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What does time off work look like for you? Does your company encourage you to take all your vacation time, support you in totally unplugging when you’re off, and maybe even offer sabbaticals? Is your company on the other end of the spectrum, rewarding employees who don’t use their vacation time or w...

I’m not receiving compensation for any of the products I endorse in this blog post.

If you read my blog regularly, you might be working toward earning your Project Management Professional (PMP)® certification—the premier international credential that proves you’re a competent project leader. That’...

I was chatting with an email subscriber the other day, and he was telling me that when he’s assigned a project, it’s on him as the project leader to convince other company employees to complete the tasks his project needs done on top of their regular work. Nobody is directly expected to help with hi...

In my last post, I explained what a kickoff meeting is, why this type of meeting is such a critical part of the process for a smooth and efficient project, and why I think even your meeting-averse coworkers will eventually see how putting in the time for a project kickoff will benefit both the proje...

Do your projects include a kickoff meeting or another type of kickoff experience? Out of all the elements of a process for our projects that we’ve tried at my current company, we’ve been able to drive the widest adoption of kickoff meetings.

If you work at an organization that has very little sense...

At the PMI Global Summit about a month ago, I attended a session by Erica Jorde and Maia Hyary of JBS International about helping people who already work at your company see their potential to grow into project management roles, and creating a clear and supported pathway for them to transition to th...

One of my goals is to be a mentor of sorts to you—someone who can guide you through growth as a project manager with a minimal time commitment on your part every week. And I can fit anywhere in your schedule!

But I hope you also look for in-person mentors. While I have had a few formal and informal...

Does your role as a project manager require regular communication with clients or vendors? Or are you newly finding yourself working with professionals external to your organization? 

I worked directly with outside clients for the first year and a half of my career, and with many types of vendors i...

I love being a project manager because I see it as so much more than a job. As I’ve discussed before, it feels like a set of superpowers that makes me a borderline superhero. But these fantastical terms are really a metaphor for the tremendous down-to-earth value we as project leaders provide. In ca...

Today, I’d like to share a project manager pro tip with you…I didn’t learn it until year 6 or so, and there’s no reason you need to wait that long.

Here it is:

Don’t always respond to everyone right away.

What?? Why not? Isn’t it a huge part of my job to communicate and manage communications on m...