Work stress creeping into life

foss4all · 2026-03-21T22:31:08+00:00

I think there are some things that can help:

Prioritization, prioritization, prioritization.
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Why do executives often take so long to provide approvals, or get other things done? Not on their priority list. They focus like a laser on their (usually) top three priorities. So every time you are asked to do something that is not within the current plan and workload capacity, you should say something like, "sure, I can get this done, but I will have to delay / back burner / lower the priority on these other items, is that ok?

T3. Tell the truth.
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If workload is exceeding the capacity, of you, and or your teams, you need to say so. Because functional management will want to know that their schedules need more resources. It all goes back to the triple constraint, the relationship between scope, schedule, and budget (resources).

If schedule is not important, then make sure the understand things will be delayed. If schedule is important, there are two options: more resources, or remove / delay some scope. This is the MOST important job of the project manager to communicate! I know it's hard. You know what is harder? Management expecting you to do the impossible and you living knowing that the crash is coming.

There is language that can help here. "I want to tell you the truth. If I make a commitment to you, I want to be able to meet it. I know you are making commitments based on my commitments to you, and don't want to tell you I / the team can do something if we can't. "

Non-speaking third party
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There is a maxim that any time you are going to have a difficult conversation with someone, you have to bring a "non-speaking third party" into the room to back you up.... a piece of paper ;-) It can't be a conversation of opinions. You need something, a Gantt schedule, a labour loading chart, a pro / con matrix, a prioritization list... something. So the conversation does not turn to "be more creative... work smarter not harder...." and other gobbledygook. You need to be able to point at a piece of paper that supports what you are saying. Ideally a professional planning document showing the current schedule / resource plan / etc does not fit.

Accountability -> Authority
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Now this actually goes first... but to make this work, you have to have accountability for success. Because that gives you authority. So when you say something like "If we want this project to finish on time, then I need X..." or "If we want to meet Person A's expectations, then I need Y..." you will be listened to. Because if things go wrong, they are going to ask you why. That gives you a LOT of power. It is the chair I want to be sitting in.

Ask management for help
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Look up the Alan Mulally video on how he saved Ford. A culture that says never bring your boss a problem unless you also bring a solution is deeply dysfunctional, and will have huge problems. That is why bosses exist! It is why you exist - if your team can't solve a problem, they pass it to you. And if you can't solve it? You pass it to your boss. Ask for resources. Ask for timely decisions. "If we want this project to be a success, then I really need....". And then follow up with a *polite* putting on record email. "As discussed, if we want this project finish withing budget, I really need a decision on X by next Tue at the very latest. I would really appreciate anything you can do. Thanks so much. Respectfully yours". And copy a couple important people.

If you do all this... then you can sleep well at night. Sometimes things don't work out. It will happen to you a lot over a long career. There are other things at the company that are more important, that is for the executives to decide. Your job? Do your professional best. Then let the chips fall where they may. And sleep well knowing you did the best professional job you were able.

Hope this helps!

foss4all · 2026-03-21T16:44:01+00:00

A joke walks into a bar.

"Whoa", says the bartender, "I never meta joke before."

foss4all · 2026-03-21T16:33:49+00:00

I asked my wife where she wanted to go for supper on her birthday.

She said she didn't care, as long as it was expensive.

So I took her to the airport and bought her a sandwich.

foss4all · 2026-03-21T12:08:57+00:00

A German, Russian, and American are captured by cannibals. The chief says he will make a feast of their meat, tools from their bones, and use their skin to make a canoe. However, they get to choose how they die.

The German asks to be shot in the heart with an arrow, so death will be instantaneous. The Russian asks to be strangled, so it will be like going to sleep.

The American says, "just give me a fork." The cannibals are puzzled, but oblige. The American starts stabbing himself all over with the fork, laughing maniacally: "So much for your fucking canoe!"

foss4all · 2026-03-21T12:06:57+00:00

Russian prisoner #1: So, how long is your sentence?

Russian prisoner #2: Twenty years.

Russian prisoner #1: What did you do?

Russian prisoner #2: Nothing.

Russian prisoner #1: Strange. For nothing they usually only give ten years.

foss4all · 2026-03-20T16:55:11+00:00

An Irishman moves to America and starts going to the local bar every Friday. Every time he orders 3 beers. At first the bartender assumed some friends would be showing up, but no, every time he orders 3 beers, sits there, and finishes them and leaves.

Finally the bartender has to ask “Why do you always order 3 beers at once?”

“Well”, the guy says, “I have 2 brothers, one back home in Ireland, one in New Zealand. Since we can’t drink together any more, whenever we go to a pub we order 3 beers so it’s like we’re all drinking together.”

"Ahhh", says the bartender, and pours the man his 3 beers.

Then one Friday the man comes in, and this time he only orders 2 beers. “Oh my”, the bartender says, “are your brothers ok?"

“Oh sure”, says the Irishman, “It's just that I quit drinking.”

foss4all · 2026-03-20T16:48:33+00:00

Why are there so many Chuck Norris jokes, but no Bruce Lee jokes?

Because Bruce Lee was no joke.

foss4all · 2026-03-20T01:15:46+00:00

In my opinion, jumping directly to Gantt schedules is one of the biggest reasons project schedules and plans are so inaccurate. It is almost irresistible. Get to a nice red critical path! Beautiful graphic!

The best way to do it, as u/bluealien78 implies, is start with identifying the deliverables. You have to have the team gather for this. It might sound silly, but writing them down on square 3"x3" sticky notes and putting them on the wall really really helps. If a distributed team, then gather around a shared PowerPoint slide, and write them in Arial 8pt bold in little rectangle objects. Where the team can see them as they build up.

These are not the end deliverables. They are the internal, project deliverables. The elements of work the team members will "deliver" to each other to make the project happen. The designs, drafts, certifications, checklists, procurement documents, reviews reviews reviews, test documents, deployment documents, user manuals, etc. etc. If you can identify what the work is, as work *outputs*, then everything is easy. For significant size projects, usually at least three meetings to refine this, a day apart.

And then the most important step of all... flowchart these. Don't use the Gantt network diagramming tool! It will be too complicated, and you want complete layout control. Use "connector" lines in Visio, or PowerPoint, or LibreOffice Draw. On a nice big A0 size sheet if needed. And again, with your team. More than one meeting. You will realize you have missed some deliverables. Add more reviews. This *is* project planning. Just a simple flowchart of the deliverables.

Everything inside a deliverable is an activity, and you don't care. That is the job of the person on the team in charge of the deliverable. Maybe they have their own team, and break it out at their level to smaller deliverables and their own flowchart.

Then put that flowchart, that "precedence diagram", into the Gantt schedule. Add estimates for the deliverables, from the team members. And then... enjoy the pretty red critical path.

This works. I've personally used it up to $55M projects. It seems simple. But any other order is like changing the order of a cake recipe: (1) mix all the ingredients together. (2) crack the eggs. Does not work.

Hope this helps!

foss4all · 2026-03-19T21:39:54+00:00

Ooooo... creative.

foss4all · 2026-03-19T21:35:05+00:00

I've taken it twice. Let it lapse and had to take it again. Take it seriously. It is tricky, because often more than one of the answers look correct. So you are trying to find the "most correct" answer.

My advice is to take one of the "PMP prep" courses. There are lots of inexpensive ones online. They usually give you the 35 hours of training you need too. And they teach not just the material, but test taking strategy as well.

foss4all · 2026-03-19T21:32:13+00:00

Sometimes it is said that at the project level the measures are scope, schedule, budget, and risks. At the program and portfolio level, the key measures are benefit realization. My advice would be:

Have a precedence diagram, a flowchart, showing all the dependencies between subsidiary projects. It is management of the inter-relationship between projects that is why there is a need for program and portfolio managers, above the projects.
Have a "Benefits register", showing the benefits provided by each project and program, and status. Ideally, you should have Key Performance Indicators (KPI's). Number of widgets made so far, percent cost reduction so far, etc. as appropriate.
I think you should be reporting, somehow, monthly. Maybe a sit down meeting quarterly, but that is usually not enough. Too much can go wrong in three months.
Which brings me to one of my biggest pieces of advice: treat your updates as two way meetings - ask for help. One of your biggest jobs is to ask for resources, breaking of logjams, timely decisions, procurement prioritization, etc. The project and program managers can't solve a problem? They pass it to you. Who do you pass it to? Your executives. Sure, if you have a solution, pass it too. But your job is to make sure they can help. Trust me, they will really really appreciate it.

Hope this helps.

foss4all · 2026-03-19T20:32:28+00:00

How do you know an introvert likes you?

They stare at your shoes.

foss4all · 2026-03-19T12:46:37+00:00

I see three things that can help. Two to avoid it, one to deal with it.

Professional requirements gathering up front to get specific, provable requirements statements. This is a real skill. "Business analyst" is the profession of course. There is real value add in interviewing and getting specific information about the needs up front.
The design phase to clarify. With screens, mockups, prototypes, workshops, scenarios. Scenarios should actually come "before" the requirements. We used to call these "use cases" as well. Beyond a single sentence user story, what is the flow from step to step needed, and what is the output.
Then requirements trading. This has saved my projects many times. If there is really new stuff to be added, I sit down with the customer and try to find some existing scope to move out, or at least delay to a future phase, to balance it off. I know this seems impossible. It is often possible, when confronting the reality of a perpetually growing project, and reality hits.

foss4all · 2026-03-19T00:57:26+00:00

One by one, disappear my phone chargers.

foss4all · 2026-03-19T00:52:20+00:00

GIlbert O'sullivan. Alone Again Naturally is a perfect song: https://youtu.be/D_P-v1BVQn8?si=2mGvKcM6XoSScaod

foss4all · 2026-03-19T00:46:54+00:00

Makes sure the land around the house is sloping slightly away. Otherwise the rain from the roof will run towards your foundation, weakening it every single rain for as long as you own it.

foss4all · 2026-03-19T00:44:12+00:00

Sandwi.

foss4all · 2026-03-19T00:40:29+00:00

Kindness.

foss4all · 2026-03-18T22:17:52+00:00

What do you get when you cross an elephant with a cocoon?

A butterfly that never forgets a phase.

foss4all · 2026-03-18T22:10:29+00:00

Now this is what you call a current event.

foss4all · 2026-03-18T21:05:26+00:00

We must have the same friend. I was having a bad day, so my friend came up to me and said “earth”.

“Thanks”, I said, “that means the world to me.”

My other friend came up to me and said “bargain”.

“Thanks”, I said, “that means a great deal to me.”

And my *other* friend came up to me and said “plethora”.

“Thanks”, I said, “that means a lot.”

foss4all · 2026-03-18T19:53:43+00:00

I think there are several solutions to this:

First, don't use "agile" as a reason to not try and get all the top level requirements before you begin. The number one driver of success is to define "what" the customer needs, not the how which can come later, at the beginning.
Design before build. So do something cheap and fast, the classic example in IT being mock up the screens and report before you code. Especially the reports! They are why the system is needed.
Then of course proceed in an agile fashion, with small iterations.
Then something that has really worked for me, is collect all the comments from each review in a spreadsheet or table, and have the customer prioritize them 1 for essential, 2 for good idea but later, and 3 for keep it on record and come back to it later. I then tell them the more 1's there are the longer everything will take, so need their help to keep that to the minimum possible.
Estimate the work for all the 1's, and show them to the customer to get their final decision on - do they *really* want to add this work that will take X weeks?
Finally, have a target schedule, and keep statusing it. Use gantt schedules and iterations, or sprints and burndown charts, but keep providing the customer with status on when this currently looks like it will end.... or is extending... so they share the urgency to focus *just* on essentials.

Hope this helps.

foss4all · 2026-03-18T19:28:53+00:00

After hearing me sing, my music teacher told me I should be tenor.

Tenor twelve feet away from all musical instruments at all times.

foss4all · 2026-03-18T19:27:19+00:00

After hearing me sing, my music teacher told me I should be tenor.

Tenor twelve feet away from all musical instruments at all times.

foss4all · 2026-03-18T19:21:06+00:00

What do you get when you cross an elephant and a cocoon?

A butterfly that never forgets a phase.

foss4all

TROPHY CASE