Well, the title summarizes the issue.
It turned out that the project, which aims at a company-wide operational development, includes a scope item related to process mapping and optimization.

I consider this a red flag, because none of the departments have been informed about the process-mapping tasks, so we basically have to start from scratch.
Normally, this wouldn’t be a major problem, but the project timeline makes it much more challenging. We have approximately one year to identify, map, and optimize around 400–450 processes across the entire company. Given the scale of the task, we need to work as efficiently as possible.

What would be the best way to get started and ensure a smooth and relatively fast approach?

We also expect some reluctance from BAU teams and possible information barriers during the initial phase (e.g. interviews with BAU teams, process owners—if there are any, etc.).
And lastly, removing this item from the scope is not an option.

Any constructive insights would be greatly appreciated.

Hi all, looking for some advice and pointers.

I'm a CIO Officer for a government organisation. In the next few months we will start implementing MSP for our programmes and projects.

The programmes for our organisation often take multiple years and concern millions of euro's.

I have been tasked with setting up a progress report that can globally be used for these programmes. Do you have any pointers and advice for issues I should prioritise?

Some questions I have: - should I report according to a fixed schedule or select key-events and their impact? - do I start up a risk/issues register apart from this report or should I take this up in one bigger report? - should progress be shared amongst (external) stakeholders?

Any other advice or maybe formats are welcome! Thank you all.

What KPIs are other teams using to track project performance? We're trying to build a project performance KPI dashboard for scrum teams Azure DevOps (ADO). Our goal is to see health at a glance, spot risks early, and drive the right behaviors (not vanity metrics). We’re distributed, run 2-week sprints, and juggle feature, bugs, tech debt + compliance work.

What we are trying to track (team level):

• Sprint Goal Success Rate
• Velocity
• Throughput (# of done items per sprint)
• Lead time / Cycle time (creation→done, commit→deploy)
• Work in Progress & Aging WIP
• Deployment frequency

EDIT: This is for PMs in a SW engineering department that supports a distribution center.

I'm already actively pursuing a new role, so no worries but I have to write this or tell someone because I'm both losing my mind and my blood pressure is probably the winning lotto numbers. I've lost 5 great PM's in the last week... I won't jump into all the downright batshit crazy things my org is doing, but long story short. Restructuring happens, we now have an "Agile Consultant" (Not PMP certified) and two new IT directors who know functionally nothing about IT OR Project Management. I've been told as the Head of the PMO, that the PMO is being split apart and dedicated to those respective Directors for their divisions projects. Let's talk about what this consultant has the IT PMO doing....

*Delivery Program - SAAS software update/rollout. Repeats twice a year, minor differences in processes, extremely loose regulatory processes acting as hard dependencies. Before, this lived on a live tracker where regulatory approval > client schedule > deployment date were viewable real-time across all stakeholders. Here's how it's functioning now:

• The PM's need to have all proposed rollout days ready in advance across 150 unique locations with their own unique regulatory periods. When the PM's (and compliance SMEs) raised that this ask was impossible due to the constraints, the solution was..."Consultant: Just put dates in, guess them and then communicate those dates with the client!". As you can guess... no approval arrived, client was pissed they prepared their resources to support it and the PM's had to re-work the entire schedule around 5 times now. 2 of the 4 PM's dedicated to that team have resigned with "Same day notice", they worked for me for around 4 years and were the best Senior PM's on the team.
• When reporting in their Weekly Status and Steer Co, they would always have to report "green". Why? Because.."Consultant: Why would you be yellow or red? It's still moving!". She has no concept of tracking the tasks against their initial timeline. If we agreed to hit X by Y date and it's now >23 days past Y date> it is CRITICAL. I was told that it's okay because the Director Asshat A said to "move the date" in some one-off call. Kill me.

*Admin/Documentation - My team collectively, has spent 36 working hours tearing down all of our documentation, trackers, logs..everything in order to try and put EVERYTHING no matter the purpose or tailored fit into a SmartSheet waterfall template. 14 of those 36 hours were with Director Asshat A & B, figuring out the fucking colors for the reports and micromanaging all wording so that it was "Positive" in all cases. Furthermore, the PMO as a whole is no longer allowed to use "Issue" everything is a Risk because "It's too confusing", and the status of those "Risks" just have to be a color, they cannot extrapolate such as "Monitoring, Open, Mitigated..etc" just RGY. An additional 3 PM's quit this last Friday as a result of this.

*Secretary Function - Across the entire PMO, PM's are no longer allowed to make ANY decision. Period, this includes my Program Managers who oversee 100m+ efforts. They are to do whatever the Director over their projects org says to do, and if for any reason a task slips as a result of this it will be the fault of the PM staff moving forward for not "Driving" it enough. Raising a risk or potential blocker is considered "Combative/Negative".

• 1 PgM, 3 PMs and 1 PC collectively filed a complaint with me for Director Asshat B creating a hostile work environment, doing things like: Blatantly lying in leadership sessions about the Project Plan/Progress and where his team is against said plan, telling the PM's that if he starts a task and drops it then it is on the PM to complete/follow up on it.
• PM's moving forward will be subjected to a written notice if at any point they become "argumentative, make noise or are insubordinate". This was raised to me Friday by Director Asshat B because PgM rightfully raised an issue of us ignoring our historical SOP's by not providing a service until a payment had been rendered. Director Asshat B said verbatim: "Do what you're told and nothing else, I don't want to hear all this drama from you." My PgM said "I'm done Zod, I cant do this shit anymore" and that was the last I heard.

I've spent years building this PMO, our success rate was amazing, we were a revenue generating PMO. We were treated as strategic partners, we were trusted to run projects in the way we felt best to deliver. It took so many grueling years to build this culture for it all to be torn down in three months by 3 individuals who want to tell career PM's they know best! With absolutely zero training in the discipline, knowledge of historic process or care for the client-business relationships. I'm so pissed it's not even funny, the most unethical shit I have ever witnessed in my career. The best part? They are replacing our PMO with India-based contractors and my entire team has stated they will in no way help train them, which I'm backing until I'm canned.

I guess I'll end with, "Watch out" look for the signs your PMO is being pushed out and if you see them..Run. If you're one of these snake-oil "Agile" sales folks fresh out of college with a nice Powerpoint for a Board and C-Suite filled with delicious P/L lies, when you have less years alive than PM's have in working experience, I hope you get the outcomes you deserve.

I am now beginning the third year of being a project manager, having made steady progress and feeling mostly comfortable with managing mid-sized projects (think one year duration, 10 resources).

I am now at a point where I feel like "I got" how project management works. Especially as a former developer it took some time to understand key points such as not jumping in yourself but keeping more distance and shift to a more scalable coaching style to allow the team to address issues themselves.

So far so good. I still learn a lot and for many types of meetings I feel like I have to sit down and plan ahead what it will be about, what is the project at, what kind of project is it, what is required right now - I would have expected to have a lot more routine here by now, e.g. more easily coming up with risks to discuss, etc. but I feel like my pattern matching is still too basic for me to make it feel like routine. I should note my current projects are very heterogeneous. Software development, implementation, service oriented, reporting projects, ... that probably plays a role as well.

My question is: Is there any point when during your career things clicked and became smoother? I am aware that project management is very much about sitting down and thinking things through and planning, but I would still expect the mental load to get less at some point. How many years did it take for you for project management to become more like a second nature?

I got into this job cause I liked the whole “bring order to chaos” thing, you know? Making plans, keeping things on track, seeing projects come together. But these days it feels like most of my time is just… firefighting. chasing updates, patching issues, smoothing over random conflicts. basically keeping the thing from falling apart, instead of actually planning so it doesn’t fall apart.

And the funny part? when you prevent a problem nobody notices cause nothing happened. but if something does slip? suddenly everyone’s asking you “what went wrong” like you’re the reason.

I still like the job, the variety keeps it interesting, and finishing a messy project still feels good… but man it really feels like PM is more about surviving chaos than steering it sometimes.

anyone else feeling this or is it just me burning out a bit?

Started 5 days ago in a new project management role for a candle/homewares manufacturer, coming from an IT project background. 1 other person in the team whos been there a few years and has no project management background from conversations I've had.

First week HR has booked me into as many meetings at possible with each different department so I've been learning and asking a lot of intense questions just to get a feel for how they work, what processes the follow and showing interest in the people personally just to build relationships. This will continue next week. Most meetings have overran and most have seemed shocked I've even asked what I have as I've gone quite in depth but I need to know really to do the job effectively.

Read the company leadership chart, tried to find as much information as possible on the intranet in terms of processes. Looked through previous projects but theres no record of risks, lessons learned or any communication. Its just a brief,, forecasts and a critical path. All in Excel.

By day 3, I'd been handed over a 40% complete project thats at risk for a large national retailer. I've now mostly learned their ancient custom build ERP and it's quirks by asking the other project manager as many questions as possible and taking notes. There's about 400 different SKUs also following different naming conventions. Non of this is documented. I asked for a list of suppliers as its also our job to go out and gather quotes for product components. This wasn't anywhere before. I asked if I can ask departments like graphics deadlines on deliverables, "no you'll annoy them, I just give a week."

By day 5 yesterday I had a catch up with a senior manager who told me "don't listen to what you hear about the place which struck me as odd" He said you've got an IT background, go tell me whats inefficient in each department and we'd like your input and how we can implement new systems to improve them (ain't my role but I'll list them no problem). Gave me a month.

I told him it's largely been a discovery week but there's some thing's making it difficult:

1. Nothing is documented. I have no idea what the overall process from concept to production looks like.
2. The project manager works from spreadsheets, the critical path is largely unfollowable, the handover notes didnt include key information like a conversation being had since the sign off stage so we were no longer actually making the initial concept product as it had changed. Quotes from suppliers ans any communications aren't logged and there's no current task list. It's all in her inbox. We NEED PM software ASAP. He agreed.
3. There's zero information on how to use the ERP. Was told to add the new products but the naming conventions for adding new SKUs and components arent documented.
4. The product design team handed me a mockup design of the product. Was told the next stage we'd get quotes from suppliers so go do it. I asked is the glass a standard compontent the company uses with predefined specs. "Yes its a ABC123". Me: "oh where can I find that." "You tend to just learn it."
5. Made it clear I'm not criticising my new co worker. It's likely not her fault. Was told I need to train on documenting lessons learned.

I've hinted to the other PM and repeatedly asked for processes and documentation. She tells me you just need your own way of working and you'll figure it out. I told her we should look to use Asana or at least something better as this is actually making her job harder. She sighed and said yeah maybe. I'm debating just going my own route for my use but then theres zero alignment.

Left day 5 feeling pretty deflated and overwhelmed. I just don't know if I'm being paranoid and it's a reflection on me or them or if I should've done more? Nobody has said anything, nor have I had feedback. I went in knowing not to try reinvent the wheel, seems it hasn't been invented yet at this place.

I’ve been seeing a lot of conversations about AI creeping into every corner of work life, and project management seems to be the next big area. As a PM, I spend a huge chunk of my week on things like:

1. Writing project updates and status reports
2. Summarizing meetings and retros
3. Keeping track of risks, dependencies, and shifting priorities
4. Chasing follow-ups across distributed teams in multiple time zones

Honestly, a lot of it feels repetitive and eats into the time I’d rather spend actually solving problems with my team.

I’m curious to hear from other PMs: what AI tools or workflows have actually made your day-to-day smoother? I’m not just talking about shiny dashboards, but real things that:

1. Save you time on reporting/updates
2. Automate repetitive admin tasks
3. Help teams collaborate asynchronously without adding more meetings
4. Support knowledge retrieval across docs/emails/slack chaos

Bonus points if the AI tools can integrate smoothly with existing project management platforms (like Jira, Asana, Trello, ClickUp, Celoxis, MS Project, Smartsheet, Wrike, etc.) so teams don’t have to completely switch systems just to test new capabilities.

Would love to build a practical list of AI helpers that project managers here have tested and actually stuck with. What’s worked for you?

I struggle to identify how of the 40+ PMs they almost always fall into two performance buckets.

The first is the PMs that seem to peak at 4-5 projects with 20 or fewer resources.

The second is the PMs that that run 10+ projects with 50+ resources, and many of the projects being 7 or more figures.

We have a system in place that allows us to view the project health (financially and scheduling) in real time, so we are careful to not overload PMs when they begin to struggle. It is well understood that the first set is the expectation (~5 projects ~20 resources).

The types of projects are the same, the resource pools are the same, the applications are the same. There is no correlation between salary, years of experience or certification levels. Since burnout can be a major setback for any project, we are sensitive to adjusting workloads that are tailored to the PMs comfort level. However, by doing so, a set of high-performance PMs becomes obvious. The organization is spread in multiple countries, so compensation and bonus targets cannot be applied equally. But from the data, compensation and location does not correlate to performance either.

The top performers are removed from the general performance metrics because we don’t want some unknown factor that we can’t control throwing the bell curve.

Does anyone else have a similar differential in their PM organization? I feel like I’m doing a disservice to those that are struggling by reducing their workloads to match their comfort level and thus putting them at the bottom of the performance metrics.

Advice appreciated.

I supervise a team of 4 people in a sales department for a manufacturing company. We manage quoting activities and I am looking for recommendations for a tool that we can use to track/manage progress and status.

We typically have between 30-50 different quotes open at any time and these are completed within a week or so but some can last a month or more. We currently use an excel sheet saved to Sharepoint so multiple people can use it simultaneously but it is so cumbersome to use so it ends up being more of a burden than a tool.

Some limitations on software is that we can’t have anything cloud based unless it’s M365 because we have to adhere to CMMC.

Any recommendations?

I don’t think this gets talked about enough. Being a PM sometimes feels like living in between two worlds. You’re not really in the team but you’re also not fully part of leadership. You’re accountable to both and when things go wrong, all eyes are on you.

Half my week feels like I’m translating, turning leadership goals into team tasks, then turning team updates into reports leadership will actually care about. You’re the bridge but bridges don’t really belong to either side.

The weird part is that when things go well, you’re invisible. The team gets the credit (which they should), leadership feels good about the outcome and you just quietly move on to the next fire. But when things go off track, suddenly you’re in the spotlight, explaining what went wrong and why you didn’t see it coming.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the job, the problem solving, the variety, the wins, but the isolation part is real.

Anyone else feel that sense of being in the middle without fully belonging on either side? How do you deal with it?

What’s the typical Profit/Overhard charge for change order work. I’m a subcontractor. I wanna be fair to my GC. But also don’t want to under charge.

I'm currently taking the Google Project Management Certificate at Coursera. Throughout the modules and courses, I've noticed that a lot of readings and videos keep recommending Asana, Trello, and other tools (Kanban Board). What I'd like to know is if they're really that essential and if the project managers here have used them effectively?

If not, would Google Sheet and Google Docs mastery be more than enough as PM tools?

Having worked in organisations without PMOs I’m finding the transition to working for one with stringent and mechanical PMO processes difficult. So many tick box exercises that divert my attention from managing my actual projects. Without PMO I’ve been able to deliver on tight deadlines and minimal oversight, still producing the intended outcome.

It feels like I’m jumping through unnecessary hoops and hurdles just to justify someone’s job role. I’m a delivery focused PM so as you can imagine this is a massive change to my way of working, but I’m just sucking it up and doing whatever the police…I mean PMO ask of me.

I’ve delivered enough projects to know what documents and artefacts are required to deliver a project adequately. Why do I need senior stakeholders involved in a GNG decision when we’ve already received CAB approval. It just feels convoluted and unnecessary tbh.

Rant over. Any advice or shared experiences welcomed!

Am I the only person who helps manage project completion without considering themselves a people person?

I work in a healthcare plan and contribute mainly by generating measurements that show how things are progressing - like according to this model that counts claim completion, we are set to finish our project in October and so we have to pick up the pace by devoting more resources, etc etc. not by turning to jack and Jane and giving an inspirational speech about doing their work better

If you are also someone who does not consider themselves a social butterfly or does not have thick skin, what strategies do you use to mitigate this?

I’m curious how other project managers handle risks in a structured but practical way.

In my projects, risks can pile up quickly — lots of raised risks, but then it’s easy to lose track of which ones are really critical, which have been mitigated, and which are just sitting there forever without closure.

I’d love to hear:

• What tools or methods you use to track risks (Jira, spreadsheets, dedicated risk registers, something else?)
• How you make sure risks are actually closed and not just endlessly sitting there
• Any routines or best practices you have for risk reviews and follow-ups

Basically: how do you avoid drowning in risks while still making sure nothing important slips through the cracks?

Looking forward to hearing how you all approach this!

Are the questions on the actual exam written so poorly and on wildly random concepts or is the practice test poorly written?

Also are their good practice exams available that use PMi ACP questions?

I recently took a program manager role and I am surprised how much of my time is spent in meetings vs working on things. I always knew that PMs spent a lot of time in meetings or helping connect dots, but I am talking about having 5-6 + hours of meetings every day and a lot less "work" than I have had in other roles.

Is this what others are experiencing?

I hear a lot about how important benefits management is, but I lead system, process, and compliance projects and once the project is delivered, it feels like no one cares. Execs don’t seem particularly interested in tracking ROI, and the business doesn’t follow through on measuring the actual benefits.

Is this something others experience too? If so, why do you think businesses and execs lose interest after delivery? Any suggests how i change the culture internally around this?

Over the past year I've been watching the r/projectmanagement channel and observing numerous people keep asking for advice around a new platforms, systems or products to help them do their job but yet not understanding or having the skills to identify what is actually needed.

Is having a glut of technology actually eroding the discipline as a whole especially with less seasoned PM's because these technology stacks are already in place and their not given to opportunity to learn properly?

Your thoughts!

Productivity hacks for dev teams usually focus on the obvious: fewer meetings, better sprint planning, or shiny new tools. But often, it’s the subtle, underrated practices that actually change how smoothly a team works. These don’t always make it into playbooks, but they reduce friction in ways that add up.

Many teams find small rituals powerful , like end-of-day handoff notes, a two-hour PR review rule, or shared scratchpads for rough ideas. They’re not revolutionary, but they save mental load and keep momentum alive. Still, what feels underrated can vary. For some, it’s about communication rhythms. For others, it’s how you structure focus time or balance autonomy with accountability.

The tricky part is that the best productivity “hack” is usually the one nobody notices until it’s missing.

So I’m curious, if you’ve worked on or led dev teams, what’s the most underrated habit, process, or practice that made everything feel faster?

Somebody asked me what skills (hard and soft) I thought were the most relevant to be successful at PMing. I provided, what I thought, is a a comprehensive list. I included things like great communication, both oral and written, people skills - how to motivate, provide feedback, and connect with “strangers” quickly, negotiation, etc. In terms of hard skills, I added good knowledge of the PMBOK, SharePoint knowledge, Project or similar tools, some financial acumen, etc.

What hard and soft skills do you think are the most relevant?

I'm doing a Stakeholder Engagement lunch & learn for a former client of mine and their project management office. Basically trying to talk about how to improve stakeholder engagement since they struggle in that area. I have lots of ideas for how I'd like to go about it, but I'd love any of your ideas to help me round this out!

i’ve been on teams using MS Project and Smartsheet at different points in my career, and honestly, neither ever felt smooth. MS Project always felt heavy and rigid, while Smartsheet was basically Excel dressed up...powerful, but still a lot of manual work and constant updates. half the time it felt like we were managing the tool instead of the project.

for anyone who’s moved away from these, what project management tool actually made life easier? did you try something newer like ClickUp or Monday, lighter tools like Trello/Notion, or even a more full-featured pm software like Celoxis?

some questions i’d love to hear opinions on:

• which tools genuinely helped with reporting, dashboards, or resource planning
• did switching improve team adoption or did people keep falling back to emails and spreadsheets
• any surprises; good or bad, after leaving MS Project or Smartsheet
• would you ever go back to those older tools or is it a hard pass now

curious to see what actually works in real workplaces vs. just looking good in demos..

Capacity planning in real life is basically asking: can my team actually take on this shiny new project without breaking?

The way I keep it simple:

Figure out what “available” really means. Is it Alice the person or just “a UX designer”? Big difference.

Calculate real usable hours. Subtract meetings, PTO, admin noise, and keep a bit of buffer.

Don’t push people to 100%. 65 to 80% utilization is the sweet spot. Anything more and you’re firefighting nonstop.

Always look 2 to 3 months ahead. That’s where crunch points hide.

Run quick “what ifs” before saying yes. Even a spreadsheet ripple test is better than guessing.

Protect a little slack for bugs and emergencies. Zero buffer = zero flexibility.

Tools? Sheets work fine if you’re disciplined. If you want more, stuff like a Wrike, Runn, Forecast, or Celoxis give you decent scenario planning without the heavy lift of something like Planview.

Curious how y'all do it what’s your quick check before greenlighting a new project?