Weekly Status Reports and Account and Project Management

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How does Edgar Allan describe account and project support?

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The Edgar Allan team prioritizes communication and relationships as the key areas that help ensure the success of every project at EA. The project team is here to ensure that the client is aware of the overall status of the project (things that have been accomplished, things in flight) and has clarity on everything that needs to be decided (decisions on design and operations) or addressed (any risks or barriers to smooth project completion).

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What does account and project support mean to Edgar Allan?

• Prioritizing free flow of communication.
• Taking extra steps to understand what client needs are and anticipate what the client and team's future needs are. 
• Making sure that the right teams do the work at the right time 
• Ensuring that the team not only understands the project and the scope but also understands the client’s business and internal ways of working to simplify connection and decision-making.
• Enforcing a single point of contact for all things to make sure we get clear answers and direction from clients on all things. 

How does Edgar Allan go about account and project support for clients?

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• From the inception of every project, we have robust project schedules with Gantt charts, client review and due dates for feedback, and an overall high-level summary of deliverables and how the project unfolds.
• We deliver weekly status reports that outline the status of the project, key decisions that need to be made, accomplishments since the previous report, things in flight, and upcoming dates. 
• We hold weekly account catch-up sessions where we work through top-priority items, build relationships, and plan for the next phase of the project.
• We are comfortable working asynchronously (async) to deliver recordings with the overview of the project, project status, and quick training on how to use tools or set up systems.
• We pre-wire work and educate the client on what is coming up, what are the key decisions that are to be made, and what needs to occur to ensure that everything is moving along smoothly.

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What makes Edgar Allan's account and project support unique?

• An experienced project management team that has a diverse skillset in different types of initiatives.
• PMP, Scrum, Agile, PMPO, and ARM certifications
• Experience with a number of project management approaches including waterfall, iterative, scrum, SAFe,
• The team prioritizes relationships and people over tools.
• The team prioritizes outcomes over documentation.

Why do I need account and project support? Why do account and project support matter?

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Without it, you can’t accomplish the task. Account and project teams orchestrate all activities on the projects and apply rigor and experience to anticipate what needs to be done, what needs to be planned, and where the majority of issues come from, they ensure that everybody knows what is upcoming, where the key issues are and work diligently to build relationships, to bring teams together, encourage frequency and quality of collaboration sessions to resolve critical issues and deliver results.

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What are some of your favorite account and project support projects you have been part of at Edgar Allan?

Kate’s Club Platform and site redesign program.  We helped a non-profit to go through digital transformation and completed a customer experience design initiative to create a virtual platform to allow for the key audiences to interact with the non-profit, learn, and connect. We collaborated with the nonprofit to simplify their processes and move them to the online platform to reduce the number of tools they use and to help simplify their day-to-day while supporting the organization. While doing that, we’ve redesigned their site to ensure that the new branding and positioning reflect the organization.

What are some reasons that account and project support fails?

• Unavailability of key stakeholders during critical times of design.
• The misconception that the project should solve every single problem and have all things perfect - that extends the duration and increases concerns and stalls decision-making vs. having a mindset of iterative delivery; we are solving key issues and delivering on key objectives and the client gets a flexible system that can be built on and improved over time.
• Not investing in relationships on both sides and assuming client/agency relationships vs. partnerships. With relationships, there is trust and as such speed in decision-making.

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What are the benefits of having strong account and project support?

• Speed of Trust 
• Communication (at the right frequency and quality)
• Results (with an emphasis on priorities, deliverables, and meeting deadlines).

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Edgar Allan offers comprehensive Status Reports and Account and Project Management services to help ensure that your website journey with Edgar Allan is handled efficiently. Contact us to learn more about how we can assist with your website project needs.

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You may also be interested in Edgar Allan’s other services like brand design, brand naming, brand messaging, QA and UAT, and content design.

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Read the Edgar Allan blog for more information on our services, experiences, and opinions as an award-winning Webflow agency.

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