Every Monday morning, my band Small Town Titans has a conference call/meeting where we assess what we need to accomplish that week. We all open up Asana (I can’t recommend that app enough for project management), and we go over everything on the agenda.
This does not sound very rock n’ roll does it?
But if you want to grow your band or brand, you HAVE to do this. Take it from me. As the band progressed and went viral, we needed to organize everything that was happening, and figure out how to tackle it on a weekly basis. Getting together about it all once a week is perfect. Here’s why.
First off, these calls can get long. They are anywhere from 90 minutes to 3 hours. Yes. 3 hours (better have breakfast first)! Secondly, if you’re part of a team, I have found that any more or any less talk of business is basically a bad thing, within reason. Talk shop extensively more often, and you’ll burn out. You will. You must learn to trust everyone on the team, and let them handle a work week in their own way. As long as weekly progress is being made, you are accomplishing things, even if they are small. It WILL add up. Get together any less often, and the foundation will crumble. Tasks will go by the wayside. They will be forgotten. Your personal world will change, and it won’t reflect the business one properly (again, trust me).
So, to anyone who has goals to achieve, assess them once a week. Got it? Good! But how? I’m glad you asked! Let’s talk about the AGILE system, which our band adopted from our marketing team Indepreneur. In a nutshell, it works like this. Let’s say you have 10 tasks to do and you don’t know where to start. One of the main principles of AGILE is “sprints”. Using Asana, we as a band divvy up our tasks (known as cards) into different columns. From left to right, there’s a backlog, next sprint, this sprint, QA (quality assurance) and done. For “this sprint”, each member of the team has their own column. The QA column is where things go that need to have everyone take a look at them. Next Sprint is what get’s dragged into the personal columns the following week. Backlog are things coming up into Next Sprint. It looks like this:
Now, imagine if everything listed here was just in some sh*tty pile. Ow. My head hurts. At this point, I don’t know what we would do without Asana, and AGILE. One of the nicest things about this process is the visuals. You can SEE what has to get done, and things basically move from left to right in importance. The goal is for each team member to get their column done that week. Often times, admittedly, it doesn’t happen. But, as long as some type of progress was made. We know we are getting somewhere. And sometimes, when there’s a lot going on, that is what’s most important.
I can get downright manic about my work sometimes. Another AMAZING concept of AGILE is immediate organization once you learn the process. Found something important and need to make sure we cover it? Just drop it into Next Sprint. Boom. Done. No more scatterbrained notes in an app like Evernote or Google Keep, that will undoubtedly get lost. It’s in a column for the entire team to see at any time.
Everything my band has achieved in the last two years was completed with this process. Recording a new song. Filming a new video. Designing new merch. Booking a tour. They were all cards! You name it! This may look overwhelming to many of you. That’s OK. I would say that’s pretty natural in the beginning. But repetition is the mother of all learning.
So, what if you’re reading this and you’re NOT in a band? You’re NOT running a small business? You can still use this personally. Think about it!
Let’s say you’re trying to lose weight. Keep the done column! What are you trying to do this week? Lose 2 or 3 pounds? That’s your current sprint. Maybe you’re going to cook more for yourself this week. Or drink more water and less alcohol. These are goals for your sprint. Then, let’s say next week, you want to try a recipe you found. Make a card for that! Put your long term goals in the backlog. For me, the visual aid is SO helpful! You SEE progress happening right before your eyes. And keep that DONE column, so you can look back at everything you’ve achieved. It feels good!
Well readers, I hope you found this interesting. If you don’t wanna try Asana and the AGILE system, maybe you at least found it fascinating to see how Small Town Titans operates on the ground level. And if you do, maybe this will help you achieve your goals.
And hey, you will find many things I do for STT is in fact, unfortunately, NOT very rock n’ roll (sad face). But don’t worry. I still wear black (often) and drink beer. I’ve got you man!
Until next time!
Hit life hard.
– JR
Just Another Drummer 