Project Management · Module 1 · Week 1 Video Scripts
Module 1 · Project Pursuit · Week 1 — Production
Three production-ready scripts covering Week 1's ~26 minutes of video content — timecode, on-screen direction, and word-for-word narration, each tied to a companion interactive screen.
For the video production team · not learner-facing · 3 scripts, ~26:00 totalVideo 1 of 3
| Time | On-screen | Narration (VO) |
|---|---|---|
| 0:00–0:15 | SILENT COLD OPEN. Black screen. Five simple milestone icons fade in, scattered and out of order: Kickoff, Award, Proposal, Go/No-Go, Lead. No narration, ambient bed only. On-screen text, bottom third: “When did this project really begin?” | (no narration — let the question sit) |
| 0:15–0:40 | The five icons stay scattered; a soft highlight pulses on each in turn. | “Take a second and actually look at that. Five moments in a project’s life. They’re out of order on purpose. Before I tell you anything: which one do you think comes first?” |
| 0:40–1:05 | On-screen prompt, full frame: “Mark the earliest point — then come back.” Pointer to the companion tool icon (persistent throughout). | “Open the companion and mark your answer. Really — pick one. I’ll wait.” [PAUSE POINT — learner marks the timeline in the companion, then resumes.] |
| 1:05–1:20 | Icons remain scattered; screen dims slightly. | “Alright. Most people pick kickoff. Some pick the proposal. Almost nobody picks what I’m about to show you.” |
| 1:20–2:10 | The five icons animate into true chronological order, left to right: Lead → Go/No-Go → Proposal → Award → Kickoff. Each gets a one-line label as it locks in. | “Lead. Someone hears about an opportunity before it’s official. Go/No-Go. The firm decides whether to chase it. Proposal. We commit a price to paper. Award. The client picks us. And only then — kickoff. By the time you’re sitting in that first meeting, four separate decisions already happened without you.” |
| 2:10–2:35 | Timeline stays on screen. Text overlay, bold: “The earlier you’re involved, the more you can shape it.” | “Here’s the idea to hold onto: the earlier you’re involved, the more you can shape the project before it becomes a promise. Get in at ‘Lead’ and you help write the story.” |
| 2:35–3:05 | Split screen: “Shape it” (PM in a planning conversation) vs. “Understand and verify it” (PM reviewing a completed proposal). | “Neither one makes you a lesser PM — both are real jobs, and WSE needs people who are good at each. But they ask different things of you. Shaping a pursuit means asking questions before anyone’s committed to an answer. Verifying one means reading someone else’s judgment and deciding whether you trust it. Today’s about understanding the machine well enough to do either job on purpose.” |
| 3:05–3:35 | Transition graphic: “How does the firm actually make money?” WSE wordmark appears, ampersand in green. | “So let’s back up: how does Weston & Sampson actually make money? Every one of those pursuit decisions is a bet on what I’m about to show you.” |
| 3:35–4:15 | Motion graphic: “Sell the work → Do the work → Get paid,” then a fourth node: “100% employee-owned.” | “We sell expertise delivered as hours, we do the work, we get paid. Weston & Sampson is 100% employee-owned — there’s no outside shareholder taking the upside. That single fact changes what a ‘good pursuit’ means here.” |
| 4:15–5:05 | NEW graphic: two paths from the same starting bar — “Priced right” climbing into a rising line labeled “ESOP share value,” “Priced to just stay busy” flattening into a line going nowhere. | “Here’s what that actually means in dollars, not just principle. When a pursuit gets priced to cover its real cost and still earn a fair margin, that margin doesn’t disappear into some corporate account three states away — it flows into the firm’s stock value, and once a year, into your ESOP account. Price it wrong — chase work at a discount just to keep busy — and there’s nothing left to flow anywhere. Same hours worked. Different outcome for every owner in this company, including you.” |
| 5:05–5:45 | On-screen text: “You’re an owner.” Documentary-style staff footage. | “If you work here, you’re an owner — literally, through the ESOP. When a project runs well, the margin comes back to the people who did the work. That’s not a slogan on a break-room poster. It’s a mechanism, and it runs on decisions made at the pursuit stage, long before anyone breaks ground.” |
| 5:45–6:30 | NEW split-screen graphic: “Win it right” (healthy margin bar, ESOP value climbing) vs. “Win it just to win” (thin, near-flat margin bar). | “So when someone says ‘let’s just get the work, we’ll figure out the margin later’ — that’s the moment to pay attention. A win at the wrong price isn’t a win. It’s hours your firm owns and nobody’s account grows from. The healthiest thing you can do as a future PM is care about the price as much as you care about getting picked.” |
| 6:30–7:00 | Timeline reappears, small, “Lead” highlighted. Text: “Next: what does an hour actually cost?” | “A project’s real beginning is a pursuit decision. Next up — we shrink the whole economic model into one number: a billing rate.” |
| 7:00–7:35 | NEW: rate graphic teaser — a single glowing number labeled “?/hr.” | “That one number carries everything we just talked about — wage, overhead, margin, and yes, your ESOP account — compressed into every hour anyone on your team bills. Once you can read it, you’ll never look at a rate sheet the same way again.” |
| 7:35–8:05 | Companion icon pulses: “Try it yourself → The Waterfall.” | “Before you move on, open the companion and run the Waterfall yourself with real numbers. It only takes a couple of minutes, and it’ll make the next video click twice as fast.” |
| 8:05–8:35 | NEW: brief hold on the WSE wordmark, ampersand pulsing green. | “One number, one hour, the whole business model. That’s next.” |
| 8:35–9:00 | WSE logo lockup with AEC LEAD / Zweig Group co-brand. Outro music. | “See you in the next one.” [END VIDEO 1] |
Video 2 of 3
| Time | On-screen | Narration (VO) |
|---|---|---|
| 0:00–0:20 | A single number, huge: a sample project’s gross revenue (illustrative). It drains into a grey pool labeled “Subconsultants + Reimbursables.” | “Picture a project that bills a client a million dollars. It isn’t the number that matters — watch what happens to it.” |
| 0:20–0:55 | The grey pool drains away, leaving a smaller blue number: “Net Service Revenue (NSR).” | “The first chunk out the door was never really ours. What’s left is NSR — net service revenue, the number the firm actually plans and staffs against.” |
| 0:55–1:40 | NEW graphic with real numbers: “$1,000,000 gross → −$150,000 subs & reimbursables → $850,000 NSR.” | “Say that million-dollar project actually runs $150,000 through subconsultants and reimbursable expenses — pass-through costs that never touch our margin. That leaves $850,000 of NSR. That’s the number that matters to Weston & Sampson, not the million.” |
| 1:40–2:15 | NEW graphic: “$850,000 NSR → $340,000 Direct Labor → $442,000 Overhead → $68,000 Profit.” | “NSR keeps shrinking. Say $340,000 of that pays direct labor — the people actually doing the work. Overhead — everything else it takes to keep the lights on — runs $442,000 on this job. What’s left after both is profit: $68,000. On an $850,000 job, that’s about an 8% margin. Thin. That’s normal.” |
| 2:15–2:35 | Waterfall graphic freezes, rotates 90° into a vertical bar labeled “ONE HOUR.” | “Now shrink that entire waterfall down into a single billable hour, and you get a rate.” |
| 2:35–3:35 | NEW graphic with a worked example: vertical bar builds — “Wage $43/hr” → “+ Overhead (1.60×)” → “BREAK-EVEN ≈ $111.80/hr.” | “Say someone’s wage is $43 an hour, and the firm’s overhead factor is 1.60 — that’s $1.60 of indirect cost for every dollar of direct wage. Multiply $43 by 2.60 — the 1 plus the 1.60 — and you get about $111.80. That’s break-even. Bill exactly that, and the hour pays for itself. It earns the firm nothing yet.” |
| 3:35–4:10 | NEW: bar continues building — “+ Profit” → “TARGET ≈ $150/hr.” | “Add a margin on top of break-even and you get target — say $150 an hour on this example. Everything above break-even is what actually funds growth, bonuses, and the ESOP contribution we talked about in the last video.” |
| 4:10–4:35 | Ratio appears: “Target ÷ Wage = Multiplier” (illustrative, “≈3.49”). | “Divide target by wage and you get the multiplier — about 3.49 in this example. Illustrative here until WSE’s real numbers are loaded in, but the mechanism is exactly what you’ll use on the job.” |
| 4:35–5:15 | NEW: a PM reviewing a change-order form on screen, hesitating over a signature line. | “Here’s why this actually matters to you, not just to accounting: every time you discount a fee, waive a scope change, or throw in ‘a few extra hours, no big deal’ — you’re moving that rate the wrong direction. Do it enough, and a profitable project quietly slides toward break-even, or under it.” |
| 5:15–5:45 | NEW: the multiplier number connects outward to three small icons — “Hiring,” “Bonuses,” “Next pursuit.” | “The multiplier a project actually hits is one of the biggest signals the firm uses to decide what to chase next, who to hire, and where to grow. It’s not an abstract ratio — it’s a scoreboard.” |
| 5:45–6:05 | Text overlay: “A rate isn’t a number HR sets. It’s the whole model, in one hour.” | “Next time you see a billing rate, don’t read it as a number someone picked. Read it as the entire waterfall, compressed into sixty minutes.” |
| 6:05–6:35 | NEW: brief recap graphic — the full chain, small icons left to right: Gross → NSR → Rate → Multiplier. | “Gross revenue, NSR, direct labor, overhead, break-even, target, multiplier — that’s the whole chain. Every pursuit decision you’ll make this module runs through this machine somewhere.” |
| 6:35–7:10 | Companion icon pulses: “Build one yourself → Build-a-Rate.” | “Go build a rate yourself in the companion — plug in a wage and an overhead factor and watch break-even and target move in real time. Then come back for the last piece of Week 1: how today’s pursuit decisions turn into tomorrow’s staffing plan.” |
| 7:10–7:35 | NEW: the multiplier number morphs into a small stack of pursuit cards, foreshadowing the next video’s backlog graphic. | “Because a rate only means something once it’s attached to real, weighted work — which is exactly where we’re headed next.” |
| 7:35–8:00 | WSE logo lockup, co-brand. | “See you in the next one.” [END VIDEO 2] |
Video 3 of 3
| Time | On-screen | Narration (VO) |
|---|---|---|
| 0:00–0:30 | Small “pursuit cards” (illustrative), each with a fee and a %, sliding into a growing stacked bar labeled “BACKLOG.” | “Take a handful of pursuits with different fees and different odds of winning, and add them together. That’s backlog — what we’re staffing and hiring against, before any of it is real.” |
| 0:30–1:05 | One card zooms in: “Expected fee: $200,000 × Win probability: 40%” resolves to “$80,000 — weighted revenue.” | “Two hundred thousand dollars at a forty percent chance is eighty thousand dollars of real backlog value. Simple math.” |
| 1:05–2:05 | NEW: a second card joins it — “Expected fee: $450,000 × Win probability: 65%” resolves to “$292,500.” Both weighted values stack into a running total: “$372,500,” then more cards stream in behind them, stacking the bar higher. | “Now add a second pursuit next to it — $450,000 at sixty-five percent becomes $292,500 of weighted value. Stack the two together and the firm is planning around roughly $372,500 of real backlog from these two leads alone, long before either one is won. Now imagine every pursuit across the firm doing the same thing at once — that’s how a hundred honest percentages turn into one real staffing plan.” |
| 2:05–2:35 | “40%” pulses, then a question mark appears. Text: “Where did that number come from?” | “Someone typed that in. Was it a gut feeling, or a real read on the relationship and the competition? That’s not a math problem — that’s a leadership problem.” |
| 2:35–3:10 | Full-frame prompt: “If you entered this pursuit today, what assumption would concern you most?” Companion icon pulses. | “Here’s a question worth sitting with — answer it in the companion. Win probability? The fee? Who’s competing against us? Pick the one number in this pursuit you’d least want to defend out loud to your regional manager.” [PAUSE POINT] |
| 3:10–3:35 | Backlog bar reappears, full. Text: “The firm staffs and hires on this.” | “This stacked bar tells Weston & Sampson whether to hire, hold, or chase the next opportunity. Good data here isn’t paperwork. It’s leadership.” |
| 3:35–4:30 | NEW: a Vantagepoint opportunity record fills in field by field — fee, win probability, close date — then the word “STALE” stamps across a record that hasn’t been touched in months. | “This is exactly why what you type into Vantagepoint matters more than it looks like it should. A win probability nobody updates after the client goes quiet isn’t honest data anymore — it’s a guess wearing a number’s clothes. Ride the data, but only if someone’s actually still riding it.” |
| 4:30–5:00 | NEW: a dial graphic sliding between “Gut feeling” and “Evidence-based.” | “Getting that number right — really right, not just optimistic — is its own skill. You’ll build it properly in Week 3. For now, just notice how much rides on one honest percentage.” |
| 5:00–5:30 | Screen quiets. Week 1 timeline reappears faintly. Text overlay, large, WSE blue: the signature line. | “So here’s the sentence I want you to leave this week with: the project your team delivers is largely determined before the project manager ever starts managing it.” |
| 5:30–5:55 | Text holds; narrator continues, quieter. | “Not because the PM doesn’t matter. By the time most PMs show up, the pursuit has already decided the price, the schedule, the team. The earlier you’re in the room, the more of that you shape yourself.” |
| 5:55–6:15 | Map graphic: “Lead → Go/No-Go → Opportunity → Proposal → Project,” first one highlighted. | “You’ll see this map every week from here forward. Right now, we’re standing at ‘Lead.’” |
| 6:15–7:00 | Water-tower silhouette graphic, then a folder graphic labeled “Town of Millbrook — Wastewater Master Plan.” | “Next week you meet the opportunity we’ll carry through this entire module. The Town of Millbrook needs a wastewater master plan. It’s genuinely borderline: a new client for us, a tight three-week deadline, a subconsultant we’d need to bring on for process modeling, and a competitor who’s already done work for them once before.” |
| 7:00–7:35 | Text: “Some of you were involved before the call. Some of you weren’t.” | “Some of you will find out you were involved before the Go/No-Go call — you had a hand in shaping it. Others get assigned after the decision’s already made. Pay attention to which one you are, because it changes your job in Week 2.” |
| 7:35–8:00 | NEW: quick-check icon and reference-card icon appear side by side. | “Before you close this out, two quick things wait for you below — don’t skip them, they carry forward into Week 2.” |
| 8:00–8:30 | Companion icon pulses: “Finish the week → Quick Check + Reference.” | “Finish the quick check and skim the reference card — the formulas and vocabulary from all three videos, on one screen.” |
| 8:30–9:00 | WSE logo lockup, co-brand. Outro music, slightly warmer/longer to mark the week’s close. | “See you at Millbrook.” [END VIDEO 3 / END WEEK 1 VIDEO CONTENT] |