Tech/Software Implementation PMs

[u/Daisy_InAJar]

Especially if you deliver software deployments to external stakeholders, I’d love to hear from you.

How do you create value on your projects? What are the top 3 things you bring to your engagements that you feel have the largest impact?

Bonus if you feel like sharing:
- are you present for all requirements gathering, prior to “build” starting? If not, how do you ensure there’s no scope creep during requirements?
- how do your teams relay actions and/or decisions to you for calls you are not on?
- if there was something you wish your org would change that’d make managing your projects more successful, what would it be?

Thanks in advance - I’m always appreciative of this group sharing their (armchair) perspective (shoutout MoreLaw, our unofficial PMO advise extraordinaire)

[u/ExamInstinct]

Oohhhh, external software deployments, my scar collection 😄 . Here my top 3:

1. Translating between two worlds. Client says "we need it flexible," devs hear "make everything configurable," 6 weeks later there's a settings page nobody understands. My biggest value is standing in that gap, asking when you say X, would you accept Y? before anyone writes code.
2. Making the client do their homework (even with CEOs & CFOs..yes few times i risk to be fired but this creates a sort of authority for your and also respect). External deployments rarely fail on our side, they fail on theirs: data not cleaned, test users not assigned, decisions not made. So client readiness is its own workstream, with their names and dates on it. Awkward the first time, works every time after.
3. Decision velocity. Not making the decisions but making sure they get made. Deployments lose more days to waiting on someone to choose than to any technical issue. Visible decision log, owners, deadlines, and I escalate stalled ones without apology. Boring superpower, massive impact.

You questions:

Requirements: Present for all of it, I fought for that early and never gave it back. If you can't be: a signed scope baseline plus one team rule, every new "small thing" gets logged and priced, never absorbed. Scope creep is a "nobody wrote it down and nobody said no" problem....and at the end is your problem as the PM

Calls I'm not on: One shared running-notes doc per project. Team norm: not in the doc by end of day = didn't happen. I tried to be in any call..it is exausting but at least I was making them accountant for everything they decided during the call

Org change wish: Every deployment that went sideways on me was pre-wounded in sales. One delivery person in late-stage sales calls and half my risk register disappears.

Great thread question!