5 Questions about Project Management
with Marvin Blome

Just before the weekend, we take a short stop in the coffee kitchen and exchange ideas among colleagues. This is how we understand our "5 Questions to" article series, in which we ask experienced project managers about their best practices.

Today, we're talking to Marvin Blome, a new addition to ProjectWizards. The attentive reader will have noticed the guest posts in this blog. Before his role at ProjectWizards, Marvin has orchastrated Sales & Marketing activities for Northern Germany during his work at Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Further, he organized the Accelerate event at HHL Graduate School of Management, attracting 300+ participants with a team of 30+ students. Since September 1, he’s led our strategic and operational marketing, bringing his passion for entrepreneurship and marketing to ProjectWizards.

Of course, as the new wizard, he immediately had to answer our 5 questions.

1. What is your favorite project management method?

I use a "Frankenstein mix" of different tools and methods to create a balancing act between clarity, completeness and flexibility for short-term adjustments, depending on the situation. To maintain clarity of all open or future projects, I like to use a Kanban board. I ensure the completeness of all tasks per project using traditional PM methods (e.g. the classic Gantt Chart) in combination with brainstorming techniques (e.g. mind maps). For flexibility, operational tasks mostly run in smaller sprints with routine team coordination.

2. Do you use project management software for bigger projects? If so, which one?

Of course, I use Merlin Project to plan large projects and check their current status. The software allows me to effectively implement the criteria of clarity and completeness. In addition, I could not survive a week without my "tag team" of Apple Calendar and Things from the company CulturedCode. What is not entered in one of the two programs does not exist for me in everyday business.

3. What is your favorite routine in a project?

I'm a fan of short sessions to kick off the week and weekend. In my time at Accelerate, we had a routine every Monday morning as a team to clarify and communicate the week's priorities. This helped us immensely to consistently work on the most important tasks and identify bottle necks early on. The routine at the end of the week is an individual thing for me. This is where I go back through all the open tasks, structure the coming week and go into the weekend with a clear mind. In addition, milestones must logically be celebrated when they have been realized. Not only for team cohesion, but also to increase motivation and find a conclusion for the previous phase.

4. What is the most underestimated factor for project success?

I'm a big fan of ecosystems and Working Out Loud. Often you work in your familiar environment and only collaborate internally. Here, an expanded field of vision can be extremely helpful under certain circumstances. Whether through events, routine meetings with partner companies or other ways, in my opinion there is an immense and often underestimated potential here that quickly gets pushed into the background in the stressful daily routine. Of course, you have to choose your friends and partnerships carefully and build on mutual benefits.

5. What is your biggest time waster?

Since we work 100% in a home office at ProjectWizards, I don't have any time wasters from traveling to the office. The second big time eater - frequent, ineffective meetings, fortunately does not exist in our company either. Therefore, the classic pitfalls of modern companies fortunately don't play a big role for me. ;)