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My company rolled out a re-org this week, and it included some surprising layoffs of people I’m very close to. Among those of us still at the company, the changes affect everyone, but they happen to affect me more than most.

My boss has been very kind, supportive, and flexible as I’ve...

At my company, I’m manager of the project management department. This means I’m the person at my company with the most knowledge of and experience in project management.

It’s a great honor and a privilege to lead a department and a function, and to be the one to provide...

Recently I heard a coworker use the phrase, “a lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.”

I definitely resonated with this idea the first time I heard it, because I love planning and I love good boundaries. But over time I’ve come to realize its...

There’s a tough conversation I’ve been meaning to have with a coworker for several months, but I put it off.

I put it off partially because I wanted to ask her to change how her team does some things. My reasons are noble: I want her team to do things more consistently with standard...

Some project managers are lucky enough to be handed a thorough project charter document when they’re first assigned to a project, complete with all the information they need to get the project started.

But for many of us, the process is more organic: when a sponsor brings us a project, only...

My team was asked this week if a staff person could be added to our project management software so he could initiate contracts.

We do use our project management software to initiate some contracts, and adding this person to the software so he can use the existing contract request form would be...

Projects regularly have setbacks, problems, or need some other type of update or regroup. When that happens, how often do people come to you with this information, or how often do you need to find the disconnect on your own by digging through project software, records, etc.?

As project managers,...

Last week, I asked my boss for help.

I’ve written extensively about the techniques I’ve used on my own to gain back capacity and reduce stress in my job as a project leader. I’ve implemented mindset shifts, practical tactics, and everything in-between. And it’s all made a...

You may very well be new to the project management community. But for those of us who’ve been in the profession awhile, we’ve witnessed a hype around agile project methodologies come and, in large part, go.

Previously, predictive methodologies were the norm in project management. When...

A few weeks ago, I wrote about what to do if you’re overwhelmed by too many problems to solve in your project management role, and I showed you why many types of problems don’t actually need to be solved, or not yet.

In this blog, I’d like to show you an additional...