What does it mean to manage your project? Managing your project means understanding what needs and objectives are, then we effort the entire process while accomplishing those goals. One of the  goals is to lead everyone to the finish line, however there are time we have to drag them.

I was discussing features, benefits and functionality regarding an application with a client many years ago when one of their employees took us down a dark hole. I use the term dark hole to describe a topic being discussed at great length that had no bearing on the project what so ever. A side track like that can destroy a project timeline, especially when you add them up over time. Of my many roles one of the most important one is to keep things on track, so the next time we got off track I had to get us back on track, fortunately the group understood the neccessity of staying on task, but there have been times that being tactful did not work. As a consultant my job is to keep things moving, because if the project is late, the only thing that I will be remembered for was "the project was late".  It's my responsibility to make sure we stay on point as tactfully as possible!

Project management is not just about managing meetings. To manage a project successfully, we need to manage all the resources involved in the project. We need to make sure everyone is on the same page, from the developers to testers. Everyone has to take ownership of the project and I own it all. Any and all issues are my issues and need to be addresed. 

We employ recognized project management techniques, mainly from years and years of experience and acceptable PMI (Project Management Institute) standards. In case you've never heard of PMI it is the gold standard for project management techniques and practices.