Voices on Project Management

by Dave Wakeman

As a project manager, it is easy to get caught up in handling the situation right in front of you.

Do the tasks needed to complete the current project.

Put out the fire that is consuming all your time. (“Oh crap, I need this stakeholder report…”)

But what if we moved our gaze ahead a little bit and thought about the skills needed to be a successful PM in 2030? What would that look like?

From my vantage point, the 2030 PM will need to focus on three key ideas:

• Being a strategic leader and not just a project facilitator
• Having master communicator vibes.
• Acting as a tech conductor and not just a tech user

1. From Facilitation to Strategy

This is probably one of my key themes in these posts: the importance of always having an eye on the big picture.

The rise of concern about AI stealing “everyone’s” jobs has given this idea a new moment of urgency. Why? Because jobs that can be outsourced to computers and machines are likely to remain in danger.

We are seeing that already. Businesses are trying to offload things like customer service to chatbots. Sometimes, this works. Other times, it doesn’t. The failures will be swept under the rug. The successes will be used to increase the “need” for automation.

This is why keeping an eye on the big picture is key. You can anticipate what is going to matter to your organization. You can be the leader of what comes next.

You can focus on value. Strategy.

2. Communication Mastery
Here’s another topic I return to. Why? It matters a lot.

I have always had a few rules about communications that I’ve taught:

• It isn’t what you say, but what the other person hears that matters.
• If the person you are communicating with is confused, that’s on you.
• If you aren’t the one communicating, someone else will fill the void in your absence…and you won’t like the results.

Effective communications isn’t a skill that’s going to go away. Not even close.

In fact, the more that technology takes over the role or the task of communicating with people, the more important it is to be an effective communicator.

Just think about the frustrations you have dealing with customer service menus if you must call a company for support. How about when you deal with an AI service chatbot online? Sometimes, they work great. Other times, you just want to talk to a person. Then when you get to the person, you are so frustrated that you can’t even put together your thoughts.

Think about that in terms of managing complex projects.

• Your team may be getting instructions from AI.
• Your stakeholders may be frustrated because of a challenge finding the information they need in your tech stack.
• Or you could just encounter a situation where your tech or team isn’t dealing with the right tasks.

All of these will stress test communication skills.

Because of situations like this, the 2030 PM is going to need to be a master communicator.

3. Tech Orchestrator

I wrote about whether AI was taking everyone’s jobs a few months back. I’ve offered you a warning in this piece.

The honest answer about AI and jobs is that none of us know the answer, but we know that technology can be disruptive. I would never advocate ignoring a tool or idea that has gained purchase in your business. I would always advocate taking a contrary viewpoint.

That’s led me to believe that the 2030 PM is going to need to be an orchestrator of technology and not just an implementor. This goes beyond knowing how to input prompts for AI. It goes beyond being good at spreadsheets or whatever other technology your team is using for tasks and tracking.

Being an orchestrator means conducting the business of your projects by understanding what tools you need, how they can amplify and assist your team, and checking the quality of the work being created.

This idea of a “tech orchestrator” feels like the ultimate outcome of the marriage among strategy, communication and tech. Because the PM of 2030 will have demands that are different than today. How different, none of us can say with certainty.

But using these three skill ideas, I think you can be better prepared than a lot of your contemporaries.

Let me know what you think in the comments.

by Dave Wakeman

My editor asked me about a post I wrote 10 years ago, looking at how to build winning teams on the court and off.

“Let’s bring back March Madness!” he said.

I aim to please.

So, on the eve of the 2025 NCAA Final Fours for men and women, let’s go back to the locker room and see what coaches and project managers have in common when they build winning teams.

1. Establish a culture
I attended the University of Alabama, which I have discussed before. I’ve written often about my respect for football coach Nick Saban, and translated some lessons from his success into project management terms.

Now, Saban has retired. His culture was one of precision, hard work, and constant improvement. But that doesn’t mean Alabama doesn’t have coaches to respect and learn from. We have many.

Nate Oates is the men’s basketball coach, and Kalen DeBoer is the football coach. Both focus on establishing culture in their programs.

• For the basketball team, it is about being gritty. Coach Oates calls it “hardhat basketball.”
• Coach DeBoer has talked about having a “player-led” culture that he believes gives the team extra incentive to buy in.

The two approaches are different, but they teach us one important lesson: The best teams have an identity, something that provides a framework for how they approach their jobs.

This same idea applies to project teams. Projects often deal with turbulence, change and adversity, just like on the court or the field.

2. Handle change, adapt quickly
Going back to Alabama. When I was in school, making the Sweet Sixteen was a huge victory. Last season, Alabama made its first Final Four. This year, we’ve been in the Top 10 all year.

Besides bragging, one thing I’ve learned is that the NCAA tournament is about adjustments and being able to react quickly. How do I mean?

Because of the compressed nature of the tournament, if you make a long run, you play games quickly. You might be selected on Sunday and have your first game on Thursday. Win and you have a day to prepare for a team you may not know anything about for the game on Saturday.

That pattern can repeat three times if you make the Final Four.

It happens even more when you factor in the conference tournaments that might make a team play three or four days in a row. Or even more: Last year, NC State was in danger of not making the NCAA tournament. It won five games in five days (!) at the ACC tournament, automatically qualifying for NCAAs. After just four days of rest, the team won four more games in the NCAA tournament and advanced to the Final Four before losing. (And if you have to play in the First Four, the schedule is even more compact.)

The lesson: You must adapt and change quickly.

That’s true for PMs as well.

A change order pops up.

You might lose access to resources.

A team member may be called away or get stretched in multiple directions.

On and on.

You must adapt and adjust to keep your project on track. Just like a team in the tournament.

3. Find a way
Teams that win the championship must find a way to win.

The only team I remember not having a close call at any point in the men’s tournament was the 2018 Villanova Wildcats. The closest games they played were two that they won by 12. (My wife doesn’t let me forget that season.)

Most teams that make a championship run face adversity. They must find a way to overcome challenges, injuries and other obstacles.

Project teams must find ways to complete jobs as well.

You may have a budget cut.

You may get a schedule change.

There are always change orders.

You might change team members during the project.

Who knows?

You work on enough projects; you see all kinds of crazy things happen. The key thing is that you find a way to bring the project home.

That’s what good teams do.

That’s what good project teams do.

Two questions for you in the comments:

1. Who are you cheering for at the men’s and women’s Final Four?
2. How do you make sure your team is ready to win?

by Dave Wakeman

In writing for Voices on Project Management, I like to tie everything back to a business outcome like business growth, innovation, or cost savings.

This month, I wanted to combine my focus on business growth with the new kid on the block, ChatGPT, to do some market research using a prompt to see what I came up with.

Here’s the prompt in case you’d like to steal it:

I want you to do customer research for me. Tell me 10 dreams, 10 frustrations, 10 wants, and 10 fears that my audience experiences related to business growth and innovation through the lens of project managers.

Format the 10 dreams, 10 frustrations, 10 wants, and 10 fears in a structured table. The x-axis should be numbered 1-10 and the y-axis should include frustration, want, fear, and dream.

This month, let’s look at the 10 frustrations:

1. Lack of clear vision or buy-in from leadership for growth initiatives
2. Scope creep due to shifting priorities during growth phases
3. Difficulty finding and retaining skilled team members for innovative projects
4. Siloed departments hindering collaboration and information flow
5. Unrealistic timelines imposed by leadership for innovation projects
6. Difficulty measuring the ROI of innovative projects with long-term impact
7. Lack of risk tolerance from leadership, hindering bold innovative ideas
8. Constant firefighting due to reactive decision-making instead of proactive planning
9. Difficulty adapting existing processes and workflows for innovative projects
10. Lack of recognition and appreciation for the challenges of managing innovative projects

Do we see any patterns?

I do.

These all seem consistent with a lack of strategy, especially a challenge around defining the ultimate strategic question: “What does success look like?” These also fit into the idea of business acumen, a topic I often cover.

Let’s think about what we can do to deal with these frustrations.

1. Make sure you are clear on your direction. In my strategy work, the essential question is, “What does success look like?” You must know the answer to this question because you can’t be successful without it.

A lack of vision around growth will be present because you lack direction. You can’t properly measure ROI without knowing what success look like.

All of us have likely been involved in too much firefighting. The root cause typically being decisions that are pushed off or left unmade because of a lack of direction.

2. Invest in your communications efforts. Buy in! Buy in! Buy in!

Am I right?

The time you invest in communicating the project’s scope, the place the project has in your business’s success, and the things you need to meet your timeline will help you set yourself up for success.

Poor communication is frustration’s foundation. You can only defeat this frustration by being clear, concise, and easily understood in your communications.

Your ability to achieve this is built from the answer to the ultimate question: “What does success look like?”

3. Manage up and down. Project managers have to manage in both directions to cut down on frustrations.

• Managing down will help you hire and retain key team members.
• Managing up will help you fight scope creep, gain buy-in, and fight unrealistic timelines.

Looking at ChatGPT’s list, the frustration of silos points to the importance of managing across the organization as well.

Your ability to manage up, down and around the organization is built on your direction and your ability to communicate effectively. Granted, you still aren’t guaranteed success.

My questions to you are: Do these frustrations track with your experience? Is there a frustration that you don’t see on the list? Or, is this list totally crazy?

Let me know below!

Then, next month we can look at one of the other columns.

Dave Wakeman

I recently wrote about a podcast I listened to that shared key qualities project managers have. This month, I return to the topic and share the qualities I think the best project managers have.

Here are the nine qualities I look for when I think about great project managers:

1. Business acumen: This is my first key because I recognize that a project doesn’t happen in a vacuum. The best project managers recognize that and can frame the project in a way that highlights the impact and the potential opportunities that the project creates. All in the context of the world around your organization.

2. Negotiation skills: Getting people on the same page, winning the resources you need, and overcoming objections are key to any project’s success. That’s why negotiation skills are right up there when I look for great project managers.

3. Communication skills: Spoken, written, physical…all of them. They matter to the modern project manager because there are so many ways to communicate, and getting your point across can make the difference between success and failure.

4. Empathy: Life is tough. Your job is tough. The world is tough. Having empathy can uncover a layer of the team you are working with that can help you get the project completed.

Don’t confuse this with not being driven. Knowing how to deal with people is a key driver of a PM’s success, and not recognizing the human element and pushing through no matter what is likely a reason you are struggling to get results.

5. Consensus building: I’m mining a similar vein to communication and negotiation skills, but to me consensus building is about pulling those two things together and having everyone involved in the project recognize that this might not be the perfect solution, but it is a workable solution.

That’s key because too much communication is one way, “my way or the highway” communications. And too much of our negotiation can feel like having to “win” every point.

Building consensus is a recognition that you must try and find the “win-win” more often than folks let on.

6. Calm under fire: I had a boss in my 20s that would come to me and say, “Dave, it seems like the more pressure we are dealing with, the easier things come for you.”

I agree.

This skill can be hard to train for, but being able to not get flustered or freaked out by the changes and pressure that come during intense moments of a project can be a key to your success as a project manager.

Where do you start? Planning as much as you can.

7. View PM as a key job: Some people fall into the role of project manager, and it is just a job that doesn’t carry much importance in the grand scheme of their thinking.

To me, the best PMs look at the job as a key role in the organization. You can be successful just doing the job, but the best PMs look at the job as a key role that deserves respect and expertise.

8. Broad knowledge, not just skill knowledge: Again, this runs next to business acumen in my thinking, but it is different.

To me, broad knowledge allows you to make connections from different parts of the world around you. In my strategy work, I might pull an example from watching sports to illustrate an idea to a pharma company.  I might use my experience in politics to show a sports team how a concept applies to them. Or, I might use an example from a novel to make a larger philosophical point.

The key is that you want to be gaining ideas and perspectives from as many points as possible.

9. A desire and willingness to learn: Desire and willingness are two different things.

A lot of people want to learn, but they don’t follow through.

A lot of people are willing to learn, but they don’t receive the opportunities.

You need to combine the two, because one thing that dominates modern project managers’ lives is that things are constantly changing.

You have to be prepared for that—and you can only do that by learning.

What do you think of my list? Have I missed something obvious? Are you going to put some of these things to work from this month’s list or last month’s list? Let me know in the comments below.

By Dave Wakeman

I caught myself listening to the 2Bobs podcast recently and the episode about the qualities of the best project managers. David C. Baker shared a list with his co-host, Blair Enns: 

1. Command authority naturally 

2. Quick sifting abilities 

3. Re-evaluate project priorities frequently 

4. Listen to stakeholders…really listen 

5. Predictable communication cadences 

6. Domain expertise in project management 

7. Consensus-building skills 

8. Informal networks 

9. Didn’t just happen into project management 

What do you think of the list? Let me know in the comments below. What do I think of the list? Let me share a few thoughts. 

First, the ability to get people’s attention and command authority to lead is key in any leadership position.  

This one rings true. For us, I’d also like to point out that being commanding doesn’t mean being loud or outgoing. It means having presence and having people believe you’ll get them where they are going.  

Second, sifting abilities and evaluation skills go together.  

I write about business acumen here regularly. David’s list items would fit the idea of business acumen because you need to be able to consume data quickly, organize it, and take action within the context of your environment.  

Third, being an effective communicator has been at the heart of this column for years. It is also the No. 1 reason I would put down if you asked me why project managers fail—they don’t do a good job of communicating up and down the chain of their project.  

To me, this goes to the idea of consensus building as well. If you aren’t a good communicator, you aren’t going to be able to build consensus because you are going to miss important points.  

Fourth, informal networks. I love this one because I’ve spent a long time building them. I have my newsletters, podcasts and community, all with people from a diverse section of industries, countries and backgrounds. I like to tell myself that this is one of the keys to my success.  

The key point that David and Blair were making is that the wider those informal networks, the broader your frame of reference for your experiences. Having a broader experience base is going to help you, no matter what experience you might have.  

Finally, project management as a practice and an area of expertise. I have found that some of the best project managers I’ve ever met wouldn’t necessarily call themselves by that title, but they’d agree that they get things done.  

But getting things done is a special skill—one that you don’t just happen into, and can’t really wing. You might develop it outside of the normal project management practices (I developed mine in marketing, nightclubs, and sports business), but the key idea is that you develop expertise in project management with the same attention to your craft that any other respected professional would (even if you don’t call yourself a project manager).  

Overall, I like David’s list. As a challenge to myself, I’m going to make next month’s post about my own list of attributes of “the best project managers.”  

I’ll also be curious to see what attributes you think the best project managers have. You can leave those in the comments section (I’ll even try and use your ideas in an upcoming piece).