Coaching the Accidental Project Manager

In the last few years, I’ve heard a lot of talk about Curiosity and what it means to be “curious”. But what happens when curiosity isn’t enough?

I’ve talked previously about becoming an Accidental Project Manager early in my career. Those were years of Do-ing: documenting requirements (or eliciting requirements from stakeholders), writing code, designing interfaces, creating new processes and testing, testing, testing.

Looking back, when taking the opportunity to become the project manager for something I’d already been working on, I jumped at the chance! It turns out, I wasn’t nearly curious enough. But that is only truly understood with experience.

I was curious to dig in and begin learning about project management and all that it entailed. But that journey would take some time and I still had a job to do. Afterall, I was still doing all the developer-y things needed to deliver multiple SaaS products.

Those early days I was on my own. There was no one to tell me about the importance of risk management or the difference between sponsors and stakeholders or an effective communication plan.

Sure I learned much of this along the way to obtaining my PMP – eight years later!

I often think back to those days of wearing multiple “hats” - covering multiple roles that are typically held by multiple people in larger organizations.

Could it have been better?  Yes!

I think of how much smoother some of those projects could have gone if I’d had some help! Just a little bit of coaching on PM tools and techniques would have made a difference. Some guidance on complex scheduling issues, resource constraints and how to frame conversations both within the team and with sponsors could have made a world of difference on some of those projects.

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Whether you’re a new “Accidental Project Manager” or running a team of people, you may benefit from some experienced coaching on project delivery. If you represent an organization that is struggling with getting projects done, coaching may be the answer you need.

👉 Book online now using this link