As a project manager, I get glimpses into clients lives every time we kickoff a new project. A laptop camera has become the lens at which I see into the personal lives of everyone I meet. I see their kids playing, their kitchen being repainted, or even that they are a fan of midwest AAA league baseball.

While these details help me humanize and connect with those I serve, their words resound to a greater scale of the day to day turmoils we all face.

Continue Reading What Fears We Share

The last several weeks have been a nightmare for time. Every day I’ve been asked for help on a project while attempting to maintain my own. I’ve also been spending some time working on myself.

Not only have I continued reading 7 habits of highly effective people, I’ve been reflecting on my own experiences at LexBlog. Just getting into the end of the first section (intro and overview) of the book, it dawned on me how wrong I’ve been with my personal paradigm on projects. Feeling overwhelmed by the sheer amount of work has left me drained and emotionally exhausted from a constant need to prove my worth i.e. a “Personality Ethic”.

My set of work paradigms are changing towards a “Character Ethic”. I have seen this growth in myself and others.

Continue Reading A Project’s Carol

Representatives from the realms of Sales, Support, Product, Design, and Operations met to discuss the great enemy of LexBlog. A backlog of blogs, websites, microsites, and portals that threaten our standing with numerous clients. This is one project to rule over all other projects and must been eliminated.

Really, we have a list of blogs that for one reason or another stalled out. Either the client lost interest, communications dropped, or someone somewhere hesitated about a decision. This post is about the beginning of the end of stalled projects at LexBlog.

Continue Reading Fellowship of the Project and Risk Management – Carl Pritchard

For the last several months I’ve been attempting to rectify what I’ve been told about being a PM and the reality of being a PM. My expectations for daily work has really butted heads with what I actually do. While I’ve become overwhelmed with anxiety because of this, I haven’t been able to pin down the exact issue until I a few nights ago.

Continue Reading Conflicting Values and Project Management

Recently engaged, I have been setting out with my fiance to determine a solid venue for the BIG DAY. Like a good project manager, I had us first determined our deliverables, budget, and task list. I know the difficulty of venue selection. Some places require you use their in-house catering. Some have a minimum drink order. Heck, some have very specific requirements for setup, i.e. “the dj has to go in this one spot”. In any case, we quickly learned who we were going to work with was almost as important as getting the venue we wanted.

Continue Reading Project Management Life Lesson – You Set the Tone for the Project