The Challenge of Digital Project Management

Are you stuck in your project management career and looking for a new challenge?  
If so, I highly recommend exploring a career as a Digital Project Manager (DPM).  

With businesses and organizations turning to the digital world to meet consumer and customer needs, this segment of project management is growing and there is a need for DPMs that understand the digital landscape.

Not only are DPMs working in the high-tech and software industries, but you’ll also find us in the retail, travel, hospitality, and many more industries.    

Digital vs. Traditional Project Manager

On the surface, a digital project manager and a traditional project manager are similar.  Both roles manage the scope of work, budget, timelines, deadlines, risk analysis, and stakeholders.  Soft skills such as negotiation, relationship building, and account management are most valuable.   

However, in addition to these traditional skills, digital project managers require unique knowledge and skills to be successful including:      

• Knowledge of project management methodologies such as Scrum or Agile
• Experience with project management software such as JIRA/Confluence, Workamajig, Asana or Basecamp
• Knowledge of content management systems (CMS) such as Drupal, WordPress or CraftCMS.   
• Understanding a diverse team, including designers (UX and graphics), programmers, storytellers, analysts, SEO strategists, and social media professionals.    
• Basic digital marketing skills such as social media, SEO, and analytics
• Ability to work with databases such as SalesForce or Personify
• Writing skills, especially as they relate to content creation and UX writing

Challenges for a DPM

Every PM  job comes with challenges and the DPM role is no exception. Here are some of the challenges I’ve faced.

It’s New

Digital project management is a relatively young industry.  In my job search, I found the role definition was inconsistent in responsibilities and management.  For some organizations, the role is entry-level and involves daily content and design updates in the CMS while also building emails in the marketing automation platform.  A digital project manager must also hold scrum master credentials in other companies.

My recommendation is to focus on the responsibilities versus the title. It takes time to find the right organization to appreciate your skills and background.        

Never ending changes.  

The beauty of digital is the ability to make changes quickly.  However, it becomes a problem when stakeholders take advantage of a barrage of website maintenance requests.   

It’s not uncommon for me to receive 10 urgent web changes to complete within an hour. Then, we receive a change to the change requested two hours later.

Managing changes

I recommend creating a ticketing system to manage requests with a strict 48-hour change request policy.  Stakeholders may think through their change before making frivolous requests.

Further, a ticketing system allows you to analyze requests and identify opportunities to increase efficiencies.

One example that comes to mind is repetitive tasks – specifically, adding press releases to the website.  When I experienced this, the most efficient process was to train the PR person on how to post press releases in the CMS.

Keeping it simple

Regularly, I find myself having to break down the technical complexities of a project into easily digestible “chunks”, especially for product owners and marketing people.  Patience and the ability to “manage up” are vital skills to have to keep stakeholders informed and gain consensus throughout the project.

The world of digital often comes with uncertain technical nuances and blurry areas of scope. We are often dealing with Designers or Marketing Managers on the stakeholder side who may not know or care what it really takes to produce a specific feature and function.

The resulting challenge we regularly face is having to break down the complexity of what we are producing into simple, digestible, and easy-to-understand information. That information leads to a common recognition of the actual effort it takes to produce that result. They don’t know what they don’t know – and we have to educate them, and keep them informed along the way.

Is being a DPM for you?

If you like technology and thrive in a fast pace environment, digital project management is the perfect career for you.  The wide-ranging skills and responsibilities make the position valuable to any company or organization.

About the Author: Mary Rownd, PMI-ACP and DPM

After 20 years of city living in Chicago, Mary Rownd traded the Great Lakes for the Rocky Mountains, relocating to Denver in 2016.  Described as a versatile, results-oriented digital project manager, she enjoys solving problems through business analysis and the user experience.  She received a Bachelor’s degree from Albion College and earned certifications in Agile project management, content strategy, and search engine optimization.  She’s currently an Enterprise Product Manager for Comcast Business. Contact her at www.maryrownd.com.