Episode 35: How to become a better project manager

Thanks for your patience while we missed the last two weeks of the newsletter. Last week, I married the love of my life and took a break from the newsletter for the first time since I started.

To be honest, I was fighting feeling guilty for skipping the newsletter. I reminded myself that I needed to be fully present for this incredible moment (the wedding was perfect), but the fear and guilt was still there.

Looking back, the right decision was to focus on the family and friends with no other distractions. I was fully present for every conversation and experienced a level of happiness I have never had before. I’m honestly still on a high from it.

I’ve been reflecting on project management lately—what good looks like and what I've learned over the years.

When I first started my career, my definition of success was what could be achieved when I was in charge. If we hit our outcome and I did 90% of the work, that was still successful.

Now, I think about what can be achieved without me involved. For example, can I have clear communication, collaboration and documentation so that I can be fully present in my wedding and come back to progress made in the projects I was driving?

Thankfully the latter is my reality now. Here are a few things that have helped me achieve better project management:

Set expectations for when you should meet

There are a few types of decisions, but the one I find most people struggle with is concensous driven so I am focusing on that decision type here.

There should always be intention in when you meet. My approach is to use synchronous meetings to discuss or debate the approach to the problem and asynchronous methods for updates.

In live conversations though, one mistake I’ve made is assuming people with an opinion will speak up in the meeting. While we always reached a decision, the reality is that the loudest voices in the room dominated every conversation.

I tried sending out agendas and context beforehand, but there were still some people I had never heard from, and I was curious to get feedback from them. I tried caling on the folks I hadn’t heard from during the meeting, but I either got a non-answer or even a negative reaction because they felt called out.

Here’s my approach now (for consensus-driven decisions):

1. Send context as pre-read at least a few days before (send both doc versions and video/audio for different types of learners).

2. Ask for input ahead of the discussion. Make a quick form asking what people believe the right thing to do / why they believe it makes sense.

3. Prior to the discussion, organize the recommendations and allow people to vote on the recommendation (make the ideas anonymous)

4. Organize a discussion only after the above to discuss/debate the right recommendation

Having a system that you believe in is important, but you should also always be open to re-evaluating based on the feedback you’re getting. Strong opinions but loosely held.

Take notes with clear structure

I’ve mentioned in the past how always volunteering to take notes can help improve your meetings and this is especially important for projects you are driving.

During my consulting days, we were given templates to take notes during all client meetings. The goal then was to capture ‘verbatims’ - i.e. exactly what the client said and capture the context in which it was said to reference later (this is pre-AI assistant days).

While I think that’s extreme for most meetings, the ethos is very applicable. I recommend capturing three things in every meeting:

1. Who is in attendance/date of the meeting?

2. What are the key decisions made with reference links on how/why you arrived at that decision?

3. What is left as an open question / future action item to tackle?

Your notes should serve a dual purpose: they should be an easy reference for what happened the last time you met, no matter the cadence of how often you meet, and a resource for getting up to speed for new folks who join the project at a later date.

Review your notes after the fact and ask yourself if it clearly and quickly answers these questions.

 Don’t overcomplicate the tool

I’ve seen many different approaches from Google Docs to complex GANTT charts to project management tools (e.g. Notion, Clickup, Monday, Airtable, etc). Tools are not replacements for process, so focus on the process first and then decide on the tool that best supports.

Two questions to always start with:

1. What are people used to using

2. What can people learn to use quickly?

These questions will influence what will be regularly updated.

Having a reliable source of truth - even if it’s a few bullets in a shared doc - is more important than having any sort of tool.

I’ve experimented with quite a few of these over the past and while I believe in healthy friction (i.e. pushing people's comfort zone when it comes to tech/tools), the priority should always clarity in the project group.

Friendly reminder that life moments - relationships, kids, health are fleeting and no work project or pressure is more important than those life moments. While these episode is all about how to become more effective in project management, the priority should be life and then work.

As always, feedback is a gift and I welcome any/all feedback on this episode. See ya next week 👋 !

PS: It took me 3 hours to write, edit, and design this newsletter. If you liked today’s post, you can help me grow by forwarding it to one person with a quick “You’ll love this newsletter. Totally worth signing up.” They can subscribe below 👇️ 

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✨ Special thank you to Gigi Marquez who suggested I start this newsletter 🙏