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The job of a project manager can be described in many ways. One of those ways is “problem solver,” as we are constantly solving problems on multiple levels. In the course of monitoring the progress of our projects, we solve problems to keep them moving. In the course of developing...

Project managers: have you had the experience of being brought into a project too late?

Maybe everyone else on the project team has already been informed about the project and begun work, and someone finally thought to contact you “so somebody can keep track of things.”

Or maybe...

As a project manager who supports over 100 active projects at a time, I have a decent volume of personal tasks or actions to manage in order to keep those projects on track.

This isn’t easy, and I’ve developed and combined many strategies in my 8 years in the field to keep my own...

Project managers deal in a lot of processes. We lead teams through them, and many of us also create and/or implement them. And while some organizations strive to have a unified process for all projects, the Project Management Institute increasingly emphasizes that much of a project...

As project managers, requests tend to fly at us all day. From project changes and status requests to process improvements and new projects to begin, tasks big and small come at us from all directions, and we must collect, organize, and work through them at a pace our companies find acceptable.

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I am not being paid to read or promote the book discussed below.

I love being a project manager.

But one of the hardest things about my job is that my direct report and I, who make up the project management department, support over 300 active projects at a time between us.

We have a number of...

How you initiate a project—or how it is initiated by others—matters.

Many things that happen or don’t happen at the beginning of a project can set that project up for problems later.

Don’t let this reality intimidate you or prevent you from getting a project started....

Do you encounter naysayers who resist the idea of taking time to develop a plan before starting a project?

One challenge is that often resistance to planning isn’t direct. It tends to come in the form of people just trying to get project work started, either ignoring our requests as project...

About 2 months ago, I got a promotion. I’m now Manager of Project Management, or in industry vernacular, the full-fledged leader of my company’s PMO (project management office).

I am very grateful for this opportunity, and I’m looking forward to having a larger impact on my...

I am not being paid to promote any of the resources below. I am simply a satisfied user of them.

The Project Management Institute, or PMI, is a wonderful, well-respected international organization with extensive resources for current and aspiring project managers. The institute is best known for...