3 Things I Wish I Did When I Started My Career as a Project Manager

Stop Saying “Yes” to Everything

The second thing I wish I would have done, or in this case not done, is say “Yes” to every single customer and stakeholder request.

Raise your hand if you’ve ever been there. I am raising both hands right now.

You’re probably thinking, “But Sonya, you have to be able to handle all business requests. That’s your job!”

No, it’s not. Neither is yours.

Let me tell you something I wish someone had told me back in the day.

Every time you say “Yes” to something, you are saying “No” to something else at the same time. Be aware of these choices!

When a new request arrives, you need to analyze whether your team is capable of handling new work at this moment.

If you don’t perform that evaluation and start the new request immediately, what you’re essentially doing is suspending another work item in progress. You borrow time and you generate flow debt. This approach could go tremendously wrong if the work item you’re suspending has a higher priority than the one you’ve just started.

Now, I’m telling you this because early on I said “Yes” to absolutely everything and my teams and I only became that much more stressed and overwhelmed. Eventually, we burnt out.

It took me a certain number of years of going down this road to realize that this is not going to be the path to long-lasting success.

If you’re a people-pleaser or a recovering people-pleaser (just like me!) or you’re someone who doesn’t like to get into confrontations and difficult conversations, I want to encourage you to take a stand.

Instead of trying to do all the things all at once, really, just say “Yes, but later”. If you need someone to give you permission to stop saying “Yes”, I’m happy to be that person. You can just stop now.

Build a Solid Delivery System

Lastly, lesson number three may not come as a surprise to you. I may be biased but I stand behind it 100%.

I’d have started optimizing our workflow for predictability at the moment I finished gathering my team. That’s all I would’ve needed to make reliable delivery commitments.

Not only would it take just a couple of minutes to come up with accurate forecasts, but also I would have enabled my team to really focus on their actual work.

Back in the day, we were struggling to deliver on our promises. We were counting hours and story points to be able to come up with accurate results. Despite all our efforts, we were always late. We were over-promising and under-delivering.