Disobedient Talk

When a project is struggling, gaining confidence from senior leaders is important. What senior leaders want to know is the extent of the business risk, whether someone’s on top of it, and whether what was promised will be delivered. Your job is to answer those…

Nobody wants to talk about things that didn’t work. But those conversations might be the most valuable ones you can have on any project. A learning mindset treats failure not as something to hide but as data, and data is exactly what you need to…

Change is what running projects is all about. However, many of us don’t pay appropriate attention to the factors that make change more stressful. The most common mistake project managers make is trying to move too fast. While you may have a few people on…

Will AI Replace Me? I get asked this constantly. At conferences, in workshops, in LinkedIn messages. The anxiety is real, and it’s understandable. But it’s the wrong question. The right question is: What makes me irreplaceable in an AI-augmented world? Read on… AI is superior…

The best project managers don’t just manage tasks — they act like they own the place. It’s not about having equity or a founder title; it’s a mindset shift that changes how you show up, how you solve problems, and how much people trust you…

Running a project, which, by definition, creates a new product, process, or service, involves taking risks. Sometimes it doesn’t work out. You step outside your comfort zone to pursue a big benefit, but it doesn’t pan out the way you hoped. When that happens, it’s…

You don’t need a senior management mandate to bring project management discipline into a team. But you do need to give people a reason to care. The most reliable way to do that is to show up with either a win they didn’t see coming…

Ask any room full of project managers if they have too much authority, and no one will raise their hand. Whether you’re a PM, a Scrum Master, or something in between, a lack of clear authority is one of the primary issues that hampers the…

For 20 years, I’ve watched project professionals argue over methodologies as if they were competing religions. Waterfall purists dismissing Agile as undisciplined. Agile evangelists mocking Waterfall as outdated. Hybrid advocates trying to define a common middle ground. Here’s what I’ve learned: they’re all correct, and…

One of the most common causes of project failure isn’t poor planning or bad technology — it’s misaligned expectations between the people doing the work and the people who sponsored it. It sounds obvious, but in practice, aligning expectations through discussion is often rushed or…

I’ve spent three decades managing project risks, and I can tell you with certainty: the traditional risk register is an artefact of the past. Not because the concept is flawed, but because the execution is hopelessly inadequate for the project complexity we face today. Here’s…

AI isn’t going away; if anything, it will keep reshaping the tools and expectations around project work.  The aim isn’t to defend your role from AI, but to make yourself the person who knows how to blend human judgment with intelligent tool support. Here’s how:…