SatelliteWP at WordCamp Ottawa 2019

On July 13-14th 2019 was held WordCamp Ottawa 2019 on the beautiful campus of Carleton University, alongside the Rideau river. SatelliteWP was there to present on the topic of project management in a WordPress context, sharing a decade’s worth of experience.

The Event

Ottawa is the closest city from our offices, besides Montreal, that holds a WordCamp, so it only made sense we would try and attend to share and meet members of the community!

The weekend starts with the speaker dinner. A great occasion to meet new people in the WordPress community, share on our likes and dislikes, as well as discuss opportunities for collaborating and helping each other.

Because yes, collaboration amongst “competitors” is a thing, this is one of the defining trait of the WordPress community: we know there is so much opportunity in the marketplace that we often work together to share tips’n’tricks and collaborate in order to better serve clients.

The Presentation

Jean-François, co-founder of SatelliteWP, was a speaker at WordCamp Ottawa 2019. His presentation, “I manage 100+ projects in a spreadsheet”, said no one ever,  provides an overview of the evolution of project management tools across a web agency’s lifecycle, from your first client all the way up to hundreds of clients.

This is as much a “walk down memory lane” for some as it will be a treasure trove of lessons learnt along the way, helping current entrepreneurs start on the right foot by choosing the project management tools and techniques that best fit their style, clientele and aspirations.

We touch upon criteria such as stakeholders, client/project requirements, collaboration style, milestone tracking, sub-contractor management, reporting and finally project portfolio management.

The Take-away

Attendees especially appreciated the privileged look into how we fumbled using different software in the past, how we learned from our choices and how we ultimately settled on something on which we could build a solid foundation.

Did you know it? Attendees are able to evaluate presentations to help speakers to get better !

Jean-François earned a  4.9 mark (on 5) based on feedback forms. Careful ! We don’t believe on having a monopoly on truth! We simply shared what worked for us, pros and cons, and attendees may identify to our choices or not, but they came out with more knowledge and better tooled to improve their own business.

At SatelliteWP, we truly believe in sharing our knowledge, giving back to the community which we’re part of. We encourage you to get involved in your areas because in addition to improve professionally, grow personally, you will make great encounters!