Get Better Feedback from Your Colleagues (with Ryan Schaefer, Viget – The Digital Project manager

This podcast is part a published article on The Digital Project Manager. You can read the entire article here.
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Audio Transcription:
Ben Aston:
The DPM podcast is where we go beyond theory to offer advice that works for leading better digital project. Thank you for listening. I’m Ben Aston.
How do you give feedback to your team members? Do you embrace it because it’s true that you’re a PM? Or do you avoid it because it might make you look bad. Perhaps you get feedback that you don’t understand or maybe even heard. But as project managers, we have to deliver success. It is difficult when our teams are barking up the wrong trees.
Today’s podcast will show you how to give feedback in a simple way that will help your team deliver better work and keep your projects on the right track.
Ryan Schaefer is joining me today. Ryan has moved from designing and building websites to managing their development. He is currently based in DC at Viget. Hello, Ryan.
Ryan Schaefer:
Hi Ben. Thank you for having me.
Ben Aston:
Cool. Ryan, tell us about your current role. What I am most interested in is how and why you went from being a design dev to a PM. This is a question that we are often asked. What do you do now? Is it pure PM-ing, or are you also trying to get in the weeds a little?
Ryan Schaefer:
It would be more in the pure-play area of PM-ing. However, I believe that understanding the process and all the thoughts that went into design and development made it much easier to transition from being in the weeds and executing upon development to PM.
So I can talk to the very talented developers and designers here on a level playing field. I don’t have to ask about acronyms, I don’t have to ask about tools, and such.
My background at a PR firm I worked at gave me a dual role in accounts as well as in execution. This helped me to think about how I would communicate with clients and how we would collaborate with other team members. It was a natural transition for me into full-scale PMing.
Ben Aston:
But how did it happen, you ask? What was the moment you decided to do it? What was the moment you said, “Okay, that’s it!”?
Ryan Schaefer:
It may have been partly because I wanted to see things from a 30,000-foot perspective rather than doing more in silos. But the main reason was because I wanted to join an organization where everyone was passionate about digital. Digital is clearly changing the way we live as citizens and as citizens. I was surrounded by people who understood that and were skilled in digital.