Project Managers Build Plans Nobody Reads

“A long time ago in a place far far away maybe I was like that tech lead - resistant to “wasting” my time on documenting the steps and dates much less actually giving status updates. I was young and dumb, then I realized I wanted to get promoted and in order to do that you have to be an active participant in stakeholder management and grow into being able to tell very technically complicated stories in easy to read language and visuals busy execs can digest. In your next 1:1, be direct. Ask her w”

“Yeah, the biweekly status report is a good route. I’d keep it tight: decisions made, risks, milestones, and anything needing senior input. If your name is attached to the project and the report consistently shows what you own and what moved because of your work, senior management gets that context.”

“Creating those direct relationships with project sponsors and or project leads. When it is YOUR project you communicate with everyone on that team. Take advantage of those opportunities. Do you think you are able to use a status report biweekly to the higher ups/executives?”

Can’t remember the last time I wrote a prd, no one reads them anyway lol

“This. My apologies OP on the assumption you were in a PM type function. You’re going to burn out. Can you delegate out the non-strategy work to others in the org (eg release notes to marketing) and automate overhead like status updates?”

“There is a lot of time spent on status updates and chasing people and information to get the latest status. Where are we with a specific user story in the backlog? When is the next sprint retro and who’s attending? What happened with that Zendesk support case? What blew up on slack while I was meeting with customers? CoWork can be setup to build status and consolidated updates across these different systems. Get a daily digest on things vs. one-off prompts. Removes a lot of the information gathe”

“This is one of the most common complaints I hear from PMs, and I think it's worth separating two things that get bundled together: managing the project (status updates, timeline tracking, coordinating handoffs, chasing blockers) and doing the product work (deciding what's worth building and why). The pressure you're describing usually shows up because no one else in the org owns the first one, so it defaults to you. Once you're the person keeping the trains running, that becomes”

Go read "results without authority". There are a lot of ways that you can get people to do what you say even when they outrank you or are on another team. You…

“Exactly! Nobody wants a hard-@$$ PM. People are much more likely to respect a well-organized, data-driven PM. Also not to mention, the reality is that some people need the constant reminders on open work & tasks that are due 😝”

“I'm a Sr PM and all the people on my projects are C Suite. I just treat them like any other project. Hold everyone accountable to their deadlines, have regular check-ins, ping them when we're getting close to deadlines to see where we stand and if they have roadblocks, etc while also keeping the same compassion and empathy inoead all my projects with. Any good team knows where you stand and what your role is and should appreciate you keeping them on task, on budget and the project moving”

“Are you sending out meeting minutes with action items where you list the task, who owns it and due date?”

“I’d put in 2 weekly meetings: 1 with your boss or whoever asked you to lead the project. Run through progress and highlight blockers. 2 Immediately after, project team meeting and do the same. Project owner will back you up re blockers Also have a plan on a page or similar showing how delays affect subsequent work so it’s clear to all how one person (not you) is impacting progress”

“Be a reporter, not a judge. Report on the project status and any situations where the process was bypassed.”

“Your relative rank shouldn't be relevant when accurate reporting the status of overdue tasks and escalating where necessary.”

“Presumably someone authorized the project, even if they're not personally managing it. Get them to define what authority you have over project team members and where the lines are drawn. If you have no authority, make sure there are highly visible status/dashboard interfaces showing exactly who's responsible for what and where they're up to, where everyone else on the project (and the project initiator) can see who's working and who's slacking.”

“BA not a PM… Create visibility of all the actions and tasks with due dates. Send it out as a regular update. People soon get things done when they are visibly being compared to others.”

“When first staring out or when you're not so seasoned you need to focus on your roles and responsibilities coupled with setting clear and concise expectations of when, when and who. Please don't see yourself as "the lowest ranked person" because that is irrelevant as a project manager. Your main function is to leverage what every project resource or stakeholder (regardless of where they sit in the hierarchical structure as you need to successfully deliver your baselined approve”

“You can & should treat them like any other project team member. Be respectful but hold them accountable. Unfinished tasks should be touched on in Project Meetings.”

“Set up a weekly 15 minute sync with just your boss to review blockers. When other senior people are holding things up, you loop your boss in to unblock them. That's their job. Not yours. You coordinate and communicate. They handle the political stuff when peers aren't moving.”

“We're PMs, we don't have authority over people, but the project itself. Make sure your role is defined but you do have decision making authority on things like scope and resource management. Focus on communication, document commitments on timelines, followup on deliverables, have team meetings that hold people accountable and focus on communication. Flag risks, budget concerns, velocity changes, scope creep, etc. If people miss deadlines, talk to them. If it becomes problematic, flag it”

“You're a junior to everyone else in your normal role from the sound of it. As the project manager you manage the project. Yes there is some people management involved. But if you are running the project make the calls you feel you need to, but also don't ignore the potential to learn from those seniors and take advice where you need it.”

“Hello, I'm seeking advice on how to handle project management when everyone involved outranks you? That's the TL;DR. Here is additional context if you'd like to know more details: I'm an Individual Contributor (IC) in a technical role. I was asked to lead a technical project earlier this year involving various teams that spans our entire infrastructure. This is a great development opportunity, but I'm struggling with the coordination and people-management side. I'm junior”

“Yes have a better prompt to generate meeting summaries as your starting input. The prompt should specify that you're a project manager, the meeting is operational or a status reporting, the attendees are leadership and output should be kept at an exec level, or operational and focus on deltas. Previous meeting notes are kept in this location, the agenda is kept here do not repeat information from these sources unless necessary. The structure of your output should be as follows; Section 1. De”

“Most people dont want to understand the whole plan, they just want to know what they owe and by when. A gantt chart is a planning tool for the planner. The team just needs their next action and a deadline.”

“I'm a relatively new team lead, not a PM, so maybe this is different. But i had a quite interesting realisation lately when I've introduced a Gantt-ish chart to track the activities of the team (we kind of do smaller service projects where we need to order / manufacture test parts, go to a locations, install the parts, test the system and then go home writing reports). Instead of using good old MS Projects (where only I get a license because it's too expensive for the company ...) I”

“This is exactly the kind of gap I'm trying to understand. If you don't mind me asking, what does that reporting process look like in your team today? For example, when a PM/manager needs a weekly status update, where do they get the information from, and what parts still require manually chasing developers or updating multiple places? And roughly how much time does that take in a typical week?”

“I've spent about ten years as a business analyst, which mostly means I write the document everyone nods at and nobody reads. For a long time I thought the job was the document. Get the requirements clean, get sign-off, hand it to the builders. I got good at making the doc look finished. Then I watched a project go out completely wrong even though every box was signed. Turned out ops and finance had quietly assumed two different things about the same process, and the tidy spec papered right o”

“I’m just starting on this, but my manager gave me a 12-slide ppt to provide a status update biweekly. I’m not sure how to feel about it. I think it makes it easier to read during the calls, but I don’t think anyone reads the PDF version later.”

“People just need to know the overview of the plan. What's the update, who's working on it, when's the deadline. Simplify the process and it creates better outcome. People in our team just needs to have the same info and direction towards the project. That's the role of PM but better to have it with a system. And that's how we started delivering fast like an "Organization", you know like one organism. One mind coordination.”

“And don't fool yourself into thinking people will actually read the notes you sent before the meeting. They are reading them in real time, so please make easy for everyone by making the status updates skimmable and digestible”

Interesting. Love the automations for status reports!

“The best one is the one that works for you. Project management is not the same across the board and everyone has their own style. As long as you keep everyone on track, you’re doing it. My status report is my bible. I check it regularly and update it as the living breathing document it is throughout the day. Some people like lists. Some people use their calendars. There really isn’t a perfect way or tool. The tools are actually what fatigue me as a PM with high functioning ADHD/Anxiety. The day”

“I’m in Pro Serv as a Solution Architect and none of the PM’s that are assigned on my projects do what you listed. The only thing they do is ask me to fill out status reports for them to distribute and approve my timesheet. I’m the one that plans and keeps track of the project. I’m the one that has the hard conversations with the client of why that is out of scope.”

“Our PM Asana is great for internal tracking but looks rough when we need to share a status update with a client or exec. Plus, there's the confidentiality aspect of them seeing our workspace. What are you all using? Pls don't recommend Google docs lol. It will be mostly slide format, but maybe sometimes we will create other charts or graphs in there for the marketing and sales side if they need it. Is Prezi outdated? I was thinking either visme or canva for this but I need to make sure c”

“Unless your team is made up of all PMs, noone will care. They'll only care about their own roles, so cater your discussion around that. I'll usually give my team an overview at the beginning of the project, then subsequently give weekly timelines (meetings, deliverables, etc to focus on for the week). I'm the only one who needs to look at the overall chart (unless the client wants a copy which they will sometimes).”

“In my experience, after the first meeiting, nobody reads the agenda either TBH, I run a Planner board with Actions/Risks on it - exported to Excel for those who need it It's annoying but they get the message when they get spammed with Email for ignoring the Actions in their name In Oz, Minutes actually become the working document - nobody reads them but they want that artifcact to put the blame on others. I tend to do it how I like and make it clear that any changes can definitely be done -”

“Couldn’t agree more! Nobody reads minutes, but everyone reads agendas, so I make sure to include old business on the agendas, so people are forced to reflect on previous minutes, even if it’s only when they sit down to review the agenda. There’s no real science behind leaving old minutes on the agenda, but for me it’s usually a few weeks of completed milestones, and major agreements and decisions. Minutes (in my job at least) are really just for accountability, so six months down the road you ca”

“I think most people just want to show up to work and do the bare minimum. Bear in mind, the board of directors aren't going to give you anything for all this extra stuff you're doing for them. They'll cut you tomorrow if it saved their bottom line.”

Same. my monthly report is for someone’s ego. But I get credit for PM.

“In my experience a detailed Gantt is for the senior leadership team to feel a level of comfort that these guys know what they are doing. In practise a detailed Gantt is a point-in-time understanding of the scope of work and how we perceive we'll be sequencing the delivery of it. As you get into delivery things just evolve. What you want to track against is the high level milestones. These could be: - dev completion - test starting - user acceptance test starting - Go Live readiness - Go Live”

“Never be under the illusion that a Gantt is for anyone but you and any core project management team members. And I say that as someone with a PMI-SP. The Gantt isn't useful in isolation, it's what you do with the knowledge gained in making the Gantt and the things you do with the information that working with the Gantt surfaces to you that adds the value. Also notably why any AI tool that claims to make a schedule for you is pretty useless, because it skips many of the bits that add valu”

“As frustrating as it is (and we have all been there!), it's your job as the PM to know what's going on, especially around any changes to the work and the impact this will have on the timeline or cost. I would take this as a lesson learned and create some processes ASAP to stop this happening again. My immediate suggestions would be: 1.You must be included in all change requests All change requests, no matter how small, are documented formally, with an impact assessment completed and comm”

“In addition, the Project Manager is Ultimately always responsible, as painful as it is, you need to be fully engaged with all areas of the project and need to be raising issues pre-emptively. For example if a resource is sick on one day, I re-plan assuming they are sick for a week or even more. This might not seem fair but it is expected in the position, your job is to absorb pressure and allow the resources to perform to their best. It's a thankless job but it Pays well, so make sure you ha”

“I am very new into being a PM (almost at my 1 year anniversary for my current role) and only graduated from university last year. I am a status checker/reporter PM, so my role revolves around weekly reports on my team’s current projects and meetings. For my reports, demands from Leadership often change. They go from needing high level, bottom line statuses to super detailed (I jokingly think of it like Goldilocks). For those more experienced in st”