Hire me as your project manager
One person accountable for the date, the scope and the awkward conversations
- Experience
- 10+ years in software, 8 leading teams
- Team size
- 5 to 80 people
- Methods
- Waterfall, Agile and Scrum, usually hybrid
Right for you if
- You have developers who can build, but no one turning requirements into a defensible plan
- A Japanese client and a Vietnamese team, where the real gap is communication rather than skill
- A project already running late, where someone has to take it over and say out loud what the new date is
- A team that keeps hitting the same problems every sprint and has stopped asking why
Not right for you if
- You need someone to write the code. I manage delivery, I do not take implementation tickets any more
- You want a project manager who forwards status and nothing else. I will push back on scope, and if that is unwelcome this will not be a comfortable engagement
- The deadline and the scope are both fixed and neither can move. I would rather tell you that on the first call than three months in
- You need someone on site in Japan full time. I work from Hanoi with regular travel, not permanently on your floor
What you get
A plan you can defend to your own management
Not a Gantt chart for decoration.
- Scope broken down to pieces small enough to estimate honestly
- The dependencies that will hurt in week six identified in week one
- Buffer placed where the risk actually is, and named as buffer rather than hidden
Bad news early
The single most useful thing a project manager does.
- A slip is raised while there is still time to react, not at the review
- Every status you get is one I would be willing to show the client unedited
A team that still wants to work with you afterwards
Delivery pace that does not spend the team to hit one date.
- Overtime treated as a signal that the plan was wrong, not as a strategy
- Decisions explained to the people executing them, so they can push back
How it works
Step 1
One call to see whether this is worth doing
Free, usually under an hour.
- You describe the deadline, the scope and the constraint you are worried about
- I tell you whether I think I can help, and if not, what I would do instead
Step 2
Two weeks reading the real state
Before changing anything, find out what is actually true.
- The current plan, the backlog, the code and the last three retrospectives
- Conversations with the engineers, separately from management
- A written assessment of where the project really stands
Step 3
A revised plan, in writing
The point where you decide whether to continue.
- What ships, when, and what has to be cut to make that true
- The risks that could still break it, ranked
Step 4
Running delivery
A weekly rhythm you can rely on.
- Planning, review and one to ones on a fixed cadence
- One written status per week, in the language your stakeholders read
Step 5
Handover
The engagement should end with you not needing me.
- The plan, the risk log and the conventions documented and owned by your team
- A named person on your side taking over each responsibility
Questions people ask
Can you work with our existing process?
Usually yes. I have worked in Waterfall, Scrum and the hybrid most Japanese client projects actually run. What I will not do is pretend a process is working when the delivery data says it is not.
How much of your time do we get?
That depends on the size of the project and what else I am running. Ask on the first call and I will give you a real number rather than a comfortable one.
What if you take over and conclude the project cannot make the date?
Then I say so in the written assessment at the end of the second week, with the reasoning and the options. Finding that out in two weeks is much cheaper than finding it out in three months.
Do you sign an NDA?
Yes. Every project on this site has its client name withheld for exactly that reason.
Have a project that needs a steady hand?
Tell me the deadline, the scope and the constraint you are worried about. I will tell you honestly whether I can help.
Start a conversation