It’s never not worked before, but what if it doesn’t this time?
When you’re on a call with an agency client, ops systems can have a mind of their own.
I’d done all the usual prep. I tested every scenario I could think of, but I’m always nervous on the demo calls at the end of a project phase. I’m a little bit worried the whole thing won’t work.
These are still some of my favourite meetings, though.
Today I was demoing the end of phase 2 of a really fun creative agency project. We’re building their entire project management and visibility system, and today was about Asana, the project tracking, and the automations that run from the costing sheets to make Asana run without typing into millions of boxes.
Everything worked perfectly.
I got to have that Blue Peter moment. “If you update the status to accepted, the project will move to the active project boards.” Ping. It moved.
One of the team asked, “How does Google Sheets talk to Asana?” I got to explain it in plain English.
The whole point of my systems is that they’re invisible and they just magically work. But when someone wants to know why, I have to hold myself back from explaining it too deeply. Geek out moment (pretty much) averted.
I really believe that systems should be effortless and work for the exact team they’re for. I care so much about them being right. They can’t be 80% right; they have to be 100% right, and sometimes that gap is massive.
Maybe that’s why I still get nervous. I don’t think I’ll ever be fully confident going into these meetings. And it’d possibly be no fun if I was.
When you’re demoing for a client, does it still feel like the opening night or the 70th matinee?