Projects Pivot
With decades of experience managing all types of projects, we're ready to share our invaluable tips, tricks, and tidbits. Don't just tick boxes—master the art of managing people and projects. Sign up now!
A Snowy Project
Hi Reader, Have you ever turned snow into a project? Growing up about six hours north of Toronto, Canada, winter was not just a season but an opportunity to create something from nothing. My friends and I would gather outside often with a plan to construct, carefully cutting and stacking blocks of snow to build elaborate forts. Somehow, I always ended up in charge, making sure everyone stayed focused and the walls went up as planned. Our goal was simple: build it high, strong, and clever...
Inner Wisdom
Hi Reader, I recently learned that one of my earliest project management mentors has passed away. Fred was in his early 90s, and his life was filled with fascinating work, bold projects, and adventures that could fill volumes. But what I will remember most about Fred is not his resume. It is the steady presence he offered me over the past decade of my career. Fred was always there. Not to hand me a project management manual, but to listen, to challenge my thinking, and to gently push me...
Call To Service
Hi Reader, A few weeks ago, someone popped back into my life completely out of the blue. This was a person who meant a lot to me and who helped me through a pretty rough time. They were the one that helped me sort through things when my head was spinning. In a lot of ways, they became my mentor. They challenged some of the assumptions I was making about my career and helped me see decisions differently, even the ones I didn’t realize I was stuck on. They originally came to me with a...
Seat of Your Pants
Hi Reader, Did you know there’s a style of managing projects out there that’s basically “by the seat of your pants”? Officially, it’s called Just-In-Time project management, or JIT, which originated in the construction industry. You’re constantly on the move, creating deliverables as they pop up, often before you even knew they existed. Some people would say this is just how we manage projects these days. Others might argue it’s basically agile in action. Others just call it plain old chaos....
Flashing Warning Lights
Hi Reader, One of my project sponsors recently asked me, “Isn’t that what project managers do?” The funny part? What she was asking me to do had absolutely nothing to do with project management. It was more like a vague, hand-wavy instruction to “create a thing”, with no details, no direction, and no clear definition of what done even meant. I laughed it off and told her I’d take care of it. What “it” actually was, though, I still had to figure out. Everyone's a PM It reminded me of something...
New Year's Life Lessons
Hi Reader, “New beginnings are not necessarily clean.” Unknown Author What if, instead of making New Year’s resolutions, we focused on New Year’s life lessons? Learning from our past is just as important as setting goals for the future. In fact, it’s hard to have one without the other. For example, if you have set a New Year’s resolution to get in shape, what if you reflected on what has helped you feel strong before? Or instead of resolving to eat better, what if you looked back at the foods...
To The Moon Together
Hi Reader, It’s been said that in 1962, when President John F. Kennedy visited NASA headquarters, he asked a janitor what he was doing. The janitor replied, “I’m helping put a man on the moon.” Whether or not this story is true, the message behind it is that every role matters, and each of our individual contributions support something bigger than any one person. That idea came to life for me over this past New Year’s long weekend with friends, in ways I didn’t expect. We gathered at my...
The Pot Roast Principle
Hi Reader, As the holidays approach, planners quietly get to work. We think through the meals, the gatherings, the decorations, and yes, even the cleanup we know is coming. We don’t always want to take it on, but our family and friends expect it. Without someone stepping in, nothing gets done until we do it. For me, this started early. I grew up in a loud, chaotic Italian-Irish family that talked a lot without much doing, so someone had to get things moving, especially when it came to the...
Screen Freeze
Hi Reader, Picture this. I’m in the middle of giving a presentation to a virtual crowd when suddenly every single person on my screen freezes. What did I do? At first, I wanted to laugh as a few people were frozen in some interesting moments. One looked like they were mid-nose pick. Another appeared to be taking a tiny nap. And one person looked like this 😱 But since no one said anything, I just kept talking. I advanced my slides, carried on with the agenda, and delivered the entire...
Seven Ball Failure
Hi Reader, This past weekend I did something completely spontaneous: I played pool. This wasn’t part of the plan. I was at a live music event, and during the break between bands we spotted a pool table just sitting there empty. So of course, we decided to play. I hadn’t played in years, but I learned the game as a teenager from some Italian relatives, so I knew the knowledge was somewhere in my muscle memory. Plus, about ten years ago, I beat a professional pool-playing colleague at a work...
With decades of experience managing all types of projects, we're ready to share our invaluable tips, tricks, and tidbits. Don't just tick boxes—master the art of managing people and projects. Sign up now!