Disobedient Talk

The information in this article was extracted from a LinkedIn Live interview with Michelle “Mace” Curran, a former F-16 Thunderbird pilot and a fabulous keynote speaker. I am grateful for the time and wisdom she shared in that interview, and for agreeing to have these…

AI is brilliant at chewing through the tedious admin work that clogs a project manager’s day.   Think of it as a sharp junior PM: fast, tireless, helpful, but not someone you let sign off on your deliverables. Reviewing the output of any AI is…

You’ve mapped out your project plan, identified the key stakeholders, and locked down the scope. So why does everything still feel like it’s spiralling out of control? It’s because project complexity often sneaks up on us, and we underestimate how interconnected everything really is. Let’s…

Creating a useful risk register isn’t just about listing potential problems. It’s about answering the “so what?” questions and determining what to do to avoid the risk, limit its impact or reduce the probability of it occurring at all. Here are three steps to apply…

I always say “there are no small risks,” and for good reason. While initially you might decide not to address specific risks because their probability or impact is relatively small, the risk itself should never be ignored. The nature of projects and the rate of…

While a project team might appear to be engaged —meeting task deadlines and showing up for meetings —that isn’t enough to assure a PM that the team is fully engaged. Team members who, in their hearts, don’t believe in the project are issues waiting to…

Here’s something that might surprise you: stakeholders love improvements. They just hate change. Sounds contradictory? It’s not. Even people who claim they love change will struggle to do something as simple as wearing their watch or bracelet on the opposite wrist for a day. (Don’t…

Nothing kills a project faster than a customer who was excited at the kickoff but then goes silent. You’ll know you’re in trouble when the people who originally championed your project skip meetings, respond to emails with one-word answers, or are “too busy” to provide…

Remorse is lasting. It is the culmination of an emotional journey that begins with apprehension, then fear, emptiness, and ultimately remorse. This emotional pathway is launched in several ways, including: Taking an action you believe is unproductive or detrimental Standing on the sidelines and watching…

It’s rare to find an environment where there isn’t pressure to deliver early. To respond, little shortcuts are often taken. Slap in some code without comments, skip some testing scripts, or install a bit of code that doesn’t quite fit into the overall design of…

Businessman and author Philip Crosby said, “Slowness to change usually means fear of the new.” I’d add something to this: people also fear letting go of the old, especially if they believe that doing so will result in a loss of power or prestige. Identifying…

AI provides tremendous opportunities to expand capabilities and gain efficiency. But there’s a significant downside. We risk outsourcing thinking to AI, creating sub-optimal solutions, and hurting our reputations. Here are indicators that you are outsourcing thinking to AI: What you produce using AI doesn’t contain…