r/projectmanagement

i’m in Denver managing enterprise software rollouts and honestly the technical side feels easier than balancing leadership expectations now. every executive wants different updates, different communication styles, different priorities, and somehow you’re expected to keep everyone aligned without creating friction. starting to realize promotions at senior levels are basically tied to influence management more than project execution alone.

I'm lead engineer on a Salesforce enterprise project I began in late February. It's a brand new build to handle the merged business of two companies. The customer looked at the project plan and insisted we cut one month out of it, which, obviously, rushed the project. We cut the timeline with the understanding that we could only maintain it if the customer delivered all their requirements on time. They missed every one of their deadlines and piled on more requirements for us to squeeze into the limited timeline. When I pointed out that their missed deadlines posed risk to the timeline, they aggressively told me it wasn't useful to point out the things that stress everyone out. I genuinely don't know how to handle a client this aggressive without the conversation going sideways.

They insisted we continue developing new functionalities through UAT. Several teammates and I have had to work six-day weeks for months, sometimes seven-day weeks, and had to work every day of the Labor Day weekend. At 8:30 on the day we began deployment, the client told us to change a basic setting that affects the way everything is priced and calculated. After deployment, their project lead noticed a single picklist she didn't like and said she couldn't sign off on a project that wasn't well built or well thought through.

At no point in this saga would the company listen to my entreaties to hold the client accountable. The reason my superiors gave me is that the client is paying so much money and our company wants future business, so we have to make them happy. Is this normal in consulting? If I leave for another consulting firm, will I have the same experience?

Every Monday it's the same thing.

I know I was deep in four different client threads last week. I know something moved on at least two of them. I have no idea which ones or what actually changed unless I go back through Slack, email, and shared docs one by one.

I've tried end-of-week summary notes. I've tried keeping a running status doc per client. I've tried PM tools. None of it holds up because the maintenance cost is higher than the value I get out of it.

For those of you managing multiple active projects: what does Monday morning actually look like? Do you have a system that doesn't require perfect discipline every Friday to maintain?

Tuesday's Intuit announcement (3,000 cut, 17% of workforce, "reduce complexity to focus on AI") is the latest in a pattern I keep noticing across industries. Klarna in 2024, Duolingo in 2025, IBM later in 2025, now Intuit. Every one of these memos names what got cut, what gets refocused, what stays. None of them name who answers when the AI is wrong.

Genuine question for the community - this isn't specific to software PM. Construction PMs whose AI tools route work orders. Banking PMs whose AI tools approve loans. Healthcare PMs whose AI tools triage referrals. Manufacturing PMs whose AI tools schedule lines. Anyone whose workflow has been partially or fully replaced by an AI system over the last two years.

When something the AI does goes wrong - bad routing, bad approval, bad triage, bad scheduling, bad customer-facing statement - is there a named human on your team or org whose job description explicitly includes "answers when this AI is wrong"? Or is the accountability implicit, defaulted, or honestly just nobody's job?

Not looking for the right answer. Looking for what people actually do. Curious whether the pattern is industry-specific or universal.

If you have a clean version of this on your team, I'd love to know what the policy or doc actually says. If you don't, also useful - want to see if the gap I'm seeing in the public announcements maps to what's actually happening inside orgs.

Early in my career I genuinely believed “good work speaks for itself.” I thought the smartest/hardest-working people would naturally rise to the top. After working in startups and corporate environments, I realized a huge percentage of career growth is actually emotional intelligence and perception management.
People are constantly asking themselves subconscious questions about you: “Are they stressful to work with?” “Can I trust them with important stuff?” “Do they create problems or reduce chaos?” A weird realization I had is that many promotions are basically trust promotions. The people who move up fastest are usually not the loudest or smartest person in the room. They’re the people who are competent AND emotionally low-friction. Calm during chaos. Easy to collaborate with. Positive without feeling fake.

One of the sharpest office politics tips I learned was: don’t only focus on being valuable. Focus on being pleasant AND valuable. A Reddit comment I saw years ago said “be nicer than you are smart,” and honestly that stuck with me. Another huge one: never bring problems without at least attempting to frame possible solutions. Leaders remember people who reduce stress, not people who amplify it. I also learned executives often communicate differently than ICs. Leadership language is usually about priorities, impact, visibility, alignment, leverage, timelines, risk, etc. Once I started framing my work around business impact instead of “tasks completed,” people started taking me WAY more seriously.

A few books/resources genuinely changed how I think about work dynamics. The 48 Laws of Power made me more aware of ego, status, and hidden incentives inside organizations. How to Win Friends and Influence People honestly felt like learning corporate social survival mechanics. The First 90 Days helped me understand positioning and strategic communication way better. ‘Executive Communication & Influence for Senior ICs and Managers’ by Wes Kao was also VERY useful for me, especially around executive communication and influence, though honestly it’s expensive (~$850) if you’re early in your career. Charisma on Command and Modern Wisdom were also huge rabbit holes for communication, confidence, leadership psychology, and social dynamics.

Honestly one of my biggest struggles was buying career/psychology/social skills books, saving podcasts and videos… then never actually finishing or applying most of them consistently. That’s also why I genuinely want to recommend BeFreed if you’re busy and trying to improve communication/social intelligence in a structured way. It’s a personalized social intelligence learning app built by a team from Columbia University. You can input your current challenges/goals/level and it builds a focused personalized learning system from books, podcasts, psychology research, interviews, etc. I like that it’s audio-first and customizable (length/depth/voice/style), so I usually learn during commuting/walking instead of doomscrolling.

The hardest office politics truth for me to accept was this: people do not evaluate you objectively. They evaluate your energy, emotional stability, trustworthiness, self-awareness, and how you make them FEEL. Once I understood that, work started making way more sense.

Hi all,

I’ve been working as a Project Manager for around 3 years, having moved into the role from a design engineering background.

In my current role, my understanding of project management has mainly been based around coordination, communication, and making sure information moves between the right people at the right time. I review project specifications, help prepare technical submittals for the client, attend and lead meetings between our internal team and the client, chase client information required by our designers, chase internal drawings and deliverables required by the client, contact suppliers for budget pricing before passing things over to procurement, and generally keep things moving across engineering, procurement, production, accounts, and the client.

In simple terms, I often see myself as the person joining the dots. I go to engineering to make sure drawings are progressing, procurement to check materials are being ordered, the shop floor to confirm production status, accounts to check invoicing, and so on.

I recently completed a Certified Project Management Diploma through the Institute of Project Management, which gave me a broader view of the PM role. It highlighted that PMs can also be involved much earlier in the project lifecycle, including tender-stage input, budget development, contingency/risk allowances, resourcing, and team setup.

I also had an interview recently with a structural steel company that works on international projects, and the PM role sounded quite different from my current position. The interviewer explained that the successful candidate would be expected to manage a site team abroad, decide how a steel frame should be split for delivery to site, check loads before dispatch, make sure all nuts/bolts and materials are included, negotiate steel prices, organise crane lifts, check that the site is suitable for the required crane, and manage the overall schedule and stakeholders.

Some of those responsibilities surprised me. This was not a very small company where I would automatically expect one person to cover several functions. Given the scale and international nature of their work, I would have assumed areas like procurement, logistics, site management, production planning, and lift planning would sit with dedicated people or departments, with the PM coordinating the overall delivery and making sure the right specialists had ownership.

So I’m trying to understand how much the PM role varies depending on the company, industry, and project type.

Am I currently in a more coordination-focused PM role than normal, where other departments own their specialist areas and report back into the PM? Or are some PM roles, particularly in structural steel, construction, or site delivery, genuinely expected to be that hands-on across procurement, logistics, site setup, installation planning, and commercial decisions?

I’m not saying either approach is right or wrong. I’m just trying to understand where the boundaries usually sit between “owning the project outcome” and directly carrying out tasks that might otherwise sit with procurement, logistics, engineering, production, or site management.

I’d be interested to hear how other PMs have experienced this across different industries or company sizes.

Thanks in advance.

For those of you that work in an Agile environment, how do you handle budgets/cost control?

Currently, my company has a process in which individual IT projects are estimated, reviewed and approved. The projects are then worked by IT with clear start/end dates. If we want a phase 2, we need to go back thru the review/approval process (and compete with other dept requests)

I am trying to press us to work towards a more Agile flow, but I think the hold up is going to be wanting a clear cost control. They want each effort estimated, with IT billing time per project.

If your IT team is Agile, how is budget/cost managed?

After being involved in a few PM software rollouts over the years, I honestly think most enterprise implementations fail for a very simple reason nobody wants to admit: the company buys a system optimized for visibility, reporting and governance but the people actually doing the work just want something they can survive using every day.

Every rollout starts the same way. Leadership wants better portfolio visibility, capacity planning, cleaner reporting, more predictability across teams. Procurement gets involved, security reviews happen, 20 demos later a huge platform gets selected because technically it can do everything. Then real work starts happening inside it.

And suddenly teams are buried under workflows, custom fields, dashboards, automations, approval chains, portfolio structures and reporting requirements that looked great in the demo but feel exhausting during actual execution.

I’ve seen companies spend months migrating into systems where: engineers still track things privately because updating the tool feels slower, managers stop trusting dashboards because every department uses the system differently, PMs become full time translators between what the tool says and what is actually happening.

The weird thing is most of these tools are not even bad individually. Jira makes sense for engineering-heavy orgs. Monday works well for stakeholder visibility. Microsoft Project is strong for scheduling-heavy PMOs. Smartsheet works for spreadsheet-native operations teams. But once organizations scale, the hidden problem becomes adoption friction, not missing features.

And honestly I think this is where enterprise evaluations go wrong: companies compare features instead of comparing operational weight. Because the best PM platform on paper means nothing if half the organization quietly routes around it after 6 months.

At this point I’m convinced the hardest thing in enterprise project management is not finding a tool that can do everything. It’s finding one people will still willingly use after the honeymoon phase ends.

I work for a small company and I feel like the work dynamic is confusing. I was wondering if I could get input.

Technically I am a coordinator but I work under three project managers across multiple projects during the year. I frequently get bombarded and frustrated with the fact I don't actually have a general manager to manage workflow. Everyone requests stuff from me randomly and when I have three different people doing it I get overwhelmed. Is that normal ?

Then there's the fact that I am supposed to check to make sure th project is being done properly, make documents, etc. but I never actually get client information. It's always word of mouth from the PM. I'm frequently unaware of how a project is developing and I lack visibility. I am not allowed to sit in on calls with clients or even be cc'd in emails.

And even then I only work on like 20% to 50% of a project so I feel like I know less rather than knowing more. That's partly because all the PMs in this business are controlling and do a lot of work themselves because "it would be too complicated" to explain to someone else, which is why I've asked to be more included in client contact (even if I just observe).

Is it normal for getting information to be like pulling hairs ?

Finally I am also supposed to liaise with suppliers but the PMs do about 50% of that and often take over the coordination after I make initial contact, which makes me feel frustrated and embarassed. They always say I can't really coordinate with the suppliers because I don't have all the details from clients...so why ask me to do it anyway???? We've had some suppliers complain about this model and get confused. Recently there's been mistakes where I assumed a PM took over with certain stuff that they usually do, but they didn't and we fucked up a project pretty bad.

Finally they want me to check and review their work and complain if ever they have to check something that I've done (I work for a severely understaffed family business that values speed above all else).

But honestly, that feels backwards. It feels like a supervisory task (like for example, making sure my boss is sending out contracts on time). Is that the dynamic in larger companies ?

We've had a lot of mistakes this year as the business is expanding and different PMs work on different aspects of the same project with random help from different coordinators.

I got ripped off a project by my boss (also a PM) who wanted to continue it with a newer coordinator. My boss did not cancel some stuff with our suppliers that I had previously reserved and we had to pay cancelation fees. The new coordinator didn't know to do this, my boss didn't think to do it. Somehow I got blamed. Yet had the PM actually kept me in the loop about the client, I would have been able to cancel the thing on time.

And there's been worse screw ups too.In the last six months they hired two other coordinators and then fired them when similar but more impactful errors occurred. Now they've hired two more and I can see the whole thing starting again.

Thanks for your input

Managing big projects with lots of moving parts is a headache. Weve got different teams, tasks everywhere, and deadlines that are tough to keep track of. The issue is getting everyone on the same page without giving them too much info at once.

Ive tried using task management tools, but when the projects super complex, its hard to keep it clear for everyone. I end up sending out long emails or updates manually, and it just adds more chaos.

Anyone have a tool that helps visualize workflows in a way that doesnt overload the team?

Hello everyone!! I have a question. My mom asked me to make a WBS for a project she’s working on and I don’t know how much I should charge her for it. I already turned it in and she loved it . For context, I’m in Mexico and this is the first time I’ve made one for someone else as a professional service. Please help me.

Hey everyone. I’m an engineer with 8 YOE and just became a project manager. I’m looking for books or podcasts that will teach me how to do my job. Tips, workflows, rules of thumb etc.

I’m currently operating based on what I think needs to happen and my own experience of what I wish PMs had done earlier in my career. I just got my first project out to bid and it went okay but I know there’s area for improvement.

Related question: Are PMP certifications worth pursuing?

"Senior PM at a mid-size tech company. My calendar is basically a sequence of stakeholder calls: engineering syncs, exec updates, vendor negotiations, cross-functional reviews.

I'm in an open office. Always. The engineering team is noisy. The product team is noisier. I can block out what I hear fine. The problem is what stakeholders hear on their end.

Executive sponsors on calls have asked about background noise twice this quarter. Once from a VP I was trying to get a budget decision from. Timing could not have been worse.

I know there's software that filters noise. Running it. Still not enough in our space. Looking for earbuds that create a quiet bubble or at least something that meaningfully reduces what the mic picks up in an open office environment. Does that actually exist or is this category still basically unsolved.

Hi All PMs. I got my Prince 2 Agile Practitioner exam tomorrow. I am taking it in the class with lector and other students.

I know I can use my laptop to access official book.

Do you guys know If I will be also able to use for example One-Note? I have my notes there and it would be quite helpful to use them. But I am just thinking that my laptop will be restricted after I start exam

Thanks

Got hired to manage a project that was already well under way.

Project is for a client who supplies another who supplies another client. I'm in contact with the next client in the chain, but not the two others.

Place is a small shop who never had a PM. Owner told me he has "too much on his plate", but never gave a clear expectation of what is my role in the company.

At first I thought, this is great I got my work cut out for me. Organise the process, assign roles, standardize comms, build a project time-line. Everyone was on board... until I started implementing. Now, I'm mostly ignored.

The kicker: they managed to slip in a required 50% deposit in their contract, but from I gathered, it was never fully communicated to their client and they signed off without realizing or thinking it would be enforced.

Now, the client expected production was underway since February. We got the deposits in May. Our client communicated to theirs that we'd be delivering this week, but I was barred from starting before the start of the month. Not to mention I started a month ago.

I organized a meeting between the two presidents this morning to hash this out. Ours bailed last minute, stating he needed to grab a product that was ready for pickup two weeks ago. Blamed me saying he thought it was a call meeting, even though I send an email and called twice to make sure he understood.

Anyone was in this situation before? Not sure sure if they just wanted a quick cash grab or their organization was never going to be able to deliver and now I was hired just to be thrown under the bus.

TLDR: Project started in February, main client is expecting delivery next week, company did mostly nothing until I was hired last month and barred me from starting until two weeks ago, team is not doing much to help, owner is MIA, delivery won't be possible until mid-June at best. Was I hired to be fired?

What are your best tips for organization especially your weekly routine and agenda management? Do you spend all day in meetings? How do you prevent meeting fatigue?

Thanks in advance :)

Hey everyone,

I would like to get a few tips on what skills I need to improve, what tools I should learn or that "must watch" course or youtube video I have to see!

Just to be clear, thats not my first experience, I was mainly involved in the engineering department, then moved to Project Engineering Manager for a few months and then I asked to move into another city, so they offered me this role.

Thanks in advance!

Hello everyone,

I graduated less than a year ago in an unrelated degree (MSc in Organizational Psychology) and I somehow landed a role as a Project Coordinator (sector: business development & education) and I've been working for about 1 month. The company is B2B and B2B2C.

Since most of the job is remote I don't get much onboarding from the manager and they never had a project coordinator or a project manager in their company before. The company has about 15 employees including me.

So far in my 1 month of work I've been tasked with:

1. Reducing the bottleneck of leads (implemented and developed a questionnaire that measured multiple aspects and weighs them which gives us a lead score based on what we prioritize in that moment)

2. Making sure other employees follow the flowchart the questionnaire is based on.

3. Calling 100+ people in 2 days to make sure they register for one of our online classes.

4. Transfer Excel sheets that previous employees left into Monday and making sense of them and dividing them into parts and into Kanban.

5. QA tests for our new website and making sure everything works in that regard.

6. Checking other employees presentations for errors and miscommunications in their presentations on Canva and adding comments.

My question is: is this what a project manager or a coordinator usually does or are they just keeping me busy? Can someone give me an example of what I should be doing instead?

Curious to hear some feedback from others. What courses would you suggest for PMs who are just starting out and need some direction?

For some background: I am a SrPM within my company and have been in a PMO for 5 years now. I started as a coordinator and moved to PM, then SrPM.

Anyway, my team and company is changing, growing and reorganizing. We have a ton of projects coming down the pipe and not enough experienced PMs to take it all on. We have a few coordinators with prospect who will eventually be great PMs, but are not quite ready without some serious handholding. We have also acquired two people from our installation side in the warehouse to now become PMs. So, these people have some management experience and are familiar with the technically side, but they do not have any specific PM experience.

I believe these people could benefit from some PMI courses (or really any training courses) to help them understand some of the basics of PM work. (Management styles, problem solving approaches, excel training, etc.) I have my CAPM right now but am scheduled to take my PMP at the end of June. I’m not sure PMP is necessary for these folks, but I’m thinking at least some training courses could be beneficial for them.

Curious on feedback from anyone and if they have any suggested courses?