What I’d Tell a PM Whose Project Just Got a New Owner from the Outside
The director asks you in for a conversation and says that from Monday, for two weeks, there will be someone from outside in the project. They are there to “help sort it out”. You stay on as project manager, nothing changes. You leave the room knowing that everything has changed. Someone has decided you can’t […]
Closing a Project That Refuses to Close
The system has been live for three months. Users are working in it, half the team is already on something else, and in the status report the project is still “in progress”. There are eleven items left on the list. Two weeks ago there were nine. Nobody can say when it will end, because everyone […]
The Weekly Report Everyone Skims and Nobody Challenges
In the first week of the project everyone reads the report. The sponsor replies with two questions, a director calls about one risk, someone asks for a date to be clarified. In week three the sponsor replies “thanks”. In week six nobody replies. In week ten the report has the same structure, the same headings […]
The Cost Isn’t in the Big Decisions. It’s in the Ones Too Small to Notice.
Nobody decided the project would be six weeks late. There was no meeting where someone proposed it and no email in which anyone agreed. What there was instead was forty small things. A code review moved to tomorrow, because today something more urgent came up. Documentation put off until the end of the sprint. A […]
The Stakeholder Who Never Says No Is the One Who Sinks You
“Great idea, I’m all for it.” The operations director says it at every meeting. He agrees to the schedule, to the scope, to the change of scope and to moving the date. On the stakeholder map he sits in the top right corner: high influence, full support. The PM sleeps well. In month four the […]
Two Weeks Before the Review and Nobody Can Say How Late the Project Really Is
“So how far behind are we?” The PM asks the team on Monday morning. The first answer is “a bit”. The second, “a week, maybe two”. The third, “it depends on the supplier”. The fourth person says we are basically on plan, it’s just that testing has moved. Every one of those answers is honest. […]
The Client Is Escalating: Managing It vs. Just Absorbing It
The email arrives on Friday at 4:40 pm. Copied in are a director on the client’s side and the CEO on ours. The first sentence reads: “We are deeply disappointed with the cooperation so far.” The PM replies within the hour. They apologise, promise a fix by Monday and sit down to it themselves on […]
When a Key Person Quits Mid-Project: The First 72 Hours
“Can we talk for a minute?” It’s Thursday afternoon. Ten minutes later the PM knows that the only person who understands the integration with the client’s system has handed in their notice and has three weeks left. The first reflex is to look for a replacement. The second is to hide it from the client […]
AI Can Summarize Your Meeting. It Can’t Tell You Which Decision Was Wrong.
The summary arrives a quarter of an hour after the meeting. Seven decisions, one line each, all in the same font. Decision four reads: “Integration testing moves to after the pilot.” Nobody in the meeting objected. It was minute fifty-five, the proposal came from the most senior person in the room, and the person responsible […]
Rescuing a Project That Won’t Close: Cut Scope, Extend, or Pull the Plug
“We’ve got about ten percent left.” The PM says it in March and everyone nods. In June they say the same thing, in the same words. The team is tired, the client replies more and more slowly, and the sponsor has stopped asking about the date, which is a worse sign than if they asked […]