Project managers love their plans.

But their projects still fail.

Learn to love these 11 soft skills instead: Communication

• Clear > clever.
• Learn to tell stories.
• Find your voice - authenticity matters.
• Pursue extreme transparency and document everything.

As a consultant, I've seen 100s of project plans over the years.

Harsh truth: most were terrible.

These are the 7 things every project plan should include: Project planning is not sexy, but it's the first step to a successful project.

Your job is to manage expectations. To make all implicit information explicit, get everyone to agree, and then get it done.

But don't overdo it either.

The power is in the planning, not the plan.

Every company wants flawless project execution.

But in reality, 70% of projects fail.

Stop making these 9 misteaks today: 1) Lack of clear goals

Your teams can't deliver what they don't understand.

Resist the urge to give someone a vague description and expect them "to just fix it".

Agree on:
- What success looks like
- How you'll measure it

Clarity is power.

You don't get what you deserve.

You get what you negotiate.

23 hard-earned practical tips that'll save you money and anxiety (bookmark this): The other party is your partner, not your opponent.

As a consultant, I've been in 1,000+ meetings.

Most of them sucked.

Run your next meeting 3x better with this proven checklist: First: there's no such thing as an "update meeting".
Send an email instead.

Meeting purposes:
• Problem-solving & brainstorming
• Strategic thinking & planning
• Decisions & alignment
• Planning & traction
• 1:1 relationships

I've managed 100s of projects over the past 10 years.

27 harsh truths from the trenches that'll save you a year's worth of headaches (bookmark this): If it doesn't have a clear goal, budget & deadline, it's not a project - it's just work.

I've managed over $200M in projects.

27 powerful lessons from a decade of project management: If it doesn't have a clear goal, budget & deadline, it's not a project - it's just work.

Project managers love their plans.

But their projects still fail.

Learn to love these 11 soft skills instead: Communication

• Clear > clever.
• Learn to tell stories.
• Find your voice - authenticity matters.
• Pursue extreme transparency and document everything.

The average person attends 62 meetings per month.

70% think they are poorly run & useless.

This needs to stop.

Steal this checklist and become your company's meeting champion: First: there's no such thing as an "update meeting".
Send an email instead.

Meeting purposes:
• Problem-solving & brainstorming
• Strategic thinking & planning
• Decisions & alignment
• Planning & traction
• 1:1 relationships

Never mix two meeting purposes.

A former manager crushed me with her "direct feedback".

Her kick in the teeth sent me on a quest for kind & effective feedback.

Here's how you help someone grow (without being a jerk): It's a rainy December evening in 2016.

I'm sitting in a poorly-lit meeting room.

Empty coffee cups everywhere.

Sleeves rolled up: it's game time.

As I hand the partner a draft of our executive memo,

I'm about to get kicked in the teeth.

She reads through and looks up at me:

These 5 tools free tools save me 10 hr/week.

I recommend them to every client & peer.

But you've never heard about them (until now): This is not one of those threads with a list of 7 "Illegal AI Chrome plugins" that everyone has seen 100x.

These are (FREE!) tools that:
• You've probably not heard of
• I use to deliver my client projects
• Deliver on their time-saving promise

Let's dive in!

Risk-free is a lie.

Anything worth doing carries risk.

A (personal) story about loss, and how the mountains shaped my framework for risk management in business: On April 24th, 2016, I got a phone call that changed my life.

The kind of call you hope to only have in a nightmare.

Until you have it for real.

One of my best friends, mentor, and adventure partner was killed in an avalanche.

Every company wants flawless project execution.

But in reality, 70% of projects fail.

Stop making these 9 misteaks today: 1) Lack of clear goals

Your teams can't deliver what they don't understand.

Resist the urge to give someone a vague description and expect them "to just fix it".

Agree on:
- What success looks like
- How you'll measure it

Clarity is power.

Most artists are terrible art dealers.

Once you understand why, you'll also understand why most founders get stuck scaling their businesses.

A quick story about making art vs making money: Are you an artist or an art dealer?

I have this conversation with most of my clients.

Many entrepreneurs start as artists.

As they learn and grow, they slowly start acting like art dealers.

But they still THINK like an artist. And they get stuck.

Here's what I mean:

As COO & advisor I've seen 100s of strategies.

Trust me: all great strategies have ONE thing in common.

Alignment.

Give me 3 minutes and I'll show you:
• What aligned strategy is
• How you build one
• Why you need it

Let's dive in: It starts with your values:

• Aspirational
• Set for 10+ years

What do you stand for?
• Values are your DNA, principles, and beliefs
• The basis for your culture, explains how things work here

Adobe: genuine, exceptional, innovative, involved.

You don't get what you deserve. You get what you negotiate.

But most people have no clue how to do it.

Negotiation fundamentals in 23 sentences: Be soft on the person but hard on the problem. Build arguments with facts instead of your opinions.

Most companies confuse OKRs & KPIs.

They get nowhere and it costs them millions.

Give me 3 minutes and I'll explain (in plain English):
• What they are
• When to use which one
• How to use BOTH to accelerate growth

Let's dive in: I've been a consultant for 10+ years, and I've seen dozens of companies struggle with metrics & goals.

• OKRs are a goal-setting system
• KPIs are metrics that monitor performance

Most successful companies use both.

They both feed mission & vision, and they feed each other:

As a consultant, I've seen 100s of companies inside out.

All successful ones obsessed over these 7 simple ideas: • Data culture

Data is the new oil, and culture eats strategy for breakfast.

Combine the two, and build a high-performance culture around trust, accountability and data-driven decisions.

Make hitting numbers a game for your teams.

One of my clients scaled faster in Q1 of 2023 than in all of 2022.

They added:
- A new product line
- Moved into a new country
- All bootstrapped and profitable

Here's exactly how we used OKRs to execute their strategy (fast!): First off, they're rockstars.

A strong team and a good strategy made my life easy.

The issue?

They were staring at a huge mission but had no idea where to start executing it.

So we broke it down together.

From 5yr mission to tomorrow's tasks.

Here's what we did:

94% of KPIs are meaningless vanity metrics.

17 dead-simple tips to crush your 2023 goals with data: Key performance indicators show progress towards a goal. They show accomplishment, not work done.

Read this if you struggle to turn your strategy into profits.

The 6 steps of Strategic Alignment explained (with an ugly whiteboard drawing): Quick context:

As a consultant & fractional COO, I see 100s of strategies.

Trust me: your actions MUST align with the big picture.

If actions conflict with vision & values, your culture falls apart and execution feels like pushing a boulder up a hill.

Big goals, small steps.