Adaptability in project management

I have pivoted between managing one or two large projects and managing multiple programs at the same time, across different product portfolios. I have managed documentation for many software programs, including cloud and SaaS programs, and I also have experience with endpoints and other hardware products. While managing projects, I also created and maintained customer content, internal standards, the style guide, and quality initiatives.

With project management, I have learned to always expect the unexpected. It is rare for a project to go exactly as planned.

When working under tight timelines, you need to be prepared to start work before all the content for the release is fully solidified. Even when all the planning is done and everything is in place, there will likely still be some changes. I worked on pure Agile programs, and programs that were essentially a blend of Agile and Waterfall. On the blended programs, I still used Agile practices to meet tight deadlines.

While managing a project, be prepared for:

• Scope changes.

• Schedule changes.

• Sudden budget reductions.

• Unexpected resource impacts or attrition.

• Change in strategy, requiring you to quickly implement changes while still leveraging the work that was already done as much as possible.

The following are a few examples of recent situations I have dealt with:

• Many projects had to quickly pivot away from VMware. I started adding Red Hat KVM information, knowing more deployment options would likely be added over time. Not only did this require significant changes to existing content, but I also needed to consider future changes. In other words, the content had to be general enough to allow for future deployment changes, while still providing the detailed information customers would need to successfully install the product. As a project manager, I needed to adapt to the current deployment change, while also planning for future possibilities.

• I was assigned as the lead for a product in a state of disrepair. I had a senior resource with a lot of technical experience helping me for part of his time. He had started working on a major High Availability (HA) configuration feature. Then a few days later, everyone in his office location was impacted, and he would only be with the company for a few more weeks. Therefore, I gave him another important task, but one he would be able to finish before his last day. I ended up taking care of the HA work myself, and I had to replan and reassign tasks for other content.

Be prepared to step up and fill in for others on work items. Anything can change, so adaptability is the key to successful project management.

I set up a dashboard or Kanban board to track all documentation work items for my projects. I made sure each writer on my team kept their JIRAs up-to-date, so we all knew exactly what was going on. I could see if someone created a JIRA but forgot to assign it to me. I could also follow up on work items in the Need Info state or items that were resolved but still needed to be reviewed and closed.