The Handbook: The Operations Podcast

Are you helping or hindering your delivery team? With Galen Low

• Harv Nagra • Season 1 • Episode 31

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Ops Leaders, are you unintentionally making life harder for your delivery team?

Galen Low, co-founder of The Digital Project Manager and host of The Digital Project Manager podcast, joins us to flip the lens, and spotlight the real impact of operational decisions from the delivery floor up.

Galen has spent years helping digital PMs thrive in chaotic environments. In this episode, he shares the signs leaders might be missing when systems break down and how to create structures that support people doing the work.

Here’s what we dive into:

  • How layoffs and role blending are pressuring delivery teams
  • The hidden cost of heroic project managers who just “make it work”
  • What agencies get wrong about tool rollouts (and how to fix it)
  • How to better onboard freelance talent
  • The link between trust, autonomy, and delivery excellence

Galen also offers advice on listening to your PMs, empowering teams, and building resilience into your operations, without burning people out.

And – this is part one of a two-way podcast exchange! For part two, head over to The DPM Podcast where we flip the mic and explore what it takes to build operational models that truly support delivery.


Additional Resources:

Listen to PART TWO on The Digital Project Manager podcast: https://thedigitalprojectmanager.com/podcast/how-project-managers-can-thrive-in-evolving-agency-models/

The Digital Project Manager website: https://thedigitalprojectmanager.com/membership/

DPM on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcgWl0Rda9bHhOJTcIy8XwQ

DPM on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thedigitalpm/


Follow Galen Low on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/galen-low-digital-transformation-advisor/

Follow Harv on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harvnagra/ 


Stay up to date with regular ops insights. Subscribe to The Handbook: The Operations Newsletter: https://scoro.com/podcast/#handbook

This podcast is brought to you by Scoro, where you can manage your projects, resources and finances in a single system.

Galen Low:

Higher up, like you don't see the impact of your decisions right away.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

but like PMs are like classically kinda like, in the middle. they get handed decisions, in terms of like policy or software or process or billing rates or service offerings. and like the culture is to just play ball, right? Play ball and be a champion for the changes to their teams. you know, I, I, I did not make the decision. I, need to Sort of implement the decision,

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

I need to get my teams on board with this. And those decisions were not easy to make, you know at the leadership level, it's not at the operator level, they're not easy decisions. but also on the flip side, I guess I would say like as an operator, as a leader in an agency, like we need to take the time to listen as well.

Harv Nagra:

Thanks for listening to The Handbook, the agency operations podcast. This podcast is brought to you by Scoro. How is a platform like Scoro different from project management tools like Asana, ClickUp, and Monday. com? Those platforms can be useful project management tools, but what they don't do is cover the end to end of the agency workflow. What I mean by that is that they're not designed to create your quotes, resource your projects, monitor your budget and financial performance, invoice what you've done, and report on your business. That's the difference between a PM tool and a PSA, Professional Services Automation tool. I think of it like an operating system for your agency that brings together all of these functions and interlinks everything, so you're not left with data in silos and having to copy information from one place to the other. Scoro stood out amongst the competition when I was looking for a new platform at my agency, that's why I brought it in. Sign up for a free trial at Scoro.com. Or if you arrange a demo call, tell them Harv sent you. Now let's get to the episode. Hi all. Welcome back to the podcast. Ops leaders, question for you to think about. How do the decisions that you make or your blind spots impact your delivery team? I mean, most of us didn't start our careers as operations directors. We made our way up through the ranks, wore multiple hats, maybe even did stints as project managers. So we felt the pains, and I'm sure it had frustrations with the agencies we've worked at, being on the receiving end of messy processes, unclear ownership, tool sprawl, poor onboarding, all of it. But now we're the decision makers. And while we're trying to do our best, we might now have our own blinders on. Today, we're gonna help you take those off. And it's a special episode, our first ever podcast exchange, part one here on The Handbook and part two over on the DPM podcast. Two Perspectives, same goal, building agency environments where delivery teams can actually thrive. So for today's episode, I wanted to bring on someone who lives and breathes the project manager and delivery experience, someone who can speak to the real impact of operational decisions from the other side of the table. That person is Galen Lowe, co-founder of the Digital Project Manager, a global community and learning platform that's helped thousands of digital PMs level up their skills, lead smoother projects and survive the chaos of agency life. He's also the host of the DPM podcast, where he interviews practitioners from across the digital delivery world. I'm really excited about this conversation. Let's get into it. Galen, welcome to the podcast. It's a pleasure to have you here today.

Galen Low:

Oh, thanks for having me on the show.

Harv Nagra:

We're gonna start of course, with talking about the fact that we both grew up in Vancouver, didn't we? We worked on the same street in Gastown or something like that.

Galen Low:

That's right.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah. V ery, very funny. Of course, I live in London, in the uk so I get very excited when I talk to a fellow Canadian. I'm like, yes.

Galen Low:

I'm excited,

Harv Nagra:

yeah. Amazing. Well, thank you very much. so Galen in a past life, I don't get to talk about this very much on this podcast, being focused on operations, but I used to be a digital producer. and then I moved into the role of digital director. So I've been in that delivery seat. Dealt with my share of challenges, both internal challenges, operational challenges, as well as clients from hell and all that kind of stuff. But let's see what you're hearing on the ground today. Like what are some of the things that PMs are struggling with right now that aren't just about projects, and maybe point to deeper issues with the way the agency runs. So I'm hoping what we can get out of this today is for all the operations leaders, listening, giving them some kind of clues and hints as to what their teams might be feeling, so that they're sensitive to that.

Galen Low:

Yeah, great question. I have to say from my community, here's, here's the, the three things I'm hearing back from them. One, a lot of their teams are, experiencing layoffs. so you know, they've survived layoffs. But their team, makeup has changed and Morale's a bit low.

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Galen Low:

economy is tough, I get it right. Agencies are having to make really tough decisions right now. There's a lot of uncertainty.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

trying to do more with less. and on the delivery side of things, those project managers are trying to maintain. The quality, the standards, the relationships they hold internally and externally. but really the team is, is hurting actually. You know, they're trying to put on a brave face. But, there's a lot of teams out there right now that are trying to do more with less,

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

the pressure, and, wondering if this is permanent or wondering if this is temporary and if temporary, how long is it gonna last? So

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

in everyone's

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Galen Low:

I think in tandem with that, we're seeing a little more role blending and like role expansion. So in other words, I have some project managers who are being asked to, upskill on digital strategy or upskill on business requirements gathering or upskill on, marketing a little bit. and in some ways I think it's just natural blend. but also I think, the teams are. There's a lot of pressure on these teams,

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Galen Low:

It's not like these big jobs, these big contracts aren't flowing through. A lot of the retainers aren't being renewed, so there's little projects, and then

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

doesn't look like they can fill whatever, 40 hours a week. Doing projects. I mean, they probably could. but the idea is, okay, well maybe you can do a bit more. so I've been seeing that a little bit. It's good and bad, right? And

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

hand, there's a lot of opportunity. you know, I, I, I creeped your professional journey. And I was like, there could be good things that come from role blending and role

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Galen Low:

That could be your next promotion eventually. but right now I think people are like, again, is this permanent or is this temporary? If it's temporary, how long is it gonna last?

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

and then the last thing I'd say is just, you know, the teams, especially project managers, we're being asked to take a position on ai, as sort of process and team leads. You know, we are, not always getting clear answers from the top because every organization, every agency is trying to figure it out. What is our governance policy? What are our, you know,

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

we approaching AI tools on, on the delivery side? It's almost like, why aren't you using ai? in some cases, every team member is using their own AI tool to do a thing. And it's hard to be that person who says, okay, well yes, let's start baking this into our process and I need to make time to like learn how to do this, but also let me get, approval from, top brass from the leadership team to make sure I'm doing the right thing. Meanwhile, everyone's just doing everything and you're like, is client data going into these tools? I need to draw some lines right now.

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Galen Low:

on the other side of things, there's a lot of project managers who are like. My style is very human

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

I, I don't really, I don't really want to adopt ai. I don't wanna be that person that says AI is good.'cause I'm not sure yet.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

sure if that puts me out of a job, and I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure.

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Galen Low:

a lot of uncertainty right now.

Harv Nagra:

Really, really interesting points there, Galen. I, I feel like each of those could turn into episode in themselves, but I just wanted to reflect back on a couple of things. The first thing is you brought up the idea of layoffs and the morale impact is such a serious thing, right? From the business point of view. it, it's a tough decision that often needs to be had, otherwise you wouldn't go through with it, right? But, the impact it has on your remaining team is so serious. So that's really something you have to consider. And there's no easy fix to that. I don't think it's just about reassuring the people that are there and making sure you're doing the things, that you need to, to rebuild that kind of sense of trust and, making it clear that you're doing the things that you need to be doing to make sure that business is coming in and there's a sustainable amount of work, right. So, so that's one thing. the role blending thing is, is interesting. I think if there's, in my point of view, if it's like very closely related to your core skillset, then I think that's a great thing. You're learning and expanding your immediate skills. I, I think I have an issue with, role blending when it's coming from the opposite end where you're just simply not hiring the roles that you need and therefore everyone has two different jobs. They're like part-time social media manager and part-time whatever. And so it's like this juggling of responsibilities that really shouldn't be in your kind of wheelhouse. I, I think that becomes very, very stressful.

Galen Low:

Mm-hmm.

Harv Nagra:

so one thing I've, I, I've experienced, and I kind of alluding to it there, is that the people closest to the work usually know something's broken in an organization before leadership does. I've, I've been in that situation before. I'm sure you have as well. but yeah, thoughts on that? and what are some clues that teams tend to pick up on that things are a bit busted?

Galen Low:

Yeah, no, that's an interesting one. honestly, like I've, I've been in both seats, so I've been on the ground, just seeing things like happen right in front of me. and that's a benefit, right? You see it. Creating chaos and you see it, hurt people in some cases or at least create confusion,

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Galen Low:

higher up. Like you don't see the impact of your decisions right away.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

but like PMs are like classically kinda like, in the middle. they get handed decisions, in terms of like policy or software or process or billing rates or service offerings. and like the culture is to just play ball, right? Play ball and be a champion for the changes to their teams. I have this note here. I'm like, grin and bear it should be tattooed on every agency PM's forehead because that's the mission,

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

okay, you know, I, I, I did not make the decision. I, need to Sort of implement the decision,

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

I need to get my teams on board with this. and, what you want to be able to do, as a pm right? Is champion both ways, right? We're stuck in the middle. We're like, okay, if things aren't working

Harv Nagra:

Mm.

Galen Low:

if we start noticing, a, a dip in efficiency or confusion or, dips in morale with our team, I think the best thing we can do actually is. Probably to be vocal. To be vocal but like solutions oriented.'cause

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

easy to point at a whole, right? And those decisions were not easy to make, you know at the leadership level, it's not at the operator level, it's, they're not easy decisions. but also on the flip side, I guess I would say like as an operator, as a leader in an agency, like we need to take the time to listen as well.

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Galen Low:

it's not easy to hear. about problems

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

that you've been planning for months, or that thing that's really integral to your business and your business strategy. but, know, take it as feedback that is all like feedback, from your decisions being battle tested in the wild.

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Galen Low:

I'm, I'm a huge, proponent of the fact that like, getting data, like real data coming back to you after making a decision or after rolling something out, it's way better than not hearing about it. You know, you, you asked me some, some sort of symptoms. I, I do think if people aren't coming to you, but you're like, gut is telling you that something's just not quite right.

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Galen Low:

I'm sure if you've built the culture of trust and you can sit down with project managers or team leads one-on-one just to be like, Hey, listen, like let's grab a coffee. Talk to me about this thing. like is it going well? I think there is definitely agency culture where we're just supposed to grin and bear it.

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Galen Low:

and if you want feedback on it or if you sense that it might not be doing the thing that you want it to do, I'm sure there's a lot of people on the ground who will, who will wanna tell you in the right context, you

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

in a town hall, not in a team meeting, not in, any kind of pressurized environment and in a room full of the the leadership team. but yeah, get, get grassroots and, and, and try and get a sense of

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Galen Low:

like I said, us PMs, we're noticing things like, morale, efficiency, confusion. Those are all the things that feed into chaos.

Harv Nagra:

Hmm.

Galen Low:

that slow down what we're normally used to doing. those are the things that are, delaying, whatever, getting to that payment milestone or completing that project that, opens up the team to that next thing, the next project. So it's, it's a really important flow.

Harv Nagra:

And I, I think, what you brought up there about listening to the PMs, I, I think that's such great feedback for, for like the operators and, and agency leaders. These are some of your most process oriented, organized people in your business. So if you really want valid feedback on the way you've set up processes or the way things are just creaking and stuff like that. These are people that are gonna tell you exactly what's wrong and, and tell you after they've tested all that stuff. So I think that's really, really, important. The whole thing about being the heroic project manager. I've had to be one of those. When you're, when you're in an organization that's not very, structured or not very mature, for someone that has that project manager or operations mindset, your, your nature is to create structure, right?

Galen Low:

Mm-hmm.

Harv Nagra:

And, and I think I've had to do that where, where it's just like the rest of the organization is just operating in this kind of very loose way. And it's like, well, in our team, this is the way we're gonna do it and this is the way it needs to happen. So I, I think that's great. But on the other hand, it's not an ideal place for organization where people are having to pick up the slack. Due to the lack of kind of structure coming down from the top. I was wondering if you have any other examples where you've seen teams just making things work because the foundations weren't really there.

Galen Low:

Yeah, no, absolutely. I, I like that word, heroic project managers.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

it's, it's funny because, in my community mostly we're digital project managers. We're working in digital agencies, building digital solutions like websites or, marketing campaigns and what have you. and I, I, we we can't be in this culture of, speaking, speaking up and having hard conversations, right? Running towards tough conversations to make things better.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

but also in an agency situation, there's a lot of pressure, on project managers, but also on the teams, right? There's just pressure to deliver. so, I have had teams that are putting in, 70, 80 hour weeks like secretly. Like not telling anybody,

Harv Nagra:

Wow.

Galen Low:

because they wanna make it look like, the parameters of an agency right? It's like they wanna look like they're hitting their utilization targets. They want to look like they're matching the sort of, resourcing or capacity expectations. they're trying to. Sometimes punch above their weight class. Sometimes everybody is trying to punch above their weight class thinking that somebody else in the agency, is getting it done faster, is

Harv Nagra:

Hmm.

Galen Low:

better, is able to take on more projects at once. and so there's that competitiveness. So they're, sometimes we're just. Smoothing it over by the fact, like in as individuals, not a team culture. It's not like

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

that says, Hey, listen, let's just put in extra time. Overtime is our game. That's our culture. Like, let's go.

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Galen Low:

it's just that individuals sometimes, are secretly getting work done, which as you can imagine, as an operator, that's the worst thing that could happen because then all of your baseline, all of your benchmark of what is expected, it stays the same and you're like, I guess everything's great. But everyone's gaming the system

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

because they're like, well, that's how I look good. That's how I get promoted. That's how, and, and, and,

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Galen Low:

there's all these things that are, are more politically charged. So, I've had, devs individually just coding over the weekend just to keep up because their resourcing was, not realistic. I've had project managers, they do all their heads down work. I don't know if you were like this, but like. Sometimes the frenzy of the job is like, okay, you're expected to be like on and available, on whatever teams or slack, like all the time during the day,

Harv Nagra:

Hmm.

Galen Low:

which means if you had to do a proposal or a change request or your status reports, that's all happening in the evening,

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

you're like, okay, I'll just stack that later. I, I don't, I can't even get in gear to do this work during the day because I'm answering questions.

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Galen Low:

to clients and, and, and, And then the other, the sort of example I have is, sometimes I, I've seen a lot of agencies, they're like, yeah, we are. our, our thing is agile. Like we are all scrum all the time. That's all, that's what we do. That's how we stay competitive. We're fast, we're nimble, we're collaborative,

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Galen Low:

and like, okay, so it's like every project needs to be, you know, this is the way we work. This is the one way we work,

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

it to our clients. And then the clients are like, yeah, we're not really set up for Agile. So then we have this like internal agile thing going on

Harv Nagra:

Hmm.

Galen Low:

that then gets like. Distilled backup to the client as just like regular, more predictive,

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

waterfall style style projects.'cause they're not set up for it. So e effectively the teams are doing both. They're like doing all the, you know, it's like our policy is to like, yeah, do scrum, we do all of our sprint planning and we have daily standouts and we do our sprint reviews with the client. But really it's kind of like, just like delivering based on a milestone for this client that. Fundamentally cannot make a decision in that

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Galen Low:

then it's gonna end up with three weeks of something getting approved.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

not set up to be nimble. They're not set up to be agile. And so you have, like both gears we're like trying to toe the line, trying to deliver the brand experience.

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Galen Low:

and like I've had project managers on my teams who've been like, Hey, listen, like. This is not an agile project, permission to just switch it and we'll make that decision together because yeah, it's probably a good selling point for some agencies to say, yeah, listen, this is the way we work. but it's not realistic if the client is not set up that way. so,

Harv Nagra:

Absolutely.

Galen Low:

those are some of those like insidious things where you think everything's working, it looks like it's working on the surface, and you're like, this

Harv Nagra:

Hmm

Galen Low:

Metrics are good, right? Utilization is good, resourcing is good. but sometimes it's just, it's all happening. Without you knowing,

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

or where there is, exceptions being made, people not quite gaming the system, but kind of

Harv Nagra:

Her feeling. Pressured. Exactly. You know what I love about this role of project manager and ops, is I find a lot of parallels your responsibilities might be different. One is project oriented and one is organization oriented, but like that the kind of incoming barrage of support and answering things and like. You're, you're just constantly facing it, right? So like you're saying, a lot of the kind of the stuff that you really need to focus on and the planning can end up getting shoved aside because your work hours end up being like very reactive. So, you, you have to have a lot of connect control in place to make sure that's not happening, but. Some of the stuff that you were saying about kind of people gaming the system and stuff like that there, there's multiple things happening, right? Like you're saying, agencies are under pressure so that there, there are layoffs happening and then people don't always know when to speak up. I, I remember when I was one, one of my roles in Vancouver. I was quite young and early in my career and it was like a boutique agency of four individuals, four of us. So I just thought like. I need to deliver. Like we've got projects all over the world. I'm the project manager. I'm the only project manager. So the fact that I have to call people in Poland and Japan and like Shanghai, like, okay, that's in the middle of the night, so I just need to make it happen. And I was like, literally. Killing myself for this role. And I, it, it was, it felt like something we needed to do, but my, my bosses, they, they acted shocked when they found out, first of all. but, I, I, I think there's just something there that you, you have to be careful of and, and keep an eye on your team even if they're not speaking up. There's the, a bit of the imposter thing can come up feeling like you really need to prove yourself. and also maybe not recognizing that this is an organizational issue and. if you need the resource, you need the resource and people need to know.

Galen Low:

Yeah. No, that's huge. I

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Galen Low:

The, like, trying, trying to determine which is a, is it me or is it the organization? Is it a bit of both? I think on both sides. I think it's a really important lens to put on it because yeah, that imposter syndrome and

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

zone thing you mentioned. Yeah, I've been there.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

it is real. You're like kinda like holding up the roof with like, you know, nothing else.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

I guess this is the job. And you're like, but it feels really, really hard. And like, I wish I could raise my hand without shooting myself in the

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Galen Low:

and it's, one of those things, but like, it's, it's the culture, right? Like

Harv Nagra:

Hmm.

Galen Low:

I've been, I've worked in agencies where like. Yeah, you raise your hand, you get it shot off,

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

like great, you're not 80, 90% utilized like, and you're raising your hand saying there's problems. I think it's the problem is you,

Harv Nagra:

Mm.

Galen Low:

called out shamed, like in public, in front of the agency, you know,

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

a reputation of, somebody who's just, just always a squeaky wheel, right? Like there is such thing as culture that will never let you see. How your business is operating because people are shooting down the people who are raising their hands. and again, for me it's data, right? Like listen, gather the data. You don't have to act on all of it. Not all of it's going to be, like, true for everybody or something that you need to take action on. But if you don't know what's happening and we're not talking to some of these, individuals, that's the only way to find out. You don't see it on the surface, you don't see it in the data. You have to go and get that like qualitative data from folks.

Harv Nagra:

Absolutely. we're, we're gonna talk about tooling in a moment, there was something that you said there about utilization that kind of struck a chord and a question like that came up. And I don't know if I ever had a. Great answer to this is that when setting utilization targets for project manager roles, there was always kind of a disparity between expectations and the reality. And I think the re the, the reason was. project managers or producers, they end up jumping across so much stuff all day that it becomes, first of all, very challenging to track your time accurately, right? Because it's just like you're, you're, you're, you're answering like 10 different slack messages every, every 10 minutes. So it's like, well, what, what do I log that on? You're guessing. but also I think some of the producers that have worked for me is like, they don't feel there's this kind of guilt associated with logging time. On a task when you're only sporadically doing certain things or you're answering like a single message. I don't even know what my question is, Galen there, but it's just like, have you come across that before? I, I guess And is there, is there any kind of brilliant advice you have in how to manage that?'cause. Yeah, there's a lot of time that ends up getting logged on kind of admin, because people don't know what to log that on.

Galen Low:

Yeah, honestly I see it a lot. and for me it boils down to this. It's like, and this is not just for project managers, this is anyone.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah,

Galen Low:

Specifically agency. It's like, do you understand the value of the work that you're doing?

Harv Nagra:

right.

Galen Low:

many, minutes you spent doing the thing, but the value, right? So like it might take me 15 minutes to just, tap, tap, tap, put together a status report,

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

together, send it off to a client. Does that mean it's not valuable? No, actually they're paying us. To know how their project is going to know that it's going smoothly for someone to be doing the risk management to say, Hey, listen, like, just heads up, like, that thing that you're supposed to approve, like that deadline's coming up on Thursday.

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Galen Low:

the way, we're ahead of schedule on this, but like, there's like a, there's a big chunk we're getting into like the meaty middle of the project, right? Like that is valuable.

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Galen Low:

it's not 15 minutes worth of value.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

thing is like I was never taught how. To think about tracking my time. I was just told you work this many hours per week and of those hours, like X percent should be billable. so when you track your time, try and make that happen. and then, so I'd be like, okay, well, like I guess I should like make it add up. So I guess I'll like do more work now actually to like, make it balanced so that the time that I've put in. Equals the like billable sort of thing that I'm doing. and as I got further in my career, and I don't know if every operator is gonna agree with this,

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Galen Low:

eventually it was like, okay. What was the value that I did for this project? I don't need to count every email that I

Harv Nagra:

Mm.

Galen Low:

What did I do? How much, like what percentage of my day did I spend delivering value for this project

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

manager? So first I had to understand what my value was

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Galen Low:

Yeah. Keeping things on, on, on the rails, but like not just herding cats. It's like communication is orchestration. It's translation. It's making sure that things happen. So that we can bill, so that we can get paid like so that the client can like continue their digital transformation or like launch that campaign like they're gonna make money too. The ROI on what we do. project managers or anyone else in an agency, it's a thing.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

just how fast you can type if you're a developer, right? And it's like, and, and, and frankly, utilization is a terrible measure of if you are a fast at coding

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Galen Low:

fast at doing status reports or if you're fast at wire framing, you have no incentive to get it done quicker because then you're utilization drops. So you're like, oh, great. but then I realized, okay. If, if there was a way

Harv Nagra:

Hmm.

Galen Low:

for, agencies specifically, especially if you're like time and materials, right? like to have some kind of parameters or training around time tracking, not like, oh, bill, what you want, bill, what you think you're worth. I think that's probably

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

know, feasible, viable,

Harv Nagra:

Hmm.

Galen Low:

but maybe even just some guidelines, right? like, it's not the 15 minutes that most agencies care about. It's just about are you, are you servicing this client in a meaningful way? And yeah, like I don't want you to put like 200 time entries in for like four days of work.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

in quarter hour increments. Like, I don't, I don't necessarily want that. I, I haven't seen an agency yet that like goes great, let's like. Gather all the time that people send spending emails, like those quarter hour things that are described as email

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Galen Low:

let's like create a dashboard about like how long we spend on, I've never seen an agency do that. They don't care. They care about the bigger service offerings. the bigger strokes. How, how, how much does it take us to deliver, a website on this CMS versus that CMS.

Harv Nagra:

Hmm.

Galen Low:

I think there's this like limited understanding of what. What is done with time tracking data What is done with utilization. And I think there's this disconnect between how a business operates, how an agency operates in particular, and like what people see as Overwatch. They're like you just wanna make sure I'm doing work, which is not always true.

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Galen Low:

but it's not always true. Sometimes it's about. Broader business data. Sometimes it's about productization, sometimes it's about, efficiency gains, after a process was rolled out. Like there's a lot to it and we don't tell anybody. We just say track your time, go for it here's, here's the tool. Track your time. See you later. I.

Harv Nagra:

Well, if you want compliance, I think it's super important for people to understand what that is serving and what purpose, you know, what they're contributing to by tracking that. so we're, we're, we're gonna continue on tooling I, I guess it's just my, my question is what does it look like from a team side when the tool set up is making the delivery team's job harder? Does anything come to mind so that we can catch these red flags?

Galen Low:

this is, it's a tough one. Okay. This is like when a tool changes, you're talking change management, you know no matter what tool it is. and fundamentally it is this sort of balance between like. The cognitive load of like navigating a new tool that maybe you got like an hour's training with versus like the muscle memory, right? Like so, this is a bit adjacent, but like, we had clients in, the, the, the airline business, right? and they use a tool, I believe it's called Saber. Don't quote me on that, but it's like, it's basically DOS for booking agents, right? You type into a command line

Harv Nagra:

Okay.

Galen Low:

gotten so fast at that. They're like, you changed that tool. I quit. En mass,

Harv Nagra:

Okay.

Galen Low:

they would revolt against it because they're so efficient with that tool. Now, we don't always get that choice at an agency. I've been at more than two or half a dozen agencies where we've flipped a tool overnight and it wasn't always communicated why, and we weren't trained on it. Like, we flipped from, whatever, we were using a, a project management tool. And then overnight we flipped to Basecamp and it was like, cool, figure it out. guess what? As I'm figuring it out, like I'm not sitting down with my tea, like at midnight figuring out Basecamp. A, I need a real use case to actually like plug into,

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

B we're just getting work done, right? So like we are immediately less efficient.'cause there's always, questions come up, they're like, Hey, how should I do this thing? And there might

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

an answer, but I think when you start hearing that there's these questions, right? Like it's not just. People necessarily figuring it out. It might just be that it could have been more efficient maybe Mm-hmm. to outline some of these, scenarios and, and, and take that data back.'cause you can apply that to any tool rollout. but you know, it doesn't always look like things are on fire. Everyone's like, okay,

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Galen Low:

great. We rolled out, you know, new, uh, time tracking tool. Everyone's using it like. job done. but you know, thinking about like just the cognitive load that the team is undergoing to like learn it to

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Galen Low:

Just even just a right? Even like, what does this button do? This

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

You're talking about like fragments of seconds, but it's adding up. And I think it, there's, there's a certain way to do it right. I don't, claim to know exactly how it can work well for all agencies. But there's something in between, the memos. It's like, Hey, it's January 1st, by the way, and like in Q2, we're gonna change your time tracking tool. Oh, hey, it's the end of Q1. Like, we're gonna change your time tracking tool. Hey, we're gonna change your time tracking tool. It's like the message is the same all the way through, and then suddenly the new time tracking tool.'cause like how that, how you experience that change is okay, something's coming. Something's

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

Something's coming. Oh, it's here. And then

Harv Nagra:

Yeah. Now, uh,

Galen Low:

didn't prepare anybody. Nobody was

Harv Nagra:

no.

Galen Low:

anything about it. No one was getting trained, et cetera. there's that, versus, just flipping the switch overnight, like, not good either. I think people just need to understand and feel comfortable with how they're going to do their job in a new tool. that comfort level alone will make their learning process faster.'cause they feel supported, they feel like they don't have to do it under pressure. They're not like, like, I've been sweating bullets trying to like, get a, get a thing out. in a new tool. And I'm like, oh gosh, okay. I got like, I just need to smash through this. It's very stressful. I'm just gonna click every button. and maybe it'll work, maybe it won't,

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

I need to deliver this thing. Like, that's not a great, experience for anyone on your team. And it's probably, interrupting, it's being disruptive to your business.

Harv Nagra:

Absolutely. I, I think that's so, so valid. I, I think it's a sign of a mature business to have a systematic approach to rolling something out and having a point of view about how things are done. Not to say that things shouldn't be flexible, they absolutely should. But just throwing something at, a team, like you're saying, the stress. And kind of disruption and chaos that causes is not worth it. And if you want your change to fail, that is exactly how you should do it. So you've invested loads of money on this tool, and now you want no one to be happy with it and using it and, and make that process as difficult as possible for them and for yourself. That's how you should do it. Otherwise, be more measured. Make a planned approach to rolling it out. Keep people in the loop.

Galen Low:

Absolutely. Yeah. And you're right, like not everything's gonna be figured out right away.

Harv Nagra:

Hmm.

Galen Low:

but I do think that, yeah, having. Having some parameters of how things are are being used. I've totally seen that. We've, we've adopted a tool. Everyone like went and like, went on YouTube to like, figure out how to use it.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

doing something different.'cause they were just watching a different video or it wasn't, tailored to the way that that organization was working. Yeah. That's a quick way to to, to make a muddy mess.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah, exactly. so let's switch gears a little bit. I wanted to talk about kind of freelancers and flexible teams and the way people kind of scale up. By, by bringing in extra support. but of course that only works well when people are onboarded. well, and you've got those processes down. Can you give us any advice when you've got kind of project managers coming in, freelancers and, and, and whatnot, how you can make sure that this is, flawless in terms of that, that kind of experience and that handoff.

Galen Low:

I love that question because, we're seeing a lot more freelance, positions or, or roles or opportunities open up a lot more professionals in the agency world going freelance. here's the thing about freelance a, a good freelancer, in my opinion, I. Knows they have to hit the ground running,

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

how to get themselves up to speed, doesn't really want to get onboarded like an

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Galen Low:

they don't want it. they're like, tell me how you do things, where things are at, who my team is, and make this information available to me. and I, I see some, I don't know if they're mistakes, but I've seen some agencies where they kind of like, they're like, cool, like we're gonna like. Eat two days of their time, you know, the cost of, of that time to, sit them down with like team leads and like get them up to speed with where things are at, and it'll be very human, which is great. It's very noble, but it's not always the best way. First of all, I. People are, you know, agency land, right? They're never available at the same time, to your point, different time zones,

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

what it's gonna be like someone in Poland's gonna like be sitting there in their evening to like onboard a freelance PM or otherwise, that state side. Like it's, it's, it that's gonna create friction in and of itself. It, it might be a nice idea, but I would say that like invest time in some really good, really punchy, lightweight, Not even documentation. So

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

for example, like we, we love a good scavenger hunt checklist. It's kind of like, we call it like a two-way onboarding checklist. It's kind of like, cool, that person who's like responsible for what you're doing has some tasks and you have some tasks as well.

Harv Nagra:

Hmm.

Galen Low:

go to this drive, read this document, go here. Here's how you're gonna get yourself up to speed. Take it off when you're done.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

and it's kinda like the self-serve like. We were organized enough to be like, cool, here are the documents that you probably need to read. here's the priority. and then other than that, if you have access, then get in there and you have the stuff to refer to

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Galen Low:

it's not all gonna make sense on day one, right?

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

be like, cool, who's the client? What's the industry? And then when you go back and read that other thing, you're like, okay, that makes sense now.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

it's like access to the right documentation. think like the other thing, we've, I've seen some agencies do, it's just kinda like this team working agreement. it's like not super robust, but it's like, listen as a team, because agency is like, we're just like, and projects in general, there's not always people who work together all the time. It's like, great, we're smashing a bunch of people together. There's no formal reporting structure other than the fact that we're on a project team together. here's how, here's the way we work. You know, here's when each other are available. Here's like a bit of our working style from each individual, our values as a team. The process that we kind of use. Like, oh yeah, there's this weekly thing, like a meeting that we do, right? Like that's a great document for onboarding a freelancer.'cause you're like,

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

I understand how this team works. I understand what they're used to. I'm not gonna commit it to memory right now, but I get it. I get the idea and I'm gonna keep revisiting it and revisiting it. I'm gonna use it to have conversations with the team to be like, Hey, like it says here that, you like to receive feedback right away, even if it's brutal. Like, is that okay? Right. Like, because, because I can do that.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

and so these like, it's like. A certain level of documentation. I think when people hear the word documentation, they think like there might be a manual, you

Harv Nagra:

Hmm.

Galen Low:

thick of a, thick as a phone book.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

that's the worst actually. Nobody reads that.

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Galen Low:

but good asynchronous systems. I also have, there's some teams that are very remote first, and, and, and basically they don't have any private Slack messages, right? No dms

Harv Nagra:

Okay.

Galen Low:

because that's where information transfer happens. And if you had to look back at it, it would be there. You don't have

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

Hey, oh yeah, I had this side conversation with so-and-so, so none of that information is available. But let me just tell you, there's like this sort of information, this, Inaccessible information,

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

and then to the point where they're also, using AI note takers and meeting minutes always get posted. So again, that time zone thing too, right? Sometimes people can join, you know, they're in Europe the day, or maybe they're ahead of it, but they still have to catch up on the end of the day. State side, they're like, oh, great. Okay. There was three meetings. I can see the conversation here. I can get myself up to speed quickly. Again, not committing it to memory, but like, okay, I understand what happened and if I need to go back to it, it's there.

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Galen Low:

are good systems. for freelancers because freelancers, again, coming back to my original point, for me, a good freelancer knows they have to hit the ground running fast

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

knows how to get themselves up to speed. they don't necessarily wanna sit down and get talked at for like seven hours. they just like, give me the mission briefing and access to the right stuff and let cook

Harv Nagra:

Absolutely. And they're expensive as well, so you want to get them working as quickly as possible. I, I like the idea that you brought up of just kind of self-directed resources, first of all, so they're not relying on other people. But for me it was like new starters. They tended to have like a one week onboarding. Freelancers on the other hand had something like. Two to four hours really. And it was three things. First was like, this is, slack. Of course you've used Slack before, but this is what our project channels look like. This is what our pitch channels look like. And then number two was, how we use our file management platform. It was Dropbox for business. So this is how stuff is structured and this is where you can find it. And number three was, we used Scoro. So it was like. This is where you track your time and how to do that, and this is how to check your schedule. So that, those were the key things. It was like after that you're ready to be briefed on a project

Galen Low:

Those

Harv Nagra:

right? Yeah.

Galen Low:

right, be able to talk to people, be able to access documents, know how to sort of track your time and get paid.

Harv Nagra:

Absolutely. Absolutely. And you want to know as quickly as possible if the freelancer's not gonna be a right fit as well. So the worst thing you can do is spend half a week onboarding them and then it's like, oh man, they're not creative enough, or they're not getting it right. So that is the absolute worst. Cool. we've been talking a lot about what makes life hard for PMs, but I wanted to ask you about what makes things smooth. So what are the little signs that, the delivery environment is actually well supported. So that might be, resources that the management or the ops leaders have put in place. To help things work well. So those could be onboarding processes, structured methodologies, clear, instructions on key platforms and how things are done. But I'll, I'll hand that over to you.

Galen Low:

I

Harv Nagra:

I,

Galen Low:

honestly, that's an interesting question. I, I, funny enough, here's my take. like when I see of maturity, I. In an agency, especially around project management,

Harv Nagra:

mm-hmm.

Galen Low:

like this like level of empowerment and trust knowing that,'cause like, it's funny, like, you and I, we've both said it, that like project managers are very process oriented and we're very organized and, and, and that is all true, but there's like this, stylistic. Whatever modus operandi that every project manager has,

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

don't really want to be shoved into a box. I actually think the worst, at least supportive cultures are like, Don't stray from anything.'cause project managers are, you know, we're also creative.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

our own style. we're very a lot of us are very human oriented, right? In other words, we bring personality into the role. It's not all, the rules that the computer says. So actually I want enough structure.

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Galen Low:

enough structure and enough trust and like you tell me as a project manager what those things are where I will get fried. If it's like, yeah, listen, like, like if you are sequestering team resources that are supposed to go to another project but you project's delayed, yeah, you're gonna get fried. Great. Got it. Like, I know, like, now let me cook. Like I know what to do. I

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

where to go if it's like, yeah, listen, like. We, we have a pretty decent margin and like contingency here, but this client like, yeah, if you get on the wrong side and like you jeopardize this relationship, you're fried. And I'm like, great. I know what to do now. But like, you don't need to micromanage me. Just tell me that you're going to be frank with me, that you are going to, you're going to tell me the truth no matter how raw or how hard, it's going to sound.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

but that you trust me and like I've seen, a sort of like balance between like, accountability, and Overwatch really. I, I, again, I'll bring that term up. someone I respect greatly, like, she is known, across her team as, as like quintessential tough love. The best kind of tough love, right? She's compassionate, she cares. And if you give her an answer that's not satisfactory, she will grill you

Harv Nagra:

Okay.

Galen Low:

She doesn't want your project to be like, I think this is gonna happen. Maybe the client's gonna approve this thing. Like that ambiguity, she's gonna slice through it. She's like, ambiguity is risk, right? If, if there's something that you can go and find the answer to and get clarity on, go do that, then talk to me, right? Like I think that's a really good sort of model. Rather than say, did you follow this five step checklist? Because if you didn't, then you're probably not doing your job. Like I think that contains. a project manager is able to do. like I get that a business might want to scale. You don't want everyone, doing everything their own way. but I don't think scale needs to mean like cutter,

Harv Nagra:

Super rigid. Exactly.

Galen Low:

manageable at scale.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

I think the power of the role in a lot of agency roles, to be honest with you, is this sort of stylistic, personality driven behavior that yields

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Galen Low:

And you, look across your organization, you, you know who they are, right? You know, there's that one person that everyone kind of likes but also is scared of.

Harv Nagra:

Hmm.

Galen Low:

That person great. Like they are making things happen. And no handbook is going

Harv Nagra:

Hmm.

Galen Low:

no pun intended, but no, no manual

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

recreate that person. If you

Harv Nagra:

Hmm.

Galen Low:

copied, down everything that person did in a day and then told someone else to do it, it wouldn't work.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

Like, and that's okay. That's business. We're, we're humans for now. We're organizations built from humans

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

human stuff, together,

Harv Nagra:

Absolutely real life is messy and client requirements and needs and demands are messy as well. So I think the flexibility to make smart decisions is absolutely, absolutely key. Really, really good examples. So if someone in the ops or leadership role is listening to this and they want to better support their delivery teams, does anything come to mind?

Galen Low:

okay, so, I'm, I'm coming back to something I said earlier,

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Galen Low:

your value as a project manager, I think, also is true. From the other side, is that organizations, like I, I get it, right? Like I've seen small agencies grow up, a lot of the time, owner operator, entrepreneur style, got the business going, right?

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Galen Low:

person, was the delivery person, was the ops person, was the finance person,

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

and then scaled. And then that decision point is a really tough one. Like, can I afford a full-time employee who's my first hire going to be? and, and, and you get to the project manager and you're like. I guess I have to, I hear this a lot from operators, so like, yeah, I just kinda, I need someone now to like, make sure everything happens and like, keep things on time and on schedule. and you know, like, I don't know, I don't wanna pay too much for this person. You know, I see these roles, they're like, mid six figures. and I, I can't afford that, but I need more than like a virtual assistant, somewhere in the middle. And like, you know, like, and, and I guess, we, we will, we'll just, Make them do the thing, and like it's fine. And then tick the bucks. I dunno, I find a lot of the time that like undercuts the value of a, the value you're gonna get from that project manager. B, your understanding of the value of the role. Because in a lot of cases, folks like yourself, you've come up and you're like, okay, yeah, I've been the delivery person sometimes and I didn't just check a box and make sure things get done. I was strategic, I was

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

client relationships. I was being like, I, I understood the politics, you know, I was able to motivate my team. and I think, just appreciating that and, and taking a step back and understanding that, like everyone gets trained to be like, oh, projects that like, are delivered on time, on budget, without any extra scope. Like that is success. Like not always. And again, like if you have a process that you know is reliable, that's not the only thing driving that success. I would say the best thing that, an agency leadership team or an ops team could do to better support the delivery teams and specifically their project managers is I think just like understanding that like, yeah, there's little everyday decisions. that are making a huge impact to culture. They're making a huge impact to efficiency. They're making a huge impact to like having recurring client, work, right? The renewing that retainer, the profitability aspect of things. It's

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

these big swaths, it's not all the process. There's like these tiny things, like hundreds of things, thousands of things every day that these individuals are doing because they know what the goal is, Yeah. right and I think really like understanding that, and, and. Frankly just like making time to like listen and, and talk to them a little bit. I think, I find that it, it, some folks are resistant, in agency culture to talk to the project managers because they either feel like they're gonna get an earful or a spreadsheet or something. They're like, I don't want that. or they're gonna like, hear all the like, bad news and then they're gonna feel overwhelmed. both are probably true, but also like, what is that sort of like interaction? What is the right fidelity of interaction to be like. How are things going? You know what? how can I support you better or, or what challenges are you facing right now? Not even the support thing, because honestly project managers we're not good at raising our hands to ask for help.

Harv Nagra:

Hmm.

Galen Low:

if you get them to describe some of the challenges, you're gonna get line of sight into what's going on on the front lines. I. and what they're doing every day to navigate that. And coming back to your earlier question, sometimes they're, like building a bridge outta sticks.'cause there was a chasm that nobody knew was there and nobody talked about. And that's how you're gonna find those things out. That's how you're gonna understand the value of your project management team also. That's how you're gonna understand where you need to improve your business so that those gaps, have proper, permanent, concrete bridges, not, makeshift things here and there. honestly, I think it all starts with just like. taking the time to listen a little bit, right? Don't, like, don't invite an earful, you'll get it. Uh, talking to those folks because they're seeing things from a very unique middle ground, where

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Galen Low:

above, they're looking at all the work happening across departments. They're understanding client relationships. they're looking at how projects fit together. They're understanding how different projects are, delivered differently, even if the product is the same or the service offering is the same. they have a very unique perspective on how things are running. it's worth talking to them. It's worth, holding them accountable, but also giving'em a little breathing room to, to do their thing and trusting that they'll do their thing as long as the right parameters are set.

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm. That is a really nice, spot to end our conversation on today as well, Galen, because I'm really excited to jump on your podcast. We're recording it directly after this. before we do that, I wanted to talk about the digital project manager. So I've been on loads of webinars with yourselves and on your website, but could you tell our audience, just in case they're not familiar with who DPM is and what you guys do?

Galen Low:

Oh yeah, no, absolutely. so the digital project manager, we are a knowledge sharing community, helping project people get skilled, get confident, and get connected. mostly so that we can amplify the value of project management. In a digital world, we're

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Galen Low:

people and pixels and code, right? Those projects that involve websites. Or digital marketing campaigns, augmented reality video games. it's easy sometimes with the speed of technology for things to come off the rails and be really chaotic. It takes, a certain quality of person, to, to lead those, to lead through complexity, through ambiguity. and so that's what we're all about, you know? Yes. we do, we, we do monthly webinars that are open to the public. and then we have our membership offering where. We're doing a whole bunch of exclusive stuff. We're getting deep into tools. we're, we're doing peer mentorship. We have, expert ask me any things. We've got a vibrant Slack community, we've got mini courses. And then on the training side, with the DPM school, we've got our certification program, mastering digital project

Harv Nagra:

Amazing.

Galen Low:

end-to-end and agency PM training it. We designed it as our perfect onboarding.

Harv Nagra:

Wow.

Galen Low:

so the onboarding we wish we had when we were coming into the agency game as project managers. you can check us out@thedpm.com, or find me on LinkedIn and I'll, I'll be happy to chat.

Harv Nagra:

Amazing. Amazing. So we'll put links to all of that and the resources I have to say, It's called the Digital Project Manager, but like ops people, you're gonna love this stuff as well. So do go check it out. There's loads of really interesting webinars and stuff like that that you'll, you'll get a lot of value out of. So Galen, thank you so much for joining and I'm really excited to join your, your podcast. so anyone listening, now is the time. Go find it and listen to part two of this conversation from the operational perspective.

Galen Low:

Awesome. Looking forward to it. Thanks for

Harv Nagra:

Thank you so much. That's where we'll leave the conversation for now. As you've just heard, Galen's got a front row seat to what's working and what's not in agency delivery teams and how operational decisions often show up in ways leadership doesn't see right away. If today's episode sparked some thoughts or helped you recognize some blind spots, make sure to check out DPMs website. Like I said, loads of resources there that can help your delivery teams and even your operations team there. The link is in the episode notes, but we're not done yet. Please go listen to part two of this conversation where we're. Flipping the lens. I'll be joining Galen over on the DPM podcast to talk about how agencies can build operational models that actually support delivery, especially in a world of changing team structures, rising expectations, and the pressure to scale without breaking. If you enjoyed today's episode, please share it with someone that would enjoy it. Join the conversation when you see Galen or I posting about it on LinkedIn, and of course sign up for the handbook newsletter. So you get a cheat sheet with the key takeaways from every episode in your inbox. Go to scoro.com/podcast, scroll down and you'll find the newsletter sign up form. That's it for me this week. Thanks very much for joining us.

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