[Project Managers] Give a unique example of dependencies in your workflows at your company. What problems did you encounter with this dependency & how did you mitigate/overcome them?

One of the biggest dependencies that we have at our company is the logistics behind hiring new employees. For example, our team needs to work with the IT department in order to get a new employee set up with the proper computer and email access. We also need to order any necessary supplies, like business cards or a company ID badge. In addition, we have to collect and review the new employee's credentials and make sure that they are up to date before they can start working. How did you mitigate/overcome them? To overcome this challenge, we've implemented several different strategies to streamline our hiring process. One of the most important things that we did was to create a new 'hiring coordinator' role at our company. This person is responsible for overseeing the hiring process from start to finish and making sure that everything is on track. They also act as a point of contact for all of the different teams involved in the process, which helps to keep everyone on the same page.

One of the dependencies that will inevitably lead to risks are mishandling key stakeholders for your project. Currently, my clients are small business owners in the pest control industry. They brought me in to help with their change of management as their business is expanding and they are wanting to convert to 100% digital processes for an effective streamline business model. Since my clients are high-touch, they are relying on me to walk them through choosing the right CRM platform to satisfy their needs. My workflow can\'t continue without their approval for implementation. While my clients are small business owners, they still are busy individuals whose time needs to be respected and prioritized. It\'s my job to make sure that our meetings remain swift and productive for everyone involved. It\'s important to maintain strong and healthy relationships with all stakeholders, because their approval is key for your plan\'s success.

As a project management consultant and coach who specializes in agile project management training, one aspect that I like to incorporate in training is the penny game. This game examines how each individual on a team has different processing times that while, productive may cause inefficiencies that can be avoided by breaking down work into smaller batches and reducing hand-offs. When work activities are done in larger batches, the successor cannot start or finish his or her work until the predecessor hands-off the task. This is considered activity dependency and it often creates a bottleneck effect.

I worked on a project where we used the traditional waterfall method, this meant me & my team members didn’t check with the client, get feedback at every stage. Using the waterfall method was a drawback as the project was almost at the delivery stage, only to realize a requirement had been missed and more changes were needed. Since this wasn’t the first time, I approached my manager and asked if we can consider doing some or part of the projects the Agile way, as it allowed me & the team to get feedback before roll out or delivery on the final project. My managers approval of changing to an Agile mindset as opposed to sticking with the waterfall framework saved $$ for the company as I/we received feedback from the stakeholders, before implementing new changes or additions and most important before the final delivery.

Prior to utilizing project management software that allowed for clients to interact with their team, dependencies were difficult to track let alone report on. When you work in agency marketing, client communication is HUGE - especially when a project is dependent on resource deliverables from the client (ie. creative, branding, etc.). By bringing clients into the software for communication and accountability, we were able to have LESS meetings, cut back on email communication, and provide a sense of transparency to our points of contact. Things like assigning tasks, setting up the right notifications when deadlines are approaching, and automated reporting have been a huge progression in mitigating former dependency issues and have greatly improved relationships between internal teams and client points of contact.

Supply chain issues can significantly impact workflow, but with planning, you can stay one step ahead. Keeping track of inventory, being more efficient, and avoiding losses have helped mitigate dependencies, so we meet deadlines. Staying one step ahead by predicting possible problems means you will be better prepared for what life throws at you. Creating systems and improving processes to be more efficient is the key to balancing things like supply chain issues that are out of your hand.

Since remote work has taken over the world, using Finish to Start dependencies has become the only way to manage all projects and timelines. With a global company, it was hard at the beginning with projects and some would get lost in the system. Using the Finish to Start, the company and projects have become a lot more organized and streamlined.

You may have heard the saying that technology is both a blessing and a curse. And when it comes to dependencies and streamlined workflows, it’s important to broker a happy balance. We can all agree that project management software can help keep your entire team organized and even save hours every week that can be applied to other projects. However, it’s vital not to remove the human element from everyday tasks and moments that require creativity and inspiration. While your team should be well-educated on the latest technology, they should also be trained to blend using this tech with all of the factors that will always make a human workforce irreplaceable.

As a platform helping people start their own home service company, we’ve encountered a number of external dependencies regarding our customers’ needs at the various stages of their startup business development. Our solution was to diversify our services, so that we’re able to help at each and every stage of a home service startup, so there’s no lag as we wait for our customers to complete certain stages on their own. Our customers needed help with customer support, building websites, or if they just needed some basic educational tools on how to get started, we found the best solution was simply to offer solutions for all their problems. In the end, we’ve streamlined a process that normally drags on for months to be completed in less than 30 days.

At our company, we often have dependencies between different teams in order to get work done. For example, the marketing team may need content from the product team in order to create collateral. The problem we often encounter is that one team is not aware of the other team's deadlines, which can lead to delays. In order to mitigate this, we have regular check-ins between teams to ensure that everyone is on the same page.

An example of a dependency that a company may have is a software release. If the software team is releasing a new version of their software, then the marketing team may have to stop what they are doing until the new version is released. This is a dependency, as marketing can’t release their campaigns until the new software is released.

We have dependencies with our developer and content writing team. We mainly had problems when someone from their team is sick or he is stuck with other tasks. We are making projects plan that all of the team members are responsible for their project and they need to notify the other person involved so he can make his schedule accordingly.

One of our biggest project dependencies is waiting for client approval before moving forward. You can't start a project for a client until they're onboard, and in the B2B realm, our clients are incredibly busy. Since our design team has to wait to carry on the project until we gain full approval, we’ve streamlined the approval process. We offer more data to clients upfront based on the FAQs we were receiving and politely check in with clients using a pre-built schedule. We’re gaining faster approvals, resulting in fewer project delays, more satisfied clients, and more revenue in our pockets.

When publishing content, there's often a few workflow dependencies that you can't avoid. For example, in a basic Manager-Writer-Editor-Publisher workflow, editors will always be waiting for writers to submit their pieces, and publishers will be waiting for editors. However, as a content manager, I've found that you can reduce the impact of downstream dependencies by planning out how certain articles will interact with marketing goals. Most companies think that the publishing team needs to wait until they have the final piece of content before they post. In fact, they can actually do a lot of prep work that can ensure that a piece of content has optimized SEO before posting. As a manager, you can funnel the keywords and scope of the article to the publishing team so they can make sure that the metadata, links and images used for the article are all optimized for search engine placement. That means, once the editor passes the piece over, making their step in the process more efficient.

My marketing agency works with multiple clients. Sometimes, we need to get the same information from multiple clients for one proposal. But, since we don’t have an agency-wide CRM, a lot of time and effort is wasted in gathering all the information. We need to create a list of clients, send the same mail to all of them, and wait until they reply. Then, we have to copy and paste the information, and only after that, we can start preparing the proposal. This is a very time-consuming process, and it’s not usable in any other workflow at our agency. Moreover, sometimes we also need to send many proposals in one day, so if we send the emails manually, it’s a waste of time and effort. We wanted to fix this problem and create an automated workflow, so we spent two weeks creating a Python app with Flask, to help our team get the job done and make the process automatic. By doing so, we save a lot of time, and we can focus on one thing only at one time, which makes us more productive.

At our company, we typically run into quite a few dependencies when launching new clients. For example, when we're building out the client launch roadmap, there are roughly 15 or so client approval dependencies we need to account for in our timeline. These can be deliverables such as software decision making, budgeting, goal setting, strategy approval, copywriting approval, integration lead time, etc. In the past, we ran into several delays in our workflow because we realized our lead times were universal across all clients, whereas in reality, we needed to adjust each dependency approval workflow based on the types of clients we were launching (Size, team, budget, software integration experience, etc.). Once we finally created new workflows for different types of clients, we saw a dramatic improvement in contract signature to the official launch date!

The dependencies in my current project are pretty simple, but they are very important to the system's success. The app makes use of Stripe's API to process credit card payments, as well as Twilio's SMS/phone call API. The communication between these two APIs is critical to the app's functionality. For instance, if one API were to be down, then Twilio might not be able to send out a confirmation text message to the user, and Stripe's API would be unable to process the user's credit card payment. One of the main problems I run into is the fact that Stripe's API servers are hosted in Singapore, while Twilio's servers are hosted in the U.S. There are times when the latency on a client's network is very high, causing the communication between Stripe and Twilio to get delayed or even fail completely. In these situations, I've found it's best to work with both APIs at once. I can wait to send the user a confirmation text message until after Stripe has processed the payment successfully.

I work in the renewable energy sector, and more often than not we have external dependencies (i.e. external stakeholders) that form part of the critical path in both time, cost and scope. Generally speaking having a clear project schedule upfront, that details these bottleneck points is always a good starting point. Then you follow this up with an action plan that is revisited on a regular basis. To really get on top of dependencies it is vitally important to engage in stakeholder engagements, especially if these dependencies originate outside of your organization. I overcame these by constant communication and feedback. I built good relationships with key stakeholders to a point were they where merely a phone call away. This really helped free up the project schedule and got the project moving efficiently and swiftly.

The usage of ClickUp task dependencies made managing a massive production project a breeze. My client, InterPride (www.interpride.org), held a virtual Silence to Solidarity Global Concert (https://www.interpride.org/our-work/solidarityconcert.html) in March 2022. ClickUp\'s task dependence feature eased the process for all production, management, and administrative teams to keep the process going. Without the help of a world-class project management platform like ClickUp, relationship-based dependencies are the most difficult to manage. Using ClickUp\'s crucial dependency features, we could reuse, copy, and work our complete production operation with people worldwide.

My company is B2B and works with other businesses to optimize their marketing campaigns and launch successful product launches through crowdfunding. Before moving forwards with any campaign ideas or press release material, we submit our finalized documentation and material to our clients for approval. How long it takes for a company to approve our ideas and move forward depends on their efficiency and satisfaction with what we've provided. If they take a long time to approve, our release date for that task is thrown off, causing all other deadlines and project tasks to get pushed back. If they are unsatisfied with what our marketing and engineering team has come up with, we may need to start over or make changes to satisfy our client's request. These dependencies can set us back a day or a couple of weeks, depending on the circumstances, making it something that must be accounted for in our overall scope.