Posts

Think People Are Too Busy? Think Again.

/in /by

Think People Are Too Busy Think Again.“We’re too busy” kills many justifiable projects before they start. Some organizations overcome this resistance, not because they’re less busy, but because they view their business holistically and fit projects into their daily activities, without hiring expensive contractors. Here’s how:

  • Prioritize more than the project portfolio. You might think you’re all set by prioritizing all the projects in your portfolio based on business strategy, objectives, business value, and other factors. But that isn’t enough. To balance workload between projects and day-to-day operational activities, PMs and sponsors need to prioritize both project work and day-to-day operations effort.  For example, a senior help desk analyst might jump off the support line to work on project tasks. If the call queue reaches 20, they go back to taking calls until the queue drops to 10. In another example, financial staff might be assigned to project work for 2 hours every day, except for when they complete month-end accounting. In addition, if there’s an emergency, such as misclassified transactions, they would stop project work until the emergency is resolved. Otherwise, their highest-priority work is completing project tasks for their designated project time.
  • Evaluate the capacity of organizational change agents in the organization. In most organizations, a small number of highly experienced, capable people drive large-scale change. They are typically called “change agents” and comprise a mix of management and expert team-leaders. Instead of focusing on the capacity of all employees, look at the workload and remaining capacity of these change agents. Identify the business impact of their work and prioritize accordingly. See which part of the business they change and check the priority of projects in that area of the business. Then launch the highest priority projects in their area when they have available time to work on it.
  • Use phased rollouts with minimal scope. The Minimum Viable Product (MVP) approach works for several reasons. For justifying a project, the smallest possible scope requires less immediate commitment from operational team members. Start with a pilot that delivers quick wins with a few resources.  This reduces the perceived burden of additional work. It also builds credibility and enthusiasm that makes it easier to staff subsequent phases.
  • Justify and describe project objectives in terms of operational work relief. Don’t focus on the workload that project work creates. Instead, highlight how the projects will ultimately make day-to-day operational work easier and less annoying. When team members see that a process improvement project will eliminate the tedious manual data reconciliation that eats up their Fridays, their resistance might change into enthusiastic support. Connect each project directly to the pain points people feel, and they’ll make time for project work.

 

Coming Up

Many different audiences make up a project team, from the project sponsor and customer to numerous stakeholders, to various teams that take on the work in the work breakdown structure. These audiences often need different information, prefer different communication methods and frequencies, and come with unique perspectives and idiosyncrasies. I’m a big believer in effective communication, so I’m looking forward to this conversation with Tatiana Kolovou and Brenda Bailey-Hughes. I hope you’ll join us on Friday, April 10, 2026 at 11am MT/1pm ET. Click here to join!

______________________________________

This article belongs to the Bonnie’s Project Pointers newsletter series, which has more than 103,000 subscribers. This newsletter is 100% written by a human (no aliens or AIs involved). If you like this article, you can subscribe to receive notifications when a new article posts.

Want to learn more about the topics I talk about in these newsletters? Watch my courses in the LinkedIn Learning Library and tune into my LinkedIn Office Hours live broadcasts.

_______________________________________

The Myth of the 40-Hour Work Week

/in /by

Myth 40 hour work week 317

 

The concept of a 40-hour work week is thrown around constantly. And many project plans use this week to develop a schedule. Sadly, a 40-hour work week is a mythical beast. Bob McGannon and I rant a bit about this obstinately long-lived myth. Then we discuss more realistic work weeks and how to apply them in your project schedule.

 

 

_______________________________________

This article belongs to the Bonnie’s Project Pointers newsletter series, which has more than 103,000 subscribers. This newsletter is 100% written by a human (no aliens or AIs involved). If you like this article, you can subscribe to receive notifications when a new article posts.

Want to learn more about the topics I talk about in these newsletters? Watch my courses in the LinkedIn Learning Library and tune into my LinkedIn Office Hours live broadcasts.

_______________________________________

Personal PM: Managing a Job Search

/in /by

Personal PM Managing a Job SearchA job search is a project, so what better way to make it a success than to use your project management skills on it? By approaching it this way, instead of passively waiting for opportunities, you’ll lead your own career transition with intention. Anna Anderson and I joined forces to explain how to apply your project management skills to a job search. 

Begin with measurable goals and objectives. Just like any other project, it’s important to know the outcomes you want. Clear objectives support better decisions. With your job search, lay out your goals and objectives. Don’t say, “I want a PM job.” Spell it out. What industry(ies) are you targeting? What level of role? Identify any constraints you have. What salary range do you need? Are you willing to relocate? How much flexibility do you need in your work schedule?

Make your job search goal concrete: “I will obtain an associate project manager role in the healthcare industry with a hybrid work schedule within six months and at a salary range from $X–$Y per year.” Your resume and LinkedIn profile become strategic artifacts, tailored positioning tools aligned to your goal.

Define your job search scope. What are you going to do to successfully snag your next job? Here are typical activities:

  • Update your materials including your resumé, LinkedIn profile, project portfolio, and cover letter templates.
  • Build a target company list.
  • Set up a system to track applications. Set a target of 5 or more companies per week.
  • Network with recruiters, industry or professional contacts, school alumni. (Note: Use the 80/20 rule of 80% networking to 20% applying. You network with people at places where you want to work, so that you apply to the right places with intention.) Hold informational interviews.
  • Prepare and practice for interviews. Practice questions. Prepare your offer negotiation strategy.

Don’t forget to identify what is out of scope, such as jobs that don’t meet your salary requirement, unsuitable location, or short-term freelance gigs.

You can even define personal metrics: number of networking conversations per week, interview-to-offer conversion rate, response rate to outreach messages. What gets measured gets improved.

Build a timeline with milestones. Work backward from your target date. If you want to land a role by July 31, when must you complete all the tasks in your scope? Create milestones for weekly applications, networking, and interview stages. 

Manage your search the way you would manage any initiative. Conduct weekly reviews. Identify risks: skill gaps, confidence barriers, market conditions – and create mitigation strategies. Use a simple Kanban board in Excel, Trello, Asana, or another tool to visualize progress.

By structuring your search this way, you’re not only increasing your chances of landing a role, but you’re also actively demonstrating the planning, adaptability, and ownership that hiring managers expect in today’s project environments.

Add a comment or question to the comments section. We’d love to hear whether you find this approach helpful in your efforts.

 

Anna offers a lot of resources for careers in project management including job searches.  Check these out:

Her program – www.womeninpmnetwork.com/enrollnow to help you learn the steps to your next Project Manager role.

Book your Free 20 min clarity call while spots last: https://PMDiscoveryCall.as.me/ 

Subscribe to her podcast here: https://open.spotify.com/show/4TpOpKXNjFqLb2F8ir2tON?si=b24ba7825ca84546

Subscribe to her YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@projectmanagerconnectshow

 

_______________________________________

This article belongs to the Bonnie’s Project Pointers newsletter series, which has more than 103,000 subscribers. This newsletter is 100% written by a human (no aliens or AIs involved). If you like this article, you can subscribe to receive notifications when a new article posts.

Want to learn more about the topics I talk about in these newsletters? Watch my courses in the LinkedIn Learning Library and tune into my LinkedIn Office Hours live broadcasts.

_______________________________________

Balancing Technical and Business Requirements in Agile Projects

/in /by

Balancing Technical and Business Requirements in Agile ProjectsBalancing technical and business priorities in an agile backlog is a constant negotiation between delivering immediate value and maintaining long-term application stability. The goal is to help stakeholders see and understand the trade-offs that must be made between the outcomes that they want and the work to maintain technical integrity. Here are approaches to consider:

  • Tie every backlog feature to measurable outcomes. Make sure that all feature descriptions include business value, technical enablers, and/or risk reduction so every stakeholder understands why a feature matters. It’s a good idea to specify when a feature is a prerequisite to other features that create technical stability or drive business outcomes (so a prerequisite feature isn’t altered because its importance wasn’t clear).
  • Use a scoring model for prioritization. Models that assess the value of each backlog item help achieve the right balance between business and technical needs. Using time and cost data regarding the production of every backlog feature, include an estimate for each backlog item of the value it will deliver to the business or the value for the technical team that maintains the agile project’s deliverables. Data on delivery timeframes can help prioritize features so the ones with the most value and shortest delivery timeframe get the highest priority. also be used to identify features with the greatest value, and the shortest delivery timeframes are at the top of the prioritized backlog. 
  • Plan capacity for technical rework. Even a perfectly balanced mix of business and technical backlog items can result in incomplete or technically flawed features. Set aside a consistent sprint percentage—often 15–20%—for rework, implementing additional automation, or infrastructure work to prevent technical issues downstream.
  • Facilitate transparent trade-off discussions. Stakeholders’ impatience for business-related features often chafes at the time it takes for the IT team to make technical features work properly. Prioritization discussions can get contentious and messy. So, to reduce this contention, the business folks need to understand the technical necessity of IT required features. Bring product owners, engineers, and business leads together regularly to reassess the backlog so everyone contributes to prioritization decisions. Note: Many agile projects stumble because the full complement of business and technical stakeholders who attend early prioritization meetings dwindle as the project progresses. Make sure that everyone needed attends!
  • Assess priorities in the bigger picture. Markets shift, systems evolve, and dependencies change. Look outside the organization and review your backlog from that perspective to ensure alignment with strategy and business objectives in a rapidly changing world.

For more about project requirements, check out Daniel Stanton’s Project Management Foundations: Requirements course.

 

_______________________________________

This article belongs to the Bonnie’s Project Pointers newsletter series, which has more than 103,000 subscribers. This newsletter is 100% written by a human (no aliens or AIs involved). If you like this article, you can subscribe to receive notifications when a new article posts.

Want to learn more about the topics I talk about in these newsletters? Watch my courses in the LinkedIn Learning Library and tune into my LinkedIn Office Hours live broadcasts.

_______________________________________

Is Your Project Procurement Plan Over-cooked?

/in /by

Procurement Plan

 

A procurement plan is one part of every project plan. However, these procurement plans are often beefier than they need to be, particularly when your organization has existing procurement processes and staff. Bob McGannon and I discuss what a project procurement plan truly needs to have in a lot of cases, as well as when you might need to add more detail to your plan.

 

Personal PM: Treating a Role as a Project

/in /by

Personal PM Treating a Role as a Project

 

A new role is much like a project, whether it is a job, a consulting gig, or a volunteer position. When it starts, you digest the avalanche of info you receive to get up to speed quickly. Initial planning helps you do your job well. And when your “role playing” ends, a smooth handoff to the next person makes everyone’s day just a little brighter. Here’s how managing a role delivers success and gains admirers at the same time. 

  • Plan for success. This is more than dressing for success. What are your goals? Doing good work, sure. Contributing to the organization’s success, of course. Perhaps climbing the corporate ladder or building your own business. Whatever you want to achieve, document your goals in your career/job/gig plan. This will help you keep your personal goals in mind. (If this is your career, you’ll be updating your plan as your goals and role change.)
  • What’s important about this role? For projects, we think about desired outcomes, objectives, requirements, etc. To succeed in a role, the organization’s goals and objectives tie directly into yours. You support the success of the organization success, whether that’s your employer, client, or the non-profit you support. Have a chat with your manager, your manager’s manager, the client contact who hired you, or the non-profit’s executive director. Add these goals, outcomes, and specific expectations for your role to your plan.
  • Identify what the role represents. Job descriptions might be well-defined, but they’re often so generic that you can’t tell what the work is. As a consultant, you usually prepare a statement of work, so part of the gig is coming to an agreement with the client on what you will do. Regardless, talk to the person who best understands the role and ask questions to collect as many details as possible. This could be your manager, someone with the same role, the person you’re replacing. Note: you will always (always!) learn more about it as you go.
  • Document your role. Add the specifics of the role to the plan whether you get the details from someone else or learn from experience. Maybe it’s paying invoices when they come in, submitting tax forms every quarter, prepping a presentation for board meetings, ordering supplies when inventory runs low, designing a new social media campaign. Document the tasks you perform and the schedule for each. Don’t forget all the user accounts you might set up, like software subscriptions, regulatory websites, and so on. If you use processes, create a section for all those how-tos. Also, keep track of your achievements large and small. These can help you snag your next role or the promotion you’re seeking.
  • Hand off the role to the next person (if applicable). The plan that you’ve built and maintained is a great start for a user manual for the next person, whether it’s your replacement, someone from an operations team, or a client employee. Remove your personal goals and you have a document that tells what has to be done and how, what accounts need to be reassigned, who needs to be informed, and so on.

What do you think? Do you see the value in this approach? If so, try it on something small, I’d love to hear your questions or results in the comments section.

For more about small projects, check out my Project Management Foundations: Small Projects course.

 

_______________________________________

This article belongs to the Bonnie’s Project Pointers newsletter series, which has more than 102,000 subscribers. This newsletter is 100% written by a human (no aliens or AIs involved). If you like this article, you can subscribe to receive notifications when a new article posts.

Want to learn more about the topics I talk about in these newsletters? Watch my courses in the LinkedIn Learning Library and tune into my LinkedIn Office Hours live broadcasts.

_______________________________________

Supporting the Sponsor Who Takes Risks

/in /by

Supporting the Sponsor Who Takes RisksPart of a project manager’s job is to manage risk on behalf of the sponsor. It is NOT to stop the sponsor from taking risks, because risk is often necessary to move a business forward. Here are ways to support a sponsor when they decide to take risks.

  • Understand how taking the risk can advance the business. What are the desired outcomes that require taking this risk? If appropriate, take time to explore less risky ways to achieve those outcomes. Also, identify early success indicators that would show that the risk-taking will deliver the desired results. 
  • Make sure that project risks are fully understood. The project sponsor needs to know about all the risks the project presents. Share the risks, indicators of when risks might come to fruition, and any planned response actions. Also, communicate the costs and schedule impacts of those response actions.
  • Know when the risk becomes unsustainable. A risk that turns into an issue can significantly affect the project and even the business. Early in the project lifecycle, determine the limits or thresholds of cost and schedule impacts that the sponsor is willing to accept to achieve their goals.
  • Determine how to manage skeptical stakeholders. Pressure from key stakeholders about risks can be overwhelming. Work with your sponsor to understand what’s been communicated about the risks being taken, and how to communicate going forward to manage key stakeholders’ concerns. The key is to communicate consistently among all parties, especially the sponsor and project manager.
  • If you fail, fail early. Typically, project risks relate to a few key processes or assumptions about deliverables. Work on those as a proof of concept, as early as possible. That way, the project premise is tested early. If you find that the project’s fundamental concepts aren’t feasible, the business will save precious time and money.

For more about sponsors, check out Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez’ course How to Be an Effective Project Sponsor.

 

 

_______________________________________

This article belongs to the Bonnie’s Project Pointers newsletter series, which has more than 102,000 subscribers. This newsletter is 100% written by a human (no aliens or AIs involved). If you like this article, you can subscribe to receive notifications when a new article posts.

Want to learn more about the topics I talk about in these newsletters? Watch my courses in the LinkedIn Learning Library and tune into my LinkedIn Office Hours live broadcasts.

_______________________________________

Understanding Your Project Sponsor: A PM’s Checklist

/in /by

Understanding Your Project Sponsor A PM’s ChecklistUnderstanding your project sponsor’s habits and perspectives can mean the difference between delivering business value and wasting time and money. To maximize your likelihood of success, here’s a checklist of key things to know about your project sponsor.

  • Preferred reporting format and style. Some sponsors want to see all the details, while others prefer an overview with links to the details if they want to dive deeper. Design project reports for your sponsor that meet their preferences.
  • Motivators and fears. Develop an in-depth understanding of your sponsor’s project objectives and primary project-related concerns. This information helps you guide the project toward their goals and avoids stressing them out by inadvertently triggering fear-based reactions.
  • Additional hot buttons. Most people have behaviors that irritate them. Some are business-related, while others aren’t. For example, a colleague had an otherwise easy-going sponsor who got upset if someone didn’t tuck their chair under the table at the end of a meeting. Identify your sponsor’s hot buttons so you can avoid strain in your relationship.
  • Schedule constraints. Regular status updates with your sponsor are typical. But you also need ad hoc meetings to work through unexpected issues. Asking a sponsor for time when they’re busy (e.g., during a weekly customer meeting) won’t go over well. Get to know their scheduling constraints and the process to get on their calendar ASAP when issues occur. Alternatively, ask the sponsor to appoint a backup when they’re unavailable.
  • Triple constraint priority. Ideally, your project will deliver to the triple constraints of time, cost and scope. Sometimes, that’s difficult, if not impossible. Work with your sponsor to identify the constraints that causes the least pain to them if it’s missed. That knowledge supports good decision-making throughout the project lifecycle. (Bonus: this knowledge also helps you build the most relevant risk plan by focusing on what impacts the sponsor and the business the most.)
  • Preferred communication method and timing. Some sponsors want to get reports before a meeting so they can review them. Others prefer an informal communication session that they facilitate. If there’s an emergency, some prefer a text message, while others want a phone call and leave a message if they can’t answer. That way, work with your sponsor runs more smoothly no matter what’s going on.
  • PM background and experience. You can identify the best ways to share information and build project artifacts when you understand your sponsor’s PM experience. For example, if their project management experience is deep but limited to finance-related projects, you should ensure that cost management methods are in place and sufficiently detailed to reassure the sponsor that costs are well-managed. If they have little PM experience, take time to guide them through all project management artifacts.
  • Knowledge of political landmines. As a project manager, you often don’t know the nuances of how senior leaders interact with one another, and the hot buttons they may have. Your sponsor can significantly reduce unintended tensions by guiding the project through these political landmines. Ask your sponsor what to do and what NOT to do so you avoid relationship issues with senior leaders.
  • Risk appetite. Your job as PM is not to avoid risk; but to manage it and inform your sponsor about the project’s risks. Sponsors might be very risk-averse or could be willing to take big risks to drive an aggressive agenda. By understanding your sponsor’s risk appetite so you can properly assess and manage risk on their behalf.

Consider creating a checklist to get to know your sponsor and keep it with your project planning template. That way, you can gather this key info in your first couple of meetings.

For more about project sponsors, check out the How to Be an Effective Sponsor course by Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez.

 

_______________________________________

This article belongs to the Bonnie’s Project Pointers newsletter series, which has more than 102,000 subscribers. This newsletter is 100% written by a human (no aliens or AIs involved). If you like this article, you can subscribe to receive notifications when a new article posts.

Want to learn more about the topics I talk about in these newsletters? Watch my courses in the LinkedIn Learning Library and tune into my LinkedIn Office Hours live broadcasts.

_______________________________________

Recovering from the Departure of a Critical Team Member

/in /by

Recovering from the Departure of a Critical Team MemberRarely do all members of a project team participate from start to finish of a project. As a result, it’s important to have a procedure ready to handle the departure of a critical team member. Here’s a template for the steps to take.

  1. Take a deep breath. Get those endorphins flowing to enhance your creativity and problem-solving skills.
  2. Mentally commit to moving forward. This is a common occurrence that project managers handle all the time. It’s not the end of the project.
  3. Consider the extent of the loss. Think about the level of experience and knowledge you’re losing. Don’t exaggerate its impact. Identify exactly what this team member brought to the table. Capture their specific contributions, decisions they made, and commitments they made to stakeholders. Pinpoint the gaps you need to fill and when. On the bright side, losing a valuable team member often prompts another person to step up.
  4. Develop the questions you need to answer and schedule a handoff session. Use the session to address pending decisions, undocumented agreements, and potential political landmines arising from their departure. Get introductions to their key contacts while they still have influence. The key here is to recognize that there might be gaps in documentation of what they know and also that their replacement doesn’t know it all.
  5. Press management for a replacement. Investigate options both internally and via contract. Prepare impact statements regarding how delaying their replacement affects the project schedule. Then, when the new team member is on board, prepare a short project brief for them that highlights wins, the current status, critical milestones, and insights from the handoff session.
  6. Pay extra attention to stakeholder management. Losing a critical staff member can rattle stakeholders. It might create political issues, as others might try to take over the influence the departing person had. Connect with key stakeholders and reaffirm their and the project team’s commitments.
  7. Adjust expectations. The departure WILL have an impact, like delays or production errors. Evaluate and share any setbacks without making them sound like a catastrophe. Develop and discuss plans to help the replacement to reduce negative impacts. If the project schedule is affected, be specific about the support you’ll need to get back on track.
  8. Diligently maintain project control documents. A team member change can require changes to control documents to make sure the team and stakeholders remain in synch. Schedules might change; new risks might result; cost might change to cover the replacement person. These changes need to be identified, monitored, and communicated to make sure perceptions of project outcomes match the new reality.
  9. Be prepared to manage emotions. Change of any type can produce emotional responses from stakeholders and team members, whether they are reactions to reduced project outcomes or disruption of a high-performing team. Start by acknowledging and validating people’s emotions and concerns. Give them the opportunity to talk about them. Help people maintain a positive outlook by focusing on the benefits of the project. Ask team members questions like “how can we address this?” or “what’s the takeaway?” to help them identify solutions.

Write up your procedure, so it’s easy to find when this challenge arises.

For more about resource management, check out Chris Croft’s Managing Resources Across Project Teams course.

 

_______________________________________

This article belongs to the Bonnie’s Project Pointers newsletter series, which has more than 102,000 subscribers. This newsletter is 100% written by a human (no aliens or AIs involved). If you like this article, you can subscribe to receive notifications when a new article posts.

Want to learn more about the topics I talk about in these newsletters? Watch my courses in the LinkedIn Learning Library and tune into my LinkedIn Office Hours live broadcasts.

_______________________________________