5 minutes with… Dan Maw
Dan is the Head of Delivery at Tall, a digital brand experience agency. Having started his career as a developer 13 years ago, he now heads up the delivery team at Tall and is part of the senior management team.
This article was originally posted on LinkedIn in May 2023 and Dan has kindly given permission for the content to be added here.
Why did you choose a career in delivery or project management?
I didn’t set out to pursue a career in delivery, but one thing led to another and now I run a delivery team. I started a small design agency straight out of university, a school friend as the Creative Director and myself as the Technical Director. As a young, naive business owner I had a lot to learn not only as a web developer but about the processes required to deliver a project as a whole and of course all of the other tasks needed to run and grow the business. As the business grew from a team of two to 10 over the course of eight years, my day-to-day tasks became less about web development and more about managing the designers and developers as we had to deliver our projects on time, to spec and on budget.
The experience I gained from running the studio meant that in life after that I fitted perfectly into the delivery side of digital projects and here I am five years later.
What advice would you give someone starting out in the industry?
That you don’t have to have all of the PM accreditations or be a specialist. I did a PRINCE2 PM course way back in 2015, but not once have I ever been asked about it or why I don’t have a *insert PM accreditations*.
My skills and knowledge have grown by the act of doing and absorbing the knowledge of others in my team and a highly skilled network of like-minded people.
Have you ever worked on a particularly difficult project? Why was it rubbish/tough/hard?
I’ve worked on a handful of projects that weren’t so easy right from the off but one thing I would say is that out of the other side I always found that they were always the ones I learnt the most from. For example, things to do differently next time and areas to improve on personally.
One project in particular had a lot of stakeholders who had little experience with the asset we were creating, myself included from a technical standpoint. In addition to this, none of the four teams had worked together before. It required a steep learning curve to get up to speed and then patience and empathy to bring the stakeholders up to speed as things progressed. Add in a very short timeframe for delivery, the stakes were very high.
This project brought a new meaning to being agile on a project that was never meant to be run in that way. Creative deliveries were delayed and in some cases had to be amended during the build phases to factor in the issues we faced and then changed again following creative sign-off alterations.
What do you think are the most important skills for a delivery or project manager to have?
When I first started out, I would have certainly said communication and whilst that is still a vitally important part of a DM/PM role, I now believe that a much simpler skill I and others can rely on is common sense. By virtue of being a DM/PM, the people in those roles are sitting on a wealth of knowledge that got them to where they are. It’s all too easy to overthink/over plan/over analyse what's happening or going to happen in a project. A number of years ago, I heard someone say they follow the mantra of K.I.S.S, Keep It Simple Stupid and I try and stick to that as much as I can. Depending on the type of project you’re working on, they can be very complicated and hard for people to maintain full knowledge of what the output will be, so adding overly complicated processes can, in some cases, be a roadblock for project vision. Use your knowledge and apply the necessities where needed and help other members of the project and the stakeholders where necessary.
Need to use some of your DM/PM super knowledge and flare? Does that need to be client facing to make your project work? Maybe not, if it doesn’t, keep it for the project team and amaze the stakeholders with the output which holds more value.
What do you think are the biggest challenges facing delivery and project managers today?
Speed! We live in a world of ‘now’. We have access to so many services that give us what we want immediately, and I’ve seen that start to creep into delivery timelines not only for my team but others in the digital industry and other sectors.
Don’t get me wrong, short time frames are good to keep us delivery folk on our toes but when pushed too far, we all know what slips…quality. Quality is the reputation, perceptive value and legacy. OK, that last one sounds a bit Marvel superhero but you know what I mean, quality matters.
What projects would you have loved to have been involved in?
I’d have loved to be at the coalface of Monzo in its infancy, I’ve read quite a bit about Tom Blomfield and how he came to start Monzo having parted ways with Starling.
Way back in 2015 fintech wasn’t really a thing, nor was digital banking but the likes of Starling and Monzo were the disruptors of what we all knew about traditional banking and giving customers more control over their money.
The pace, technology and barrier braking must have been unreal. It still fascinates me all these years later. The vision they had/have and how they went about their initial offering would have been amazing to be a part of and no doubt exciting and terrifying all at the same time.
I was fortunate to be able to sign up as an early user and I’ve been a brand ambassador ever since. You’re welcome Monzo marketing team, you got me good.
This post is part of a services called ‘5 minutes with’ series of articles from people in the delivery management and project management space.