Blog

Inspired by two different real people I've talked with in the last few weeks who think a project management career might be on their horizon, I asked a fake person (the chatbot Claude.ai) to pretend to be in this situation and to interview me, an 8-year veteran in...

I am not being paid to read or promote the book discussed below.

I love being a project manager.

But one of the hardest things about my job is that my direct report and I, who make up the project management department, support over 300 active projects at a time between us.

We have a number of...

How you initiate a project—or how it is initiated by others—matters.

Many things that happen or don’t happen at the beginning of a project can set that project up for problems later.

Don’t let this reality intimidate you or prevent you from getting a project started....

In high school I spent some time exploring engineering as a career field. I had a very logical brain and I enjoyed solving puzzles and problems with a fair amount of detail and technicality. I went to a few engineering camps at a local college to get a better understanding of what the role might...

Do you encounter naysayers who resist the idea of taking time to develop a plan before starting a project?

One challenge is that often resistance to planning isn’t direct. It tends to come in the form of people just trying to get project work started, either ignoring our requests as project...

Sometimes you run across a little nugget on the internet—a graphic, a video, a quote, whatever—that you find yourself continuing to reference, show people, or send people again and again. I have a few nuggets like these marked as favorites in the photos app on my phone. They...

About 2 months ago, I got a promotion. I’m now Manager of Project Management, or in industry vernacular, the full-fledged leader of my company’s PMO (project management office).

I am very grateful for this opportunity, and I’m looking forward to having a larger impact on my...

Did anyone else want to change the world when they grew up?

Maybe this dream was top-of-mind and you talked about it with family and friends. Maybe it was hidden under layers of shame, fear, or self-doubt…but you knew it was there and what it was.

I seem to have fared better than most when...

I am not being paid to promote any of the resources below. I am simply a satisfied user of them.

The Project Management Institute, or PMI, is a wonderful, well-respected international organization with extensive resources for current and aspiring project managers. The institute is best known for...

If you’re totally new to using Gantt charts, check out my post about the critical path method, which explains what Gantt charts are and how to use them in a meaningful way when scheduling your projects.

But if you already have a basic grasp of Gantt charts and just want a little help...