r/projectmanagement

I’m looking for advice from PMs who’ve co-managed large programs.

I’m on a healthcare transformation program that’s going through a major restructuring, so roles and ownership are still evolving. I’m working alongside another experienced PM, and while I’m trying to assume positive intent, almost every proposal I bring forward is immediately challenged.

A few examples:

1. i proposed a weekly PM operations check-in that included our project coordinators so we could align on action items, dependencies, and meeting logistics before leadership meetings. Her first response was, “Why are the coordinators there?”

2. I suggested using action logs and RAID logs while workstreams develop their milestones, then building the integrated project plan afterward. She believes we need the master project plan immediately and continues raising it with leadership. They leave it up to us to develop.

I don’t mind healthy debate, but these conversations almost always happen in front of leadership instead of between the two of us first. It also feels like she’s trying to be involved in every workstream and leadership discussion, which has made it difficult to establish trust. She continues to say in front of leadership that I work in a silo and move secretly but I have so much documentation where she is included in work that I have produced?

Have any of you worked with a PM like this?

How did you distinguish healthy governance from behavior that slowed the team down?

Did you address it directly, or ask leadership to clarify roles?

What worked?

I’m open to the possibility that I’m contributing to the dynamic too, so I’d appreciate honest perspectives.

I'm interested in hearing from people or team managers - what do you wish for your PM direct reports knew? What could they do better?

What would help you form a positive relationship with them?

Often my conversations with my manager revolve around escalating problems, project issues or letting off steam. Everyone seems to do it because it's a chaotic project and we're all stressed. I'm wondering if this is probably limiting my career or making me come across as negative.

Fundamentally, if you’re the type of person that enjoys being a PM it’s because you like follow-through and get a hard on for organization and completion (pun intended).

In every PM role I’ve had I hit a point where if no one is going to do the work timely (or well) I’ll just do it myself. This gets results and helps move projects along. I also find that this gives me more insight into the process as a whole and creates better dialogue with my BAs and architects since I actually have an understanding of the nuts and bolts, unlike the stakeholders or executives.

What I’m trying to get at, is whether this is a normal aspect of being a PM, or if perhaps this is an alternative role/career path I should be pursuing. I’m a curiosity learning and I’m petty so I am more than happy to dive right into the deep end.

We're a team of two building an AI startup, so we're wearing pretty much every hat imaginable. One minute we're doing product engineering, the next growth, customer calls, infrastructure, marketing, fundraising... you get the idea.

Lately we've realised our biggest bottleneck isn't actually execution, it's organising the work.

We're trying to keep all of this connected:

• Long-term vision (12-24 months)
• Quarterly objectives
• Product roadmap
• Active projects
• Kanban boards
• Documentation/wiki
• Meeting notes
• Short-term tasks
• Ideas/backlog

The problem is that they all influence each other, so when one changes, everything else should ideally stay in sync.

We've been trying to use Notion, but we've hit a few problems:

• It feels like you spend more time designing the workspace than actually planning.
• The flexibility becomes a downside because there are 100 different ways to structure everything.
• Relationships between databases become increasingly complicated.
• The UX starts feeling heavy once you have lots of projects and views.
• My cofounder and I also think differently. He prefers one way of visualising work, I prefer another, so we end up fighting the tool instead of planning.

The irony is we're spending hours discussing how to structure our planning system, instead of discussing what we should actually build next.

I'd love something where strategy naturally flows into execution.

Something like:

>

...without having to manually maintain five different databases.

I'm not necessarily looking for another "task manager." I'm looking for something that helps us think and execute as a small startup.

A few questions:

• What are you using instead of Notion (if anything)?
• Has anyone found a setup where roadmaps, docs, projects and tasks actually feel connected?
• Are people combining multiple tools or have you found one tool that does most of it well?
• At what point did you decide Notion wasn't the right fit?

I'd especially love to hear from founders or teams of 2-10 people building software, because I suspect the needs are very different from larger companies.

Thanks!

I need an objective opinion on a situation at my workplace. We all work in the same department, see each other regularly and the department is divided into several teams.

My problem is with the lead of another team. This person consistently avoids direct communication with me. Whenever there is an issue regarding my projects, they go straight to my boss, who then comes to me.

For example: Recently, I had a technical question for a colleague in that team. That colleague discussed it with their lead. Instead of replying to me directly, the lead went to my boss to "resolve" the issue, and my boss then relayed the information back to me.

What’s strange is that there are other project managers on my same level in my team—all of whom are men. This lead communicates with them normally, talks to them directly, and doesn't involve the boss for every little thing.

Nothing has ever happened between us. We are polite when we see each other, but there is never any professional exchange. If I try to reach out via email or phone, I usually don’t get a response.

I feel like this is a lack of respect and a form of intentional exclusion.

• Am I overthinking this?
• What could be the reason behind this behavior, especially since it only seems to affect me and not my male colleagues?
• How would you handle this?

Looking forward to your input

Hi everyone,

I need a suggestion, as I recently joined a company in a middle-management marketing position and have started managing many projects and campaigns simultaneously.

My main struggle is the absolute chaos of how other team members, including my direct manager, operate - emails/spreadsheets upon spreadsheets/notes in docs / random mentions on team meetings that never manifest in anything written, but then surface in the form of " I DID SAY IT 10 weeks ago in some random spreadsheet".

Sometimes I struggle for hours trying to compile all of the data into one place.

I use Notion for personal project management, and that helps me a lot.

I have tried to adopt Notion team wide, and our CMO agreed with all of my points - after hours and hours of setting up Notion and workflows for the wider team, making it as simple as possible + having 1 on 1 calls with each team members, showing workflows and how it can benefit them, setting up workflows that mimic their own, 6 months later - wider team got back again to spreadsheets/emails / random messages and turned everything into chaos, essentially abandoning all my effort.

I feel sad and pissed, and I have never seen this in my previous career experience - absolute refusal to learn something new and better.

How do you act in a situation like this, perhaps a tip you can share - where you try to organise chaos, but they simply refuse, or tell you to your face - "yeah, this is great, I will use it" and then use it once and just abandon it.

Thank you.

I recently got hired at a start up company for a role that wasn’t developed when I started interviewing with the owners of the company (there was a mutual connection with an employee who recommended that the owners meet me). My interviews with the owners led to the development of the role I’m now in, which is at an executive director level. I started the job in April.

When I first joined, I did onboarding meetings with each department director and lower level managers plus some staff to “understand what everyone’s role is and what they do.” Those meetings were hard for me because in almost every one of them, the person was confused about what MY role was and why I was hired. I also had a hard time answering that at the time because it seemed like for every answer I gave about my role (assisting with process improvement, streamlining and standardizing policies and procedures, and business development) there was someone in a director position with a team responsible for those things and I was perceived to be “stepping on other people’s toes.”

I also had only a vague idea of how anything worked because the business is confusing and the owners explain it by drawing a picture on a piece of paper and showing it to the camera (virtual meetings) so I wasn’t sure what I’d be specifically doing. It feels so embarrassing to even admit this on this post because who accepts a job they don’t understand!! I just thought I would figure it out and work with people to execute projects and build programs. But like, everyone feels so far away and most tasks have like 5 walls I can’t seem to break through to complete anything.

I have so much imposter syndrome and the company I work for is a start up, which means decisions frequently change and projects change directions FAST - and everyone seems to understand how things work except for me. When I ask questions, I get a feeling like I’m being judged and that people are annoyed with me. I feel like a burden and it’s impacted my emotions to the point where I’m so anxious that it’s hard to get myself to start working on things that involve communicating with other people. I’m also afraid I’ll deliver the wrong information and get in trouble for confusing everyone and making a simple thing more difficult than it should be.

Every week I meet with my boss who is a c-suite executive and Ive shared these concerns and my worries that I’m not meeting expectations. My boss has given me more support but it’s still high level and vague and my boss seems to be annoyed I don’t already know these things and have more questions than answers.

I also meet with the owners of the company and my boss every week and those meetings are SO tense. One day the CEO just started showing up to that meeting and he was really nice in my interview but he mostly ignores me or gets visibly annoyed and/or bored when I speak. These meetings are where big ideas come out and if I wasn’t recording every meeting and transcribing it afterwards, then obviously deleting the recording and keeping the relevant notes, I’d have no idea what to do.

I’m so sorry this is so long. I’m anxious and procrastinating starting my work. I just feel so stupid whenever I open my mouth. I don’t know what to do but I don’t know what to ask either. As an executive director, I feel like I shouldn’t have questions based on how my questions are received by others (cold, withholding, unhelpful).

Please help me. I have left work twice in tears since starting 3 months ago. I know i can do this work. On paper, it’s not hard. But the people make things so fucked up and turned around. What do i do to get myself back on track and start directing others to do what they’re supposed to do when we all have a project we’re involved in?

I had a 1:1 with my manager today that's been sitting with me. The core feedback was: my team isn't proactively following deadlines or communicating with me. She framed this as a "director-level presence" issue, basically, be more authoritative and people will respect the deadlines and speak up on their own. At one point she did an impression of how I talk while making her point, mimicking how I speak? 

But if someone consistently misses a deadline I've set, isn't that ultimately something their manager (who may not be me) needs to step in and correct? It feels like being told "be more authoritative" is being used as the fix for a compliance problem, when the actual issue might be that there's no real accountability behind the deadline regardless of how I ask for it. Really most of the teams are completely overwhelmed so I’d argue it’s a resource problem. 
Regardless  Is "manage up your tone" actually the standard fix here, or should a manager also intervene directly when someone repeatedly doesn't deliver?

Separately — I lead with a pretty casual, open, rapport-based style with my team. I think it's part of why people trust me, but I think she reads it as not being "authoritative" enough. I don't want to become a hardass to prove a point, but I also don't want to dismiss real feedback if there's something to it.

Is it reasonable to expect a manager to step in on repeat missed deadlines, or is holding people accountable purely the PM's job regardless of style?

How do you tell the difference between "this is useful feedback, act on it" and "this was more about how it was said than what was said"?

Can you be more direct/structured as a leader without giving up a casual, relationship-driven style?

Appreciate any perspective — trying not to let one comment overshadow the part of this that's actually useful.

ive seen a bunch of how am i supposed to handle this and i think i messed up posts from newer PMs lately and honestly it makes me want to reach through the screen and tell yall to relax a bit. i have ~14 years doing this and i STILL have weeks where i feel like im just winging it. i think thats most of us. the people who seem unbothered are usually just better at hiding it.

quick background so this isnt just some anonymous trust me bro, i fell into pm sideways. started in operations, got handed a small software rollout because nobody else would touch it, it went ok and suddenly that was my job forever. no cert for the first 6 years. eventually got capm then pmp, mostly because it helped me get interviews, not because it taught me how to actually do the work.

anyway here's some stuff in no particular order, take what's useful:

1. the status update is not the job. removing the blocker is the job. i wasted years being a really efficient reporter of bad news. nobody promotes you for accurately documenting that something is on fire.
2. when youre new, over communicate. like way more than feels normal. you will not get in trouble for hey just confirming we're still aligned on X. you WILL get in trouble for assuming. the only exception is execs, for them, shrink everything down to time and money and the one decision you need from them. they do not want the saga.
3. dont surprise people in front of their boss. if you have to deliver something someone won't love, give them a heads up first, privately. you basically never want a stakeholder hearing bad news about their area for the first time in a room full of people. they will remember it and they will not help you next time.
4. escalating is not snitching. took me forever to get over this. asking nicely 3 times and getting nothing isnt patience its just you absorbing someone elses miss. "hey this is now a week late and im going to have to loop in your manager so we can reprioritize" is normal, professional and honestly people respect it more than the silent resentment thing.
5. own your screwups fast and plainly. "yeah that was my call and it didnt work, here's what im doing about it" buys you SO much more trust than any amount of spin. people can smell the spin.
6. you are going to feel like an imposter and it mostly never fully goes away, you just get more comfortable not knowing things. the skill isnt having all the answers. its being calm and useful while you go find them.
7. relationships are the actual deliverable. the plan, the gantt, the tool, whatever, thats all secondary. the reason things get unstuck is usually that someone likes you enough to do you a favor. invest in that constantly, before you need it.

idk this got long. point is if youre newer and panicking, you're probably doing better than you think. what would yall add to this?

I was assigned technical coordination for a summer program for children and teenagers. It’s run by another department, but our team handles all the technical side (classrooms, presentation equipment, WLAN, mobile devices, etc.).

Previous years had recurring technical issues, which led to strong criticism of our department. Since I’m responsible this year, I prepared thoroughly: created checklists, planned pre-event room checks, arranged on-site support, and requested necessary additional equipment.

I aligned this with the Support team lead, who was initially on board. However, another IT team lead (and as a reaction also my manager) overruled most of the preventive measures, saying they’re “not essential” and we should save resources. Key points that got cut:

• No pre-event technical room inspections
• Almost no dedicated on-site support during the event (organizers should just use the ticket system)
• Significantly reduced equipment availability. for example, even though four mobile routers are available and not needed elsewhere during summer break, we are only allowed to provide one

I’m now worried that if things go wrong — especially in the first few days — it will reflect badly on me, even though the important preventive steps were rejected from above.

How would you handle this situation?

Appreciate any advice. Thanks!

From my experience working for different companies I have had great onboarding and terrible onboarding and for me has been a make or break experience. When I have had bad onboarding I have always missed something crucial about the job that eventually when they see it I get labeled as incompetent and ruined my reputation inside the company instead of looking into my onboarding process.

But for remote companies I feel like the onboarding would be even harder to nail because there is so much knowledge that needs to be communicated and often times a lot of processes and knowledge is retained in individuals rather than properly documented aswell which would worsen the onboarding further.

How do remote companies handle this? What's the process for onboarding typically?

I am an individual contributor working with 2 very, very busy stakeholders: the CRO and CEO. I report to the CRO but CEO makes the call on many things. CRO also reports to CEO.

Most approvals go like this:

\- I send to CRO, CRO puts in comments, I revise, then send to CEO on CRO's instructions

\- CEO takes a look and changes the direction, I revise again

Lots of back-and-forth and oftentimes playing a game of broken telephone. Sometimes when things change, I'm not in the loop because decisions happen in DMs.

The biggest issue for me is that timelines become dynamic - things get pushed back or compressed because I'm either (1) chasing for approvals or (2) worse, I unintentionally jump the gun on certain deliverables before getting approvals.

Both CRO and CEO are really nice people, and I'm loving the company culture. I get frustrated with the situation sometimes, simply because the chances of me making mistakes is so much higher - because Idk what each of them wants! And this stresses me out with a diagnosed anxiety.

So I'm looking for TACTICAL tips around how best to handle both of them while keeping to my timelines - appreciate the community's advice!

Right now we’re stuck in an awkward middle zone with slack for chat, email for official stuff, and separate project boards depending on the team the result is work gets fragmented, decisions are scattered across threads, and nobody is sure where the latest update actually lives

Marketing talks in slack, dev tracks work in a board, ops follows email, and leadership just wants one clear view without digging through everything so the real problem is team communication across departments that doesn’t connect to the actual work looking for a setup where conversations stay tied to tasks, handoffs don’t get lost in copy paste, and approvals and ownership are visible without chasing people across tools.

At first glance, all I see is so many build-in features but is it actually worth it for small businesses?

I’m struggling with a decision over whether I should change my role from Project Manager to a product manager or program manager. I’ve Been a project manager for ~10 years, but I’m getting bored and am unsure of what path to go down. Anyone face similar choices? What choice did you make and how happy are you with the choice?

Program manager feels like the more natural choice, but I’ve managed multiple teams at the same time and the role just feels like project management w more strategy alignment.

I live in Boston and I am making $170k per year. I think I’ve hit my ceiling compensation-wise re: local market.

Decisions, decisions, decisions.

Especially if you deliver software deployments to external stakeholders, I’d love to hear from you.

How do you create value on your projects? What are the top 3 things you bring to your engagements that you feel have the largest impact?

Bonus if you feel like sharing:
- are you present for all requirements gathering, prior to “build” starting? If not, how do you ensure there’s no scope creep during requirements?
- how do your teams relay actions and/or decisions to you for calls you are not on?
- if there was something you wish your org would change that’d make managing your projects more successful, what would it be?

Thanks in advance - I’m always appreciative of this group sharing their (armchair) perspective (shoutout MoreLaw, our unofficial PMO advise extraordinaire)

IT project managers, do you select the members for your teams based on factors other than technical skill, or you just use what’s available?

Other factors: personality, agreeableness, cultural fit, etc.

Everyone talks about automating takeoff or scheduling or RFIs. cool, those matter. but in my experience the single most time-consuming manual task in precon that directly affects project outcomes is bid leveling. 30 proposals, buried exclusions, vague qualifications, scope gaps you don't catch until six weeks in.

feels like it's underrated as an automation target. curious if PMs and precon folks feel the same or if i'm just in a particularly painful situation.

What is currently offered that you use?

How much would you pay for a fully functional automated scheduling software, that would work internally/externally and reduce your scheduling admin time by over 90%