This one is a bit of a departure from my typical article topics.

Recently I wrote a book about what I call “good-enough contentment.” It’s an allegory about a forty-something man who is unhappy with his life. After a magical train ride, he learns to define what contentment means in nine areas of his life: career, family, health, friendships, finances, leisure, spirituality, giving, and legacy. Writing the story caused me to look back at my own life--the things I did well and the many mistakes I made. It inspired me to write about nine nuggets that I wish I could go back in time to tell my younger self. Some I would have done the same all over again, others radically different. All, however, are worth putting down in writing to spur your thinking about things you need to start, stop, or continue.

Here they are:  

A LinkedIn interaction from some time back still sticks with me today. Why? He and I connected, then he immediately asked to review my personal finances so he could do for me what he had allegedly done for so many other “thrilled customers.” I told him “No thanks.” He replied back asking me why. Being the direct guy I am, I told him I thought it was insincere to connect with me and immediately want to review my personal finances and try to sell me on his service. He said he never asked me to send my personal finances through LinkedIn. At this point, the discussion was no longer about him trying to sell me a service; instead, I wanted to provide a teachable moment for him. I told him that sending personal finances through LinkedIn wasn’t the issue, but I didn’t want to divulge my personal finances to someone I didn’t even know who connected with me only 30 minutes ago. After another couple of interactions, he told me that “nice people” would agree to meet with him (I guess I’m not a nice person) and that he was rescinding his offer to meet (even though I already told him I didn’t want to meet with him). It was kind of like “you can’t break up with me because I’m breaking up with you first”. He then wished me the best. He made an impression on me for sure, just not one he wanted.

The Sustainable PM series focuses on four drivers for a holistic, long-term career:

1. Sustainable skills
2. Sustainable lifestyle
3. Sustainable relationships
4. Sustainable stewardship

In my first article of this series, I shared three essential pillars of career sustainability. This article focuses on the second driver: a sustainable lifestyle.

In 4 Ways Your PM Career Sustainability Can Go Wrong, Trish is a hard-charging project manager who seems to always be working. She believes she has balance because she takes time to eat and go to the gym. She works hard and plays hard. She has opportunities to dial it back a bit and not run so hard, but when she collapses while leading a Zoom meeting, the decision to dial it back is made for her.

Read more at ProjectManagement.com. 

In a recent phone call I told the CEO of my insurance brokerage that after being a loyal customer for 15 years I had moved all my business to other providers. Given our long-standing relationship, I felt I owed him an explanation; not because I wanted to see someone fired, but because I wanted him to know my reasons for leaving so he could put any lessons learned to use.

It started about seven years ago when the person assigned to my business insurance seemed to lose interest in me. He wasn’t on top of my renewals, made me do work that he could have done for me, and didn’t competitively bid my insurance. I moved all of my business insurance to another agency. A similar issue happened in the past year with my personal insurance; I simply didn’t feel that I was important to my agent. The final nail in the coffin came when my bank notified me that my homeowners’ insurance had lapsed two months earlier without any notification from my insurance agent. I then reached out to another agency, who quickly bound coverage for me at 10 p.m. on a Saturday evening.

Some time back I wrote about 4 Ways Your PM Career Sustainability Can Go Wrong. In the article, I introduce the concept of career sustainability and the importance of running as if you were in a marathon versus a sprint. The article focused on four fictional but realistic characters:

1. The Staunch Waterfall Advocate (Stan)
2. The 24/7 PM (Trish)
3. The CEO (Jerry)
4. The Shrewd Salesperson (Alex)

Each of the characters had some successes, but also had some blind spots that impacted their sustainability in their respective jobs:

• Stan with sustainable skills
• Trish with sustainable lifestyle
• Jerry with sustainable relationships
• Alex with sustainable stewardship

I’m a strong advocate of career sustainability. I believe that skills, lifestyle, relationships, and stewardship are key drivers to help you as a professional be more consistently effective and content in your work and play lives. To that end, what follows is a four-part series focused on each driver:

1. Sustainable Skills
2. Sustainable Lifestyle
3. Sustainable Relationships
4. Sustainable Stewardship

Let’s kick things off with the first driver.

Read more at ProjectManagement.com. 

Some time back I was in a meeting with a project manager who presented the status on his troubled project to the project sponsor and other executive stakeholders. This project was of high interest to the sponsor and stakeholders as they were depending on its successful completion to make some major changes in their respective organizations. The project sponsor asked the project manager a very straightforward question:

Why is the project slipping?

The project manager went into a long, meandering monologue. The sponsor interrupted and asked the question again. More meandering from the project manager. Seeing the sponsor and other stakeholders’ growing frustration, the project manager’s boss stepped in and said they needed to do more homework and would come back the next day better prepared. The next day, the project manager’s boss presented the status and answered questions--along with a new project manager.

In this series I am outlining 42 questions that a product manager should ensure are answered across the following SDLC phases:

• Product Strategy – The reason a product exists, and its intended goals.
• Product Roadmapping – The broad timeline in which future product capabilities are slated for release.
• Initiative Planning – The definition of a project to deliver capabilities within a budget and schedule timeline.
• Solution Design – The people, process, systems and policy designs required to deliver the required capabilities.
• Solution Development – The people, process, systems, and policy capabilities have been developed and are ready for testing, training, and deployment planning.
• Solution Readiness – All solution aspects are accepted and ready to be deployed.

In the prior article I focused on seven product manager’s accountabilities when developing a solution. This article focuses on seven questions to be asked when preparing a solution for deployment.

Read more at ProjectManagement.com.

In this article series, I am outlining 42 questions that a product manager should ensure are answered across the following SDLC phases:

• Product Strategy – The reason a product exists, and its intended goals.
• Product Roadmapping – The broad timeline in which future product capabilities are slated for release.
• Initiative Planning – The definition of a project to deliver capabilities within a budget and schedule timeline.
• Solution Design – The people, process, systems and policy designs required to deliver the required capabilities.
• Solution Development – The people, process, systems, and policy capabilities have been developed and are ready for testing, training, and deployment planning.
• Solution Readiness – All solution aspects are accepted and ready to be deployed.

In the previous article, I focused on seven product manager’s accountabilities when designing a solution. This article focuses on seven questions to be asked when developing a solution.

Read more at ProjectManagement.com.