Why I Failed at Managing Projects

Emma is an enterprise portfolio manager and change leader with 16 years of experience across higher education and corporate roles, combining strategic consulting, project and portfolio management, and people leadership.

  Career Development   Leadership  

For years I have been given conflicting advice around the level of my skillset. With one team, I received “excellent” and “above average” type responses on annual reviews every year. After I felt confident in my abilities, I moved into a new role at a new company, where just three months in I was told that I was insubordinate and not a team player.

It seemed like a drastic shift, but I took the feedback to heart and aimed to grow through various certifications. I also met my co-workers for lunch to try to understand how I could better serve my team, and pursued additional professional development opportunities that came my way.

I played through these conflicting workplace personalities—one of a team player and strong leader, the other insubordinate and a disappointment. Given the effort that I thought I was putting in, the wall of insecurities continued to grow. I was taking on a woe-is-me mentality and had established that I was failing at project management.

Spoiler alert: I wasn’t, but I did not recognize that at the time. While I have been in the field of project management in some form or fashion for many years, it was not until I began studying for the PMP that I started to put some of my experiences together.

The Illusion of Autonomy

To take a step back, when I moved into my new role, I was given a steering wheel. My …

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