins that you can take. If you take your contract, or your whatever agreement, and you, say you pick a buddy in here, you could [00:33:00] probably highlight all the areas where it’s like, well, what does that actually mean? Like, what are you, what are you committing to?

[00:33:05] Rachel: Because if you’re not clear in your contract or your statement of work, it’s going to get really hard for your client to actually know what you’re talking about. Um, of course, then we’re talking about resetting that client relationship. Everything is so much about alignment. It’s like, get into a real conversation where you can be vulnerable.

[00:33:24] Rachel: Like, even if you’re not an account manager by trade, and that’s not something that you do in terms of relationship building, everything that we do in this industry is relationships, right? Everything. If you are good at talking about things that are real, that make you look, not look authentic, that’s hilarious, that show your authenticity, that allow you to be invested in the client’s well being and happiness, if you’re like, where do you want to get to and what can I do to help you get there?

[00:33:58] Rachel: That is so [00:34:00] incredibly valuable to them and to you, right? Because you’re fighting for the same things, uniting for the same purpose, and fighting and going in the same direction. And that’s all of it. Um, consider, uh, charging for future revisions, right? So making sure that if people are like, Oh yeah, can you just And you don’t catch it.

[00:34:22] Rachel: Then you, you can, sometimes you know, that, okay, fine, that was a freebie, but here’s how, moving forward, you can always change, moving forward, this is how we’re going to be handling the conversation or handling the scope. You can always make change, um, and adjust and add an addendum onto your agreements.

[00:34:40] Rachel: This is a neat little thing called a scope spectrum. I don’t know if you folks, I don’t want to block it, can you see that? So basically, uh, over on the left hand side, you can see like all the, from complexity, from simple to more complex. We can tackle a scope in a multitude of ways, right? We can, we can write, like, if someone’s like, oh, I need a [00:35:00] brand, and you’re like, oh, shoot, do you want, like, a designed logo?

[00:35:04] Rachel: Or do you want a wordmark? Well, I have five dollars, so what can I get with that? Nothing. But if you were like a best friend, you would be like, well, let’s start with a word mark on that, right? Because that is a lower fidelity, lower complexity type of scope. So what you want to do, if you folks work alone, what you want to do is you want to gut check, okay, this stuff over here, infrastructure, like building out entire platforms and like service design and all that, this is very expensive, right?

[00:35:33] Rachel: Very, very expensive. Probably like six digits, no less, right? Maybe if you’re, yeah, depending on what kind of approach you take. But as we start moving down the level of complexity, You can still do some of the things you want to do and you can kind of tie that back to budget. So you might start being like, yeah, you know, like we do infrastructure projects starting at 200, 000 and again, I’m being a little vague because we all have different industries here, [00:36:00] but you could also be like, you know what?

[00:36:01] Rachel: We could start you off with a marketing site at this like five digits, right? Or we could start you off with a landing page and then And we could just have like a static illustration and that would be starting in the four digits or whatever your, your sort of vibe is there, right? So, you can, you can bring down the level of complexity.

[00:36:22] Rachel: Every. Single. Level. Is. Valuable. There is, um, there is like, gold scope, or gold plated scope, sorry, what am I saying? There is, um, I just forgot, when wedding rings are platinum, that’s the one. Platinum is like the highest level of scope, right? But you can move it down to gold, that’s still valuable. You can move it down to silver, that’s still valuable.

[00:36:46] Rachel: You can move it to bronze. So your team, you could talk about what does that look like? This is kind of like creating tiers of value. That you can then sell to, like, if you wanted to just do, like, three tiers. But this is something you can actually do [00:37:00] with your designers, your developers. You get them to talk about the solution based on the way that they want to define that scope.

[00:37:10] Rachel: So you’re like, can you give me the bronze version of the design scope for this? Versus the platinum version. They can tell you that. They know how to do things, like, in a complex way. And we usually start. Our brains go, how can we make this the coolest project ever? Yes. And then you do the hardest thing.

[00:37:28] Rachel: Instead of being like, we have 20, 000. We have to make it a lot simpler than that, right? So, get your teammates if you do work with teams, and your clients even, on the same page about that stuff. It’s going to help you so much. Okay. So, I want you to think about now, we’ve talked about the four different scope creep types.

[00:37:49] Rachel: Who here can remember all of them? What’s the first one? Business creep. What’s the second one? Effort creep. What’s the third one? Hope creep. What’s the fourth one? [00:38:00] Feature creep. Man, y’all are smart. Holy smokes. So I want you to think about, you’ve learned a whole bunch of stuff, right? Um, I want you to think about how did you respond to your horror story?

[00:38:13] Rachel: Everybody think about that right now? What did you do? And if anyone wants to volunteer an answer. Let me know. Yeah? Okay, what’s your name?

[00:38:26] Attendee: I think I know you. Hi, my name is Anne. Hi Anne. So my example is very small, because I’m freelance. I’m just the one client. And so my horror story was just a combination of, it was just a logo animation.

[00:38:44] Attendee: And I was going through also an agency, so I was like, Another level of miscommunication. And so, I was thinking, I was working on this thing, but he was just not a nice person either. But anyway, he wanted platinum, and I [00:39:00] was offering like, well this is wood, you know. So, or paper, you know, that’s what we talked about.

[00:39:07] Attendee: For the first anniversary. So, I guess what I did is I just said goodbye. I just fired him.

[00:39:13] Rachel: Okay, and how do you feel about that decision?

[00:39:15] Attendee: Good.

[00:39:16] Rachel: Yeah?

[00:39:16] Attendee: Yeah.

[00:39:17] Rachel: It was just the right decision to make. It was a person who Yeah. And again, it makes sense, right? Like clients honestly don’t understand the craft that we do.

[00:39:26] Rachel: They understand the craft that they do. And it’s our job to educate. Unfortunately, it is our job to educate the what and the why and the how of our work. And some clients will still not understand it because they haven’t done it. They’re like, well, like, can’t you just put. Do you remember like CorelDRAW?

[00:39:42] Rachel: What’s the equivalent now that like kids are doing? They’re like, iPad drawings? Like why can’t we just do that? My cousin could do it. Cause we just don’t, we don’t work like that, right? We have this expertise. So, um, many of you might be thinking, well what should you have done instead? Do you have a thought?[00:40:00] 

[00:40:02] Attendee: I was wondering when you were talking about penalizing, like, late approvals or late submissions from the client of info that the project can’t wait for. Yeah, what’s, what’s the question? Okay, so, the same way if you can pick up a pizza, or, delivery’s free but we’ll give it a discount if you pick it up yourself.

[00:40:24] Attendee: Uh huh. Have you ever, like, Maybe just in general, charge more and be like, we’ll bonus you if you’re on time. Oh yeah. Take it like the positive way.

[00:40:33] Rachel: Frame it. Okay, there’s an interesting, uh, uh, scientific, um, philosophy that is called loss aversion. Yeah. Yeah. So, humans are naturally motivated to not lose things or feel like they don’t want things taken away from them.

[00:40:47] Rachel: Yeah. So even though, yes, I like the ideas, like incentivize, get them to want to pay up front, discount it if it’s early, yes. Yeah. And, funny enough, motivating. The motivation is actually like, please don’t take something away from me. So don’t [00:41:00] take, don’t take my money away from me. I would like to keep it.

[00:41:03] Rachel: So sometimes being like there’s a late fee or a penalty, the language, depending on the type of client, you can frame it however you want. Just make sure that it’s consistent and clear in your contract. Okay, I love it though. Yeah, great. Um, so, so many of you folks might be wondering like, well what should you have done instead, right?

[00:41:20] Rachel: And we did talk about some fixes and these were specific high level examples and maybe we didn’t tackle how to fix your specific situation. So I want us to, to think about this. Um, we’re not born knowing the language for how to stick up for ourselves. We, you know, it’s funny, we like, one of our first words when we’re two is no.

[00:41:39] Rachel: And then promptly, like, we just don’t use that word anymore. We’re like, I can do that. It’s fine. And we don’t know, um, necessarily how good boundaries look. We live in a very codependent, um, working world where we sort of go, you’re paying us to do this service, so we should do back, uh, like backflips and [00:42:00] cartwheels, right?

[00:42:01] Rachel: Like, that’s what we do. And we, we don’t always have a good way of setting, like a, like a very, um, intentional and caring relationship with our clients where we can set those boundaries in a safe and direct way, right? Clarity is kindness. So if you don’t have this, then what the heck do we do? Well, you just so happen to have a loud and clear scripts book in front of you folks.

[00:42:27] Rachel: These were designed, um, Uh, little ways back by our team and what we wanted to do, there’s several sections in there, but what we wanted to do was give everybody basically a set of scripts to start from. So if you’re like, I don’t actually know how I would push back on this. Well, why not just start with something that gives you a bit of a backbone to work from.

[00:42:48] Rachel: And then the whole thing is like, don’t be all robotic about it, because that’s boring and nobody talks like that. Make it yours. Make it sound like you. Some of the language might feel a little [00:43:00] firm. Like, some of you might be like, I would never say that. But some of you are like, yeah, I say that all the time.

[00:43:04] Rachel: Great. That’s the type of language we want. Direct, clear, kind. No room for, um, misinterpretation. And also just like, we’re basically saying, hey, we’re on this journey together, right? We have to get there together. Because if one of us gets there and the other one doesn’t, we didn’t get there. So, are, are there ways in which, like, when I say, Hey, client, I want to help you prioritize, and I know you have so much stuff going on, what’s the most important thing for you?

[00:43:37] Rachel: Then when they tell you, they should be also able to answer why that’s most important. And if they can’t, there’s more work to be done together. And we have to, it’s like this weird kind of um, contradiction, because we are being gentle and kind in our directness. It’s a very beautiful balance between the two things.

[00:43:57] Rachel: So I want you folks to thumb [00:44:00] through, um, one of the examples might be like, If a client approaches you and is like, Hey, we’ve got new goals, new goals for the quarter. I’m never doing that again. I mean, I did it twice. And new, needs new variations for our homepage design. Can you just mock up a few of those this week so we can see what they’d look like?

[00:44:20] Rachel: Well, then you might say something like, Hmm, you know what? This is hard, but I really need your help. Yes, saying that is really, really handy because if you ask someone for their help and they say no, They’re gonna feel real bad about it, probably, right? I need your help. Can you help me? In order for this direction to work, we have to focus on what’s in scope.

[00:44:42] Rachel: Can you help me prioritize what’s important to you? Let’s summarize where we are and where we’re going, and then we can tackle the estimate. Do you notice that there’s no lack of clarity? misinterpretation. You’re still giving room to figure out the problem together, but you’re setting a boundary and being clear that the [00:45:00] work they’re asking for is not in scope.

[00:45:02] Rachel: It’s okay if you don’t catch that at first. You might miss this more than once, and you have to give yourself some grace for that. But with practice, honestly, you can start doing this and it’ll come up naturally for you. Remember, if you don’t, you can just say, you know what, that’s a really great question, let me think about that, and I’ll get back to you.

[00:45:22] Rachel: Or I’ll let me talk to my team and I’ll get back to you. It is okay to buy time. In fact, literally you’re an expert at it, right? So, I want you folks to think of the problem, the horror story that you had in mind from the beginning. I want you to think about what script you would pick out of the book. So, I recommend There’s two ways we can do this.

[00:45:46] Rachel: You can do this on your own, but I actually was thinking what would be more fun is if you got back into your partner group and you two decide which scope creep version or which horror story you want to focus on. So pick one. And then each of you picks a script [00:46:00] that you want to reply with and then you just swap being client and being yourself and actually responding with your script.

[00:46:07] Rachel: How do you feel about that? Thumbs up if you’re like, this is the best! Thumbs down if you’re like, this is the worst and I don’t like you anymore, Rachel. Oh, you’re so nice. This is gonna be, um, a little uncomfortable at first, because we’re putting ourselves in a new situation and we’re using language that we’re not maybe.

[00:46:27] Rachel: Some of you might be really familiar with but maybe not practiced in what I recommend is say it more than once Say it the first time out loud so that you get a feel for it Then say it again and try to make it your voice Make it sound like you your tone is Everything and just you can say it out loud to yourself and then start practicing with your partner.

[00:46:48] Rachel: How about we do that? Pick your Know your story. You can pick your script and in most cases the script will work for whatever problem. You can just like mod it a bit. We’ll get you to like read it [00:47:00] to yourself, and I’m actually gonna get you to read it out loud to yourself, and then we’ll do our partners, okay?

[00:47:04] Rachel: So take a minute, pick a script for whatever horror story you want, and then we’ll get into our partner groups. Once you’ve practiced it in your mind, just give me a little wave so I can see that you’re done that. I want you to be comfortable. Everyone got a script picked out? Okay, I hear some chatter, so I’m going to make you do something a little uncomfortable.

[00:47:25] Rachel: Everybody in unison, read your script out loud at the same time. It doesn’t matter if anyone hears you, I just want you to say it with your voice. Okay? On your mark, get set, say your script out loud in unison. Okay, now, I want you to see, can you, do you think you could do it without looking? Yes? No? No? Okay, one more time with the reading, but now make it you, like this is your voice, not, not the book’s voice.

[00:47:53] Rachel: Okay, one more time in unison, say it out loud and mean it. Your tone is everything and I’m your client. [00:48:00] Alright, now could you do it without looking? That’s the, that’s the goal. Okay, try to put it away, use your own words. I want everyone to do it out loud, but no looking. If you have to peek, it’s okay. Okay, on your mark, get set, give it to me.

[00:48:20] Rachel: Nice work. Okay. You did the most uncomfortable stuff already. So now, now, it’s going to be easy. You’re going to get back into your partner groups. If you are like three people, that’s okay. Just get back into your partner groups. Um, I think just to keep it easy. , we wanna kind of like switch back and forth.

[00:48:39] Rachel: So one of you is gonna be the client and then one of you is gonna just read your script and you’re gonna just kind of ad lib a little bit. So don’t worry if you’re like, ah, I didn’t say it right. Just keep practicing it a few times. Like I’d say do three times with each other, then switch. Okay? So again, doesn’t matter if, which horror story doesn’t matter which script.

[00:48:56] Rachel: The point is verbal practice is what makes this work. [00:49:00] Trust me, I run this with my students and they’re like, it worked. Oh my God, it worked. Okay, so get into your groups. Three times each. Back and forth. Do it. Alright, are we done? Did we do it? Yeah? Okay. Okay. How was that? Yeah? Good practice? Alright, everybody.

[00:49:25] Rachel: For the finale, I’m curious if Piotr And, sorry, I didn’t catch your name, Mr. Introducer Man with the glasses. What was your name again? Pato. I’m, oh, Pablo. Sorry, I apologize. My ears ain’t so good these days. I’m curious if the two of you, this is totally optional by the way, if you’d want to come up here and do that roleplay for your horror story.

[00:49:59] Rachel: Do you want [00:50:00] to? You don’t have to.

[00:50:04] Attendee: Do

[00:50:06] Rachel: you want to do it? This is a safe place, everybody. Yeah, come on up. I’ll give you the mic. Do do do. I don’t know, what’s game show music? Anybody? Dun dun dun. Dun dun dun. Dun dun dun. Dun dun dun. Okay, I’m really excited to have you. I’m going to give you my mic in one second.

[00:50:27] Rachel: But, I want to make sure that we’re on the same page about what this horror story actually was. So, in your own words, could you please give us a one sentence summary? Go.

[00:50:38] Attendee: Uh, complete feature scope creep, a lot of added features that wasn’t necessary for the end goal.

[00:50:48] Rachel: Excellent work. So, we have these two fantastic gentlemen.

[00:50:51] Rachel: Hello, Pablo, it’s really good to see you. Um, how about we get you folks to do a little role play wherein somebody is going to be the client. Who wants to be the client? [00:51:00] You’re

[00:51:00] Attendee: going to be

[00:51:01] Rachel: the client? I feel like you’d be a great client. Okay, you ready for this? You’re going to do your script? You’re going to do it?

[00:51:07] Rachel: I want to believe it. Okay? I want to believe it with everything you’re made of. Okay, take it away.

[00:51:18] Attendee: Hi Peter, so I’m sorry, I’ll do the project, don’t worry. So, you’re not going to believe it, right? So, I had this dream, right? I I had this dream that, so the, the website is the same, right? It’s just, at some point, out of nowhere, 10 seconds, maybe 15, let’s think about it, let’s brainstorm about it. It’s gonna open up through the middle,

[00:51:38] Rachel: right?

[00:51:38] Attendee: There’s a little doggie, and it’s gonna, like, come up and be like, woof, woof. And, so, like, it’s gonna be amazing, and this was actually something that I thought about for, like, so long. And, you know, like, I think that it’s gonna be great for the user. What do you think about that? Okay, you caught me off guard there.

[00:51:57] Attendee: I wanted to ask you, um, [00:52:00] why do you think that would be a good idea? Well, you know, like, it’s something fun, and I think that clients like having fun, and that would be useful. Okay, fair enough, fair enough. Um, I understand, and

[00:52:22] Attendee: Okay, let’s, let’s pause a little bit. Um, we go back to specifications for the project, uh, and, uh, go over it in detail and, uh, ask ourselves, um, do we need, really need this? Is it going to benefit your, uh, your company? And, um, do we have the additional budget to support these features?

[00:52:55] Attendee: I’m good. I’ll, I’ll give it. [00:53:00] Well, it’s budget we’re talking about, so this is going to be quoted, eh? Alright. It’s probably going to be extra, yes. Oh. Yeah, I don’t, I don’t know how that’s going to help sell more, but. I mean, we can, I mean, I can think about it more, and I’ll come back to you if that is something that it’s needed.

[00:53:19] Attendee: Yeah, that sounds good. Um, I think let’s, let’s put a pin in it. Ha ha ha! And, um, like they say, let’s regroup tomorrow and, and sit together and we work on a strategy to make this work for the both of us. You know what? It’s actually fine. Let’s just keep to what we had in mind. I think that’s, that’s better.

[00:53:41] Attendee: Yeah. That also sounds great.

[00:53:46] Rachel: Thank you so much, gentlemen. Fantastic. So we saw some feature creep, and we stood in and we started talking about what kind of power we have to get [00:54:00] alignment, get back on track, reprioritize, look at the original specifications, and the whole thing about it is we’re on the same team. Even if we’re not on the same team, let’s act like we’re on the same team and let’s help us get to the finish line.

[00:54:14] Rachel: So I just wanted to say a huge thank you to everybody. We have some time. Mommy, do you want to say anything or do I just like take it? Okay, so we have, what, 15 minutes? Okay, we have 15 minutes. You got questions for me? I got answers. I want to hear about it. Alright.

[00:54:32] Attendee: Just when it comes to questions, just let me bring a mic so we can get it recorded and everyone can hear it.

[00:54:37] Attendee: Thank you. Okay, I want to talk about a creep issue I had. Okay, tell me about a creep. Years ago. Okay. I mean, no, this didn’t happen to me. You know, somebody else plausible deniability. Yeah, absolutely. But, okay. So I get a call from a fellow and he says that he’s got a store and he’d like me to design like a sticker or a label that’s gonna go on this, a shelf in the store.

[00:54:58] Attendee: Okay.

[00:54:59] Rachel: Okay.

[00:54:59] Attendee: [00:55:00] And, um, there may have been not been a fantastic, uh, paper trail for this project because it was in a sort of gray market situation. Okay. It happens. Okay. And so I designed this label, and he prints it, and he likes it, and he pays me. And then, all around town, I see it on this artwork on billboards, chocolate bars, at parties.

[00:55:21] Attendee: It’s probably one of the most famous things I designed, and I will not. Be saying what it is. And I don’t know what kind of creep that is. It’s like usage creep. Or like licensing creep. Do you know what I mean? It’s not,

[00:55:33] Rachel: it’s not in the creeps. It’s not like

[00:55:35] Attendee: that I put more effort. It’s that it was all over Vancouver.

[00:55:39] Rachel: Kind of just stole your shit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Usage creep is a whole vibe.

[00:55:44] Attendee: Yeah.

[00:55:45] Rachel: I think you might have just named a fifth type. Okay, sweet. Because I don’t think I’ve, like, I don’t think I could put it into, like, that’s just straight up. Okay, here’s the thing. Okay, if I’m getting like super, uh, specific. Mm hmm.

[00:55:58] Rachel: How [00:56:00] well did you vet the client, not that it’s a blame game, No, no, no. but how well did you vet the client coming in the door? Did you, did you get a sense of what they were like to

[00:56:08] Attendee: work with before working with them? Oh, completely. I trusted that it was a friend introduction, so I did less of that stuff.

[00:56:15] Attendee: Okay. And then I was like, Yeah. Um, just took the guy at the word for it. And now I have paperwork even, like, detailing, like, the usage and the dates and stuff. I’m sorry. Because sometimes you can’t control, like, oh, an ad you did is on the back of the bus, and then they didn’t change out the back of the bus.

[00:56:34] Attendee: Who pays for that? Do you know what I mean? Is it Lamar, or is it the client, or what? Yeah. Um, but this was like, I was seeing it, It’s the most prolific thing I’ve ever done. That is wild. I

[00:56:46] Rachel: can’t, I’m sorry that happened to you. And like, yeah, I, it sounds like your friend had hope creep. Cause they’re like, he’s amazing.

[00:56:52] Rachel: Yeah, totally. Oh, I’m sorry that happened. Okay, okay. Thank you. No, you handled that, I mean, as probably the best way you can. It’s like, [00:57:00] at the end of the day, there is like, power. It’s all about power. Who has it? Who takes it? Who uses it? And it’s like, oh man. We get, we get mistreated for sure. Creep number 5.

[00:57:10] Rachel: Creep number 5. Usage creep. I like it. Licensing creep. Yeah. Totally. Okay. What other questions? Anybody? What? Oh. Hi.

[00:57:22] Rachel: Okay.

[00:57:23] Attendee: Hi. Hi. Uh, so a lot of your, um, what is in the booklet is about interactions with yourself between clients. Um, and yeah, I think it’s super helpful and I’ve definitely seen so much of this, but how would you deal with maybe the slightly more difficult problem of when you are your own client, when you have your own idea, when you want to make something happen, and then you experience feature creep, hope creep, or anything, if it’s like a personal project, but it’s yourself that’s accountable.

[00:57:51] Attendee: And it’s pushing the, um, the hopes and the features and otherwise. Yeah,

[00:57:55] Rachel: yeah, yeah. Okay. So, this is a tough one. Because I think the thing is, is like, we have all been [00:58:00] on that, right? Like, when it comes to your own personal brand, or it comes to like, investing the time, energy, and money into yourself, we’ll put other people first, and then it’s you.

[00:58:10] Rachel: It’s so hard to give ourselves, like, the care and the professionalism that we would offer to our clients. And honestly, when it comes back to it, I try to say, treat it like it were a professional project. Actually allocate hours and a budget to it. And then the thing about that is, like, you can still go wild if you really want to, because It is your IP, it is your strategy, it is the most valuable thing that you have, and it’s technically, when you’re doing this, your R& D budget, right, research and development budget, which like, depending on the type of company you are, if you’re solo or freelance, like you might want to put anywhere from 4 10 percent of your time towards your own R& D.

[00:58:56] Rachel: You matter, and that time matters, so treat it if you [00:59:00] can, like a professional thing, and then just give yourself some grace, because we are all really bad, like, estimating, and then like, personal branding. I haven’t touched my resume in like, 16 years, and I don’t wanna, so, yeah, I hear you. Thank you, it’s a good question.

[00:59:17] Attendee: Hi, um, I wonder, uh, what are the, What kind of adjustments you would make to the scripts, or the different approaches to different kinds of creep when you’re working in house, when your client is your boss, your CEO? Honestly,

[00:59:30] Rachel: not that much. Like, when you think about it, in house teams, your other departments, your leadership, um, any managers that are telling you what to do, those are your clients.

[00:59:40] Rachel: They’re gonna come in with business speak, they’re gonna come in with OKRs and goals, they’re gonna have no budget, no time, and they’re gonna want you to prioritize everything yesterday. Same problems. The difference being, you can’t fire them? Yeah. So that part makes it imperative that you have really strong [01:00:00] alignment.

[01:00:00] Rachel: But honestly, coming back to it, like when people try to hit you with like, we need you to do like five initiatives, and you’re like, well I, honestly like, Power of three. Threes are magic. If you try to do five things, you won’t do them. If you try to do three, you’ll do two. If you try to do one, you’ll do one.

[01:00:17] Rachel: So keep your, keep your expectations, lower your expectations people. Um, but yeah, like actually treating them like your clients. Um, using language that is like, Can you help me prioritize what needs to happen? Because here’s what I’ve got going on, and I want to make this happen for you. And I also have these blockers.

[01:00:38] Rachel: So, you can put it back in their hands, and it’s kind of like, then you use the cover your ass, there’s like a section on cover your ass, that’s like, Um, just a quick reminder that we agreed or we decided or you decided that this is how we would be moving forward. So if there’s any changes, I’m happy to adjust and here’s what we can do to like follow up on that and check in on that.

[01:00:59] Rachel: So [01:01:00] you’re always just making sure that it’s like, we’re on the same page, right? Yeah? Same page? Yeah. So totally, just a minor adjustments will actually work there. Thanks for asking. What else?

[01:01:14] Rachel: I’m not making a cricket noise. I won’t do it. Any other questions, folks? Yeah, okay, Pablo, and then yourself. Hi. Hi. Great job up there, by the way. Like, I was convinced. I was like, man, maybe a dog is a good idea.

[01:01:35] Attendee: Um, so I have the sixth type of creep, which is the people pleasing creep. Yes. Um, I tend to try to help everyone and be really nice to people, and they sometimes get Yeah.

[01:01:50] Attendee: How can I practice to not, um, more like, to not take it personal when I feel that pushback and just do, do [01:02:00] what I have to do, which is push back, be firm, but without feeling that guilt of, oh, that was harsh.

[01:02:07] Rachel: Okay, so there, there would be two ways I could answer this. The first way I could answer it would be like, If I was a person who was just talking business and I’d be like oh, it’s just business, so like don’t take it personally.

[01:02:18] Rachel: But we are all people. We all have feelings, right? Everyone here? Yeah? We have feelings. And I think part of what happens, and this is what I, I recently was reading about um, entrepreneurs and trauma. Sorry if this is getting too real. But um, what often happens is, um, when we’re little and we don’t actually, Um, get sort of recognized or appreciated for our skills and talents, or we just don’t get the kind of consistent care that we need, which is most of us, right?

[01:02:47] Rachel: Like, how many of you folks grew up in the 80s? 90s? Any time at all. Yeah, no, all of us, like, we had parents who were busy, parents who couldn’t be around. So what they noticed was that folks who [01:03:00] didn’t always get consistent care from both, uh, caregivers actually were like, I forget, it was like 50 percent more likely to want to be entrepreneurs.

[01:03:08] Rachel: And the ones that did, it was because they were like, I want to make something that matters. And if it matters, it’s going to matter to my team. And if it’s going to matter to my team, and I can show the world, then I am safe. And so I think that part of the answer to this question, because it’s real and I, I feel this, I feel it all the time, is being so gentle with ourselves and recognizing there is definitely gotta be a separation of our art and our identity, right?

[01:03:36] Rachel: Because what we create and put in the world, If you look at it like you’re plucking it out of the universe and it exists in its most beautiful form in the universe, we’re just contributing ideas and things into that world. We’re, we’re adding our love to it, but we’re not actually putting ourselves in it.

[01:03:56] Rachel: You know what I mean? Like, it’s different. We’re creating, but we’re not [01:04:00] putting our whole selves into it. Because I think when we do that, then someone can take that away from us. And I think that we Live in a society where so much of what we do is performance based, right? Produce, perform, process, be more efficient, right?

[01:04:18] Rachel: And I think, I know I work for a project management training company, and the irony of what I’m saying here, but I don’t think that that’s what our job is. So the, the short answer, um, is grace to know that Of course you would feel that pain, and of course you’d want to try to connect in that way, and please, and also have the love that says, My work is not my identity, and I am separate from that, and I am perfect and doing it perfectly just the way I am.

[01:04:54] Rachel: So I don’t know if that was the answer you were expecting.

[01:04:56] Attendee: Yeah, thank you.[01:05:00] 

[01:05:00] Attendee: Thanks. Um, I think we’ll take one or two questions if anyone has any. Did you solve your question? Thank you. Yeah, okay, I have a question. Hi. Hi. Hello. Hello. Um, okay, so I, I think it might fall on this, what we’re talking about. Anyways, a couple years ago, uh, I had a client, they headhunted me. I’m a photographer by trade.

[01:05:20] Attendee: Nice. And they, um, hired me for my style. So, they called me up, says we like, we like what you do, come down for a meeting, went for the meeting, uh, had a great conversation with the person, uh, like him a lot. Anyways. So, uh, next meeting, I come in and I find out I’m not dealing with him anymore. I’m dealing with two people below him.

[01:05:41] Attendee: Two people?

[01:05:41] Rachel: Okay.

[01:05:42] Attendee: Yes. So, I have a meeting with them, and then one seems okay, one seems, we’ll say a little flaky. Okay. Anyways, um, so I chat with them, I’m surprised that I’m meeting with them, because they’re the ones in charge, and I says, and I ask them, uh, for this photo shoot, will you have final approval?

[01:05:59] Attendee: Yeah. [01:06:00] The other person that’s what I was dealing with and they says yes, we have final approval. I said great. Okay, so we do a two day shoot As we’re photographing I shoot into a computer So they can see the images and they are proving the shots as we go doing all the changes But the direction they’re going is not what I was hired for and I was going are we sure we’re going the right directions Yes, this is what we like.

[01:06:24] Attendee: This is what we want. He said you sure? Yep. Keep going two days Okay, finish your shoot two days. They say we’d love to shoot. We’d love to shoot You Uh, after handling all the images, a couple weeks later I get a call. Hey, uh, actually, actually, uh, this is not what we were looking for. Um, this is not the direction we’re going in.

[01:06:44] Attendee: But I said, but you guys approved every shot. Yeah, but it doesn’t matter, it’s not the direction we’re going in. So, I did not deal with that. And, uh, the underlings, oh, I’m sorry, the people below, they says, uh, since it’s not in the right direction, [01:07:00] we want you to give us a discount. When she was knocking off 50%.

[01:07:03] Attendee: So I didn’t talk to her for a couple Fifty? Fifty. So I didn’t talk to her for a couple of weeks and I talked to a few friends and Got a lot of different reactions from everybody and, uh Yeah, so I wasn’t happy at the end, how’s that? Yeah. So I didn’t know how to deal with that.

[01:07:19] Rachel: Oh, like how, yeah, okay. So, so, a lot of It was almost like I knew what you were gonna say because I’ve seen this happen so many times and I want to say, first of all, Not your fault, like, that that happened.

[01:07:31] Rachel: And there’s also something you can do moving forward that will prevent that. So, how many folks here have ever heard of the mystery voices clause? Anybody? Okay, so Mystery Voices basically says that any stakeholder who is impacted by or will impact the direction of the project must be present from the beginning of the project or it will actually have a change to the scope and or [01:08:00] budget.

[01:08:00] Rachel: So what I sensed was there was misalignment from whoever you talked to first who was like, I have this idea. You’re like, great, let’s sign off on that. Became project B because two other people who didn’t actually know what the goals were Went and started taking it in in the wrong direction, but they were approving you, right?

[01:08:18] Rachel: So if you if you ever have a situation where you’re like, oh, I sense that this is going in the wrong direction then it’s probably because the right people aren’t in the room and The P and another question that you can ask is who can kill this project who isn’t already here Because if they can kill it, they need to be here.

[01:08:40] Rachel: That’s how that works. So yeah, we can write it into our agreements, we can state it at the beginning, and you can pause any time you are like, something’s not right, because this is your livelihood, right? This is your livelihood, and when someone is going, yep, yep, yep, no, [01:09:00] that doesn’t work. And it is not feasible for you.

[01:09:03] Rachel: So, yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Any other questions? Or do we want to wrap up?

[01:09:09] Attendee: Let’s wrap up for now. I don’t think Rachel’s running off. But let’s give her a round of applause.

[01:09:15] Rachel: Thanks everybody.