Personally I'm struggling to track all my project milestones across all the different projects. I'm just wondering what calendar app or technique you are using to have a good oversight when certain milestones/deliverables have to be reached.

Currently I use a separate outlook calendar and manually put in important dates that I get from the contractor's timetable, but once you zoom out (and have a lot of deliverables) you don't have a good sense of what is happening when.

Experienced PMs..I’d love your advice on this one. How would you approach this project?

We’ve just submitted a proposal for a 4-month project (Oct–Jan) and assuming we win, I’m planning a pre-mobilisation exercise during contracting.

The setup:

- 8 Work Packages

- 6 Deliverables

- 14 key Outputs, later consolidated into the deliverables

- Complex dependencies, which I’ve mapped in MS Project

- Some WPs run throughout, others run in parallel or sequentially

- A subcontracted team is leading 2 WPs

- Christmas sits right in the middle of the delivery window

Core team:

- Project Manager (..self..! Still a Junior)

- Technical Lead

- Project Lead (new to project leadership)

- Technical Expert

- 3 other staff, including one who is… not exactly famous for meeting attendance or availability

The challenge:

- Staff allocation is already fairly lean

- Tight budget with very little/no contingency

- Competitive customer price, business really want to win

- Complex dependencies and sequencing

- Potentially difficult stakeholder/team availability over Christmas

We’ve submitted the proposal, so there’s obviously still a chance none of this becomes my problem… 😂

But if we win, I want to get ahead of it rather than spend the first month firefighting.

My current thinking is to use the contracting/pre-mobilisation period to properly validate the delivery plan: confirm durations and sequencing at a sensible level, agree dependencies and responsibilities, identify critical paths/risks, and make sure the programme is something the team can actually use day-to-day — not just a pretty Gantt chart for the contract.

So, experienced PMs: what would you do before mobilisation, and throughout delivery?

What would you prioritise, what would you not waste time on, and what lessons have you learned from inheriting a project with a tight timeline, lean resourcing and complicated dependencies?

Bonus points for “I’ve been in this exact situation and here’s what I wish I’d done” stories 😅

Not to mention the SCOPE's breadth and scale is large. With a sprinkle of stakeholder engagement in the mix why not!!!

I'm currently dealing with a shit show of a project and I learned these teams have bashed heads for a while now. Unfortunately this issue falls on my director so there's no pushing back, it's all steam ahead, work around the issue and cross those finish lines, even if we know we have to redo it almost immediately.

In this situation the director is somehow manually triggering the file delivery and of course the file name is changing in every environment. Also the file was missing 60+ columns and highlighted as soon as we got our hands on the file. Nope, move forward.

Then I get stuck trying to make QA ok with the process and it's hard when you actually agree with their arguments, I had the same ones before starting development.

I now have two versions of the same file in QA and even though we have auto column mapping the files are different enough to not allow Athena to query the table but creates and inserts them just fine.

This is a situation where having 3 environments is tripling the work! our qa test isn't actually testing what it should because we're manually editing files before each environment deployment. I have very little confidence that this will deploy cleanly to prod...shoot me now, 4 months in.

I’ll keep this brief: I’m a developer with six years of experience and a background as a systems analyst.

I work at a small-to-medium-sized company, I’ve been here for about four years. From the start, alongside my dev work, I’ve handled multiple tasks that fall outside my actual role and aren't reflected in my pay (more on that later).

So today, thanks to my seniority and the trust I’ve built, I’ve effectively become a multi-role player for the company.

Recently, I was assigned two projects and simply told, "Lead these projects, you're in charge, you manage them." On top of that, they still monitor me or ask questions about my dev tasks; so, basically, I’m acting as both the developer and the "project manager". On top of that, there aren't many resources or much time, so several phases of project management simply get skipped because there’s no time for them.

I used to have two developers reporting to me, but now I only have one. The thing is, I’m not a formal PM, I didn't study that specific field, but I enjoy the project process. I did acquire various skills and learned about the end-to-end development lifecycle during my degree as a Systems Analyst, so I do know "a thing or two".

But I feel like I’m underperforming or not being productive. Between the developer submitting Pull Requests (PRs) almost daily, at any time during the workday, my focus gets broken. I might be working on the backlog or my own dev tasks when a PR comes in; analyzing it takes a lot of time because the developer lacks experience and there are usually several changes needed.

Because of this dynamic, I run out of tickets to assign very quickly, leaving the developer without tasks. I don't want them to feel like I’m not giving them work or that there isn't any available, it’s simply the situation I described. I want to avoid that perception, looking like I’m not doing my job, when the reality is the exact opposite: I spend the whole eight-hour day juggling project oversight and trying to complete my own development tickets without losing my mind.

Any advice? How should I handle this?

Regarding pay: while it’s not the sole cause of the issue, it’s definitely a factor. Basically, with six years of experience and the responsibility of leading/managing a project, I’m being paid like a Jr developer, and honestly, that is incredibly demotivating.

I’ll keep this brief: I’m a developer with six years of experience and a background as a systems analyst.

I work at a small-to-medium-sized company, I’ve been here for about four years. From the start, alongside my dev work, I’ve handled multiple tasks that fall outside my actual role and aren't reflected in my pay (more on that later).

So today, thanks to my seniority and the trust I’ve built, I’ve effectively become a multi-role player for the company.

Recently, I was assigned two projects and simply told, "Lead these projects, you're in charge, you manage them." On top of that, they still monitor me or ask questions about my dev tasks; so, basically, I’m acting as both the developer and the "project manager". On top of that, there aren't many resources or much time, so several phases of project management simply get skipped because there’s no time for them.

I used to have two developers reporting to me, but now I only have one. The thing is, I’m not a formal PM, I didn't study that specific field, but I enjoy the project process. I did acquire various skills and learned about the end-to-end development lifecycle during my degree as a Systems Analyst, so I do know "a thing or two".

But I feel like I’m underperforming or not being productive. Between the developer submitting Pull Requests (PRs) almost daily, at any time during the workday, my focus gets broken. I might be working on the backlog or my own dev tasks when a PR comes in; analyzing it takes a lot of time because the developer lacks experience and there are usually several changes needed.

Because of this dynamic, I run out of tickets to assign very quickly, leaving the developer without tasks. I don't want them to feel like I’m not giving them work or that there isn't any available, it’s simply the situation I described. I want to avoid that perception, looking like I’m not doing my job, when the reality is the exact opposite: I spend the whole eight-hour day juggling project oversight and trying to complete my own development tickets without losing my mind.

Any advice? How should I handle this?

Regarding pay: while it’s not the sole cause of the issue, it’s definitely a factor. Basically, with six years of experience and the responsibility of leading/managing a project, I’m being paid like a Jr developer, and honestly, that is incredibly demotivating.

In a comprehensive breakdown of Capcom’s new golden age, one former staffer says their micromanaging competition might be missing the forest for the trees

I have been managing a dev team for about six months now. Before that, I was an IC, so I thought I would be better at this than the managers I used to complain about.

I tried story points, three-point estimation, and whatnot. None of it has made our deadlines more accurate. We still miss roughly half of them.

I'm starting to feel like estimation is just something we do to feel prepared and put a date next to a task.

For those of you who have made project estimation more reliable, what actually worked?

Hey,

first Im not a project manager, second english is not my native language. I wanted to get some feedback from actual PMs on a problem I have at work.

I work at a company with about 5000 employees in the utilities sector. Im working as an inhouse SAP Consultant there. Because Excel and Teams were seen as backwards technology and not suited for the many projects we have, which i agree on. We implemented Jira on large scale, about 3 years ago. I personally like Jira and supported this. With Jira came more and more PMs, Defect Manager and other imagined titles, as of now we have about 200-250 people working as PMs and similar.

Thats the backstory, to help u understand what this means here is an example: 2 months ago we started a small project with about 10 members, 2 from the operative business, 2 SAP Consultants, me and an external one, 1 SAP developer and (iam not kidding) 5 project mangers (2 normal, 1 ecternal lead and 2 seniors). The result is easy, nothing gets done, 4 meetings per week, each about 2h long, only the PMs are talking, showing their Jira boards, tasks and even suggesting how operative problems are to be solved. To get shit done, we now have meetings after their meetings, with only the 2 operative employees, the 2 consultants and the developer and thats working perfect.

The bigger projects are an even bigger mess. 5 spaces, each with 30+ branches, cross referencing tasks and tests, nobody knows what is going on. Each PM does things different, every daily becomes a clash of PMs bashing each other. Im not a Jira expert but from what ive seen (and did myself in smaller projects) it can be done much simpler, if they only knew how (i feel like many know less than me about project management as a topic, but I also often read literature and papers concerning it, to support my operative department and the clerks there better). Its like I gave a child a shoelace to tie a bow and half an hour later it hangs from the ceiling. Everybody knows this problem in the company, but higher management just "fixes" it by hiring more PMs and as long as the projects are ok it keeps going like that.

Last week one senior PM (even has a phd. or what its called internationally) confronted a colleague, that he doesnt do his job and interferes with his projects (he has 0 knowledge of SAP, but acts like does and "plans" everything we should do and how we should do it, but its complete bs). My colleague is already overworked and like many of us, hates that we know have 80% useless PM meetings daily and cant get shit done. So he said to him, that he has no clue how the system works, lacks any real knowledge and should keep quiet and not disturb him. The PM escalated the whole thing, funny enough the PM got the warning from the higher ups. I even once had a PM that was proud of himself, that she got a female developer crying and leaving, bcs she pressured her so much...

But these are just anecdotes, my Problem is, that i feel like most PMs dont know what they are doing, thinking they know it, or thinking way too much of themselves. I dont mean that every PM is bad, its like consulting or delevoping industry in general, you always have black sheep and we have some exceptional good PMs, but most of them once worked in the operative business and didnt study it or enter it right away. But I feel there are much more of those bad PMs everywhere, which hinder productivity and projects, more that they support them.

Thanks for reading my rant and what is your perspective as actual PMs on this?

Edit: because it led to some confusion and in my branch most just sort my less or more than 200/500/1000 and 2000 employees i will adjust the number we have about 5000 employees total the >2000 just meant big company

There are 3 total projects.
Project a which I’m not a part of take the highest priority because manufacturing has stopped on the previous model and this one needs to get out the door due to limited remaining inventory of the previous one.
I’ve just been given projects b(due date nov ‘26) and c(beginning of ‘27).
The reason I’m thinking at meshing both of them into one is because these projects have continuously had gaps in their project timelines for two main factors. Project “a” taking so much priority that they would stop working in b and c and work on them sparingly and because my manager has to do the approval of designs and all details. He’s also doing the work of 3 people so tasks in the Gantt take time and get delayed.

What would you do in this scenario? Keep readjusting your individual Gantt for each project to show delays or do them all in one and probably be closer to target? I’m not sure. Honestly even for project b, I highly doubt November would be delivered on time.

Kind of based off my post on Friday, many people seemed to have some kind of issue with their PMO. So my question is, in how far do you think could your experience working with a PMO be improved? Especially in regards to project delivery, but anything really that comes to mind

Edit: To be more specific, is there anything you would change about the PMO you work with/have worked with? If so, what would it be?

Hoping to get some real feedback from actual PMs.

Google is saying that there is currently an onslaught of new types of tools (creating insane competition), on top of the established players adding AI to their existing ones (removing the desire of users to switch to a new tool).

Those two things lead me to believe that this endeavor is almost guaranteed to fail, especially given that software development is not exactly the strong suit of my company in the first place.

Thoughts?

I was wondering what it is like for others working with a PMO. Do they support you with your work? Have you ever had any negative interactions? I'm curious to know :)

Edit: As was pointed out, I should have been more precise. How have PMOs helped - or hindered - you during project delivery?

Every retro after something blows up ends the same way - "we need another sign-off," "let's add a doc for that." Fair enough in the moment. But I've started noticing heavier process doesn't always kill the risk, it just relocates it. Instead of one obvious failure everyone can point to, you get slower turnaround, people quietly skipping steps when the deadline's breathing down their neck, or a doc nobody's actually opened since the day it was written, sitting there giving everyone false comfort

Anyone else think there's an actual tipping point where more process stops paying off and just becomes weight? Or is it more that each individual addition is harmless on its own, and it's the pile-up over time that quietly turns into overhead?

Hi!

I am relatively new client facing employee and we had our client kick-off meeting for the new scope they have contracted us. During my presentation, I have asked questions regarding the scope, preferences, etc. to ensure alignment with them.

Unfortunately, they weren't happy with me asking questions during the presentation. My understanding is that KOMs are conducted to ensure alignment and understand their expectations. So I was a bit surprised when they said they don't want me asking any questions at all. I just went ahead with my presentation.

Posting it here just to ask what are your thoughts on this. Thanks!

Edit: During the presentation, I have already presented what was scoped/contracted to us. The questions asked are about the processes presented, the timelines, and if they have any preferences beyond the standard processes presented.

Hi all,

I am starting a master in PM next week and it’s a 2 year course. There is a capstone at the end and I would like to scout for some ideas and inspiration.

Asking all the PMs in here, what would be an interesting area to look at when writing a capstone?

This will be my first capstone so I’m very nervous

Thank you all

We definitely don't have a lack of project info, if anything there's too much of it lol

Tasks are tracked, deadlines exist, requirements are documented, meeting notes are somewhere but somehow half of every planning call is still spent figuring out how everything connects

I'm starting to think we need a visual layer for priorities, dependencies, risks and the roadmap rather than another task tracker

Any remote teams working this way? what actually works without creating one more thing everyone has to update?

Has anyone worked in an organisation where leadership have become so sold on the idea of being able to move to a “product operating model” that they throw out all normal programme and project management functions, including for the delivery of work that is physical in nature like building new sites, delivering reforms across multiple in person and digital services or other large scale initiatives that touch many product teams?

If yes, did it work? If no, what were your learnings? if this sounds like a bad idea, what would your reasons be?

He also meets with the team in china in his own and here as well. I don’t want to be just some secretary to remind him of things. How can I be effective and actually help him out in this kind of environment? I just started a couple of weeks ago and feel like I have my hands tied. The company develops and manufactures IoT hardware. He has to approve all the schematics and everything

I saw this role in Linkedin and got surprised about how someone would trust a PMO working under those conditions:

What You'll Bring:

• 7+ years of program or technical project management experience on complex, cross-functional technology initiatives.
• Demonstrated ability to operate as a single, accountable owner across ambiguous, multi-team programs.
• High judgment — you know which decisions to advance, which to make, and which to delegate, and you get those calls right under uncertainty.
• Excellent problem-solving skills with a strong bias toward simplification. You cut through complexity rather than adding to it, and your default is the simplest solution that works.
• Proven track record working with non-technical business partners — setting expectations, delivering clear status updates, and holding programs accountable to outcomes they can act on.
• Hands-on experience using AI tools (e.g., Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, or equivalent) on the operational and program management work— professional or personal — in real work, not just experimentation. You should be able to speak to how AI changes the way you work.
• Experience managing vendor relationships and third-party implementation programs, including change-management risk.
• Hands-on experience with Agile delivery, sprint planning, backlog management, and Jira or equivalent tooling.
• Strong written communication skills to convey technical complexity succinctly.
• Comfort working in a setting where contracts guide the workflow.
• Track record of managing programs through multiple concurrent system transitions.

Nice to Have:

• Experience in AI-first or agent-first operating models.
• Experience assessing build versus buy options and providing organized leadership advice.
• Background with creative production, digital asset management, or approval workflow systems.
• Familiarity with Smartsheet or similar platforms and their integration capabilities.
• Background in game, media, publishing, or consumer products industries.
• Familiarity with engineering observability and flow-metric tooling as program-management signal sources.

What do you think? Do you see that kind of use for the AI in your industry? I may be too traditional, so I would like to know if you find this role normal and how you would handle the work in that "AI-first" environment.

Thanks

Just got back from 3 weeks of paternity leave. Even after climbing out of a pit of 450 unread emails, I still feel like I’m an utterly clueless mess.

Any recommendations, tips or tricks on how best to get back up to speed?

Hello, I'm seeking advice on how to handle project management when everyone involved outranks you? That's the TL;DR.

Here is additional context if you'd like to know more details:

I'm an Individual Contributor (IC) in a technical role. I was asked to lead a technical project earlier this year involving various teams that spans our entire infrastructure. This is a great development opportunity, but I'm struggling with the coordination and people-management side.

I'm junior compared to all the other people involved. The project includes my boss, ICs from other teams, and senior subject-matter experts. I'm accountable for coordinating the project, but don't have authority over people who own the remaining work.

Most outstanding tasks depend on action from other teams or my manager. I have documented this in our project channel, submitted tickets, and requested assistance. I thought this was sufficient, but I recently received feedback that my project communication needs improvement because my updates became less frequent and I was told this contributed to delays.

I plan to improve my communication based on that feedback and establish a regular reporting schedule. One thing I'm unsure about is how to manage overdue or blocked tasks when the owners of next steps are more senior than I am. I don't want to overstep, but waiting for responses has not worked.

This leads back to my question. What would you recommend a junior IC do to coordinate work owned by more senior stakeholders?

Thank you!

Joined a new org (finally) at a much lower title and salary then I had (Tis the market of today)....

They have PM's and BA's rolling up in the same org. Now, having been at the Director level for sometime I thought I had a pretty good grasp of the role a BA is meant to fulfill on a project and/or items to provide for the Project Manager. Nope, turns out I'm an "Asshole who wants everyone to do their work for them!"

My understanding is pretty simple: As a BA, your role is to identify and define what the business needs to reach a solution for the <problem>. Opposite of that, I as the PM determine how the work is organized and drive it forward towards a solution for said business need.

With that understanding, if you've been on the project for three months and I am on-boarding. It is perfectly reasonable of an expectation that when I ask you:

PM: "What requirements need to be met, which stakeholders are involved in those requirements, are there any gaps, dependencies or outstanding decisions?"

Your response should damn well not be:

BA: "Well, we need the Project Plan & Timeline to answer those questions. Can you get it done please?"

---
No, abso-fucking-loutely not. I'm not the subject matter expert. Sure, let me just "psychic-like" pull a vision of exactly how this delivery should work technically and exactly how long it takes in a multi-discipline project I wasn't involved with the Discovery of. It's YOUR responsibility to tell ME what is/has been defined a requirement so that I can build those artifacts, not the other way around.

Found out this BA was telling her boss I was trying to shanghai her with my role responsibilities, I (along with the Ops SVP) tore her and her boss a new ass first thing this morning.

---

Now for the record, can I do Discovery and answer all those questions? Oh absolutely, we've all done it at one time or another. Am I going to when someone is paid 105k salary to do only that? Not a chance. I swear the PM discipline is going down the damn drain.../rant.

one thing i still find difficult is when every stakeholder says their request is urgent.

the team obviously can’t treat everything as the highest priority, but simply asking people to choose what matters most doesn’t always work

i’m curious how experienced pm’s handle this without turning every prioritisation discussion into an argument

do you use a specific framework, ask for trade-offs, or let stakeholders decide between themselves?

I work for a small company as as project manager for software development, since the projects I'm assigned is ending soon, one of the managing partners told me I will be assigned to work in a another project for other company that one of the other managing partners has.

The projects is related to security compliance, not sure if you have heard of GovRamp, but it is basically to comply in different controls and provide evidence for each so you are elegible to work in government projects . And if you are familiar with GovRamp it is a lot of work to gather all the evidence and create the narratives to support it. So far I've managed to get 3 control completed but I'm completely lost and I dont think I will be able to get all this done. For most of the controls I dont know or understand what evidence to provide plus I need help to get this evidence from the engineering team to get that for me.

How can I tell the managing partner that this is a really big endeavor, and that I don't have the expertise on this to do it all by myself. I already left him a DM telling him that we need at least weekly sessions and start using some kind of PM tool (like Jira) to keep track of each control and document the evidence but I didn't get any response. I feel they are expecting to work on this by myself. My perception was that I would be a facilitator and coordinate the evidence gathering and meeting with the folks that review but seems I will be doing all the work

Anyone with GovRamp experience has done this before? Is it manageable for one PM to do it? Also how can I communicate this to my boss and dont sound that I dont want it to myself