[ Articles ]
How projects actually run
In-depth articles drawn from Projects, For Real: real exhibits, real numbers and the decisions behind them. Each one is a week of the program in miniature.
- Procurement
Five weeks from “yes” to signature: how a public company actually buys software
The evaluation team picked a vendor on 30 April. The contract was signed on 4 June. In between: sanctions screening, security, privacy, legal, negotiation, FP&A and a three-level approval chain. The path, the documents and the mistakes that cost a week.
- Control
“$7k under budget” was wrong: earned value on a real system rollout, month by month
At the end of August, Ledger had spent $363k against $370k planned. A budget report would call that good news. Earned value showed the project behind schedule and over cost, pinned the cause to one control account, and forecast the final cost within 1%.
- Contracts
The $96,000 change order: how a fixed-price engagement absorbed 2,000 more repositories
A bank bought a subsidiary halfway through a $420,000 migration and wanted its 2,000 repositories moved too, before a year-end change freeze. The mechanics of change orders, Work at Risk and Work Exceptions, and the forecast that nearly turned the project red.
- Communication
The same request, rewritten: the writing that actually moves projects
In a distributed team, writing is where the work happens. Before-and-after examples of the five things a project manager writes every day: requests, issue descriptions, decisions, status updates and escalations.
- Risk
82 days, 37% likely: what a Monte Carlo simulation saw that the critical path didn't
Ledger's critical path said go-live in 82 working days. Twenty thousand simulated projects said that date had a 37% chance. The model, the 50 lines of Python that reproduce it exactly, and how the team turned a probability into a commitment.
- Data
Enough SQL to be dangerous: the queries a product manager should write, and the traps that fool AI
Four query patterns answer most product questions. One join silently inflates totals. One table proves a real improvement can hide inside a flat average. A hands-on walk through the data skills a PM needs, with real queries against a real-looking product.
- Company
Why Ledger went live on a Monday in October: the corporate calendar every project runs on
Finance closes the books in the first days of every month. Sales disappears in the last weeks of every quarter. The board meets six weeks after. Banks freeze in December. A field guide to the calendar a project manager can't see in the project plan.
- Reporting
Green on the outside: four projects, four status reports, and how to stop the watermelon
A watermelon project is green until the week it's suddenly red. The fix isn't more reporting. It's objective status definitions, honest measures of progress, and reports shaped for the people who read them. Four real-looking examples, side by side.
- Finance
The $40,000 implementation that booked $55,200 of revenue: revenue recognition for project managers
Revenue follows what the customer gets, not what they pay or what sales booked. Why a discounted implementation carries more revenue than its price, why a services PM's progress reports move the income statement, and why every change order is a revenue event.
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