Your Journey to Project Leadership

"There's nothing you can break that we can't fix together. Go try!"

Can you imagine the impact of those 12 words?

It was my first manager who said this to me, soon after I got my first promotion.

The promotion meant I would now run consulting projects instead of just contributing to the team.

I had to crawl behind the steering wheel. But I had no idea how to drive!

I didn’t know where to start and was worried I’d make mistakes.

When I mentioned that to my manager, he gave me the above response. And that's what everyone managing projects needs to hear.

You don’t need fancy certifications or complicated frameworks.

You need the fundamentals and the courage to try stuff.

Get going. Then get good.

He continued:

"To lead successful projects, you'll need to develop 3 things:

1. Leadership & soft skills
2. General business acumen
3. Project management fundamentals”

I didn't realize it at the time yet, but he had planted a crucial seed: you manage work, but you lead people.

Becoming a project leader

As you can probably tell, I've become fascinated with the topic ever since.

How do you make project execution your unfair career advantage?

How do you become a project leader?

The secret is that there’s no secret.

Let me explain…

Project management is managing expectations. Making the implicit explicit. Breaking down big goals into small steps. Managing stakeholders. Celebrating success. Learning from your mistakes. And then doing it again, but better.

Nothing revolutionary.

Have you ever organized an event, written a paper, or moved to a new city?

Congrats! You’ve managed a project before.

Where do I start?

This is a question that I get every day.

It’s the most common reply to the newsletter, by far.

My point is: you’ve already started. You have more experience than you’re giving yourself credit for.

In any of those previous projects, whether it was for work or privately:

• What worked well?

• What didn’t go so well?

• What would you do differently?

• Was there anything you overlooked?

Think about it for a minute. I’ll grab another coffee.

…

These answers are the clues for your project management journey. Identify what you’d like to develop, learn, and try again.

Don’t let your quest for the perfect project plan get in the way of trying.

There is no project police.

Get going, then get good.

It’s how you learned as a kid. It’s how I learned project management. And it’s how you should approach the road to your project success too.

Fast forward

It's over a decade since that first conversation.

I've gone from managing small projects to leading global transformation programs. I got to work with some of the smartest people in the world, from consulting to private equity and startups.

But the quest for project leadership has only just begun.

Last year, I (finally…) started my own project management company. Today, I get to work with project managers from all walks of life, helping them make more impact with their projects.

And that's why I started this newsletter. To feed my own curiosity, keep learning, and pass along what I find.

And to make the resources I was looking for when I was getting started.

My mother is a teacher, and my dad has managed projects for 40+ years.

If you combine the two, I guess this is what you get.

First principles of project management

Project management is about having the right conversations.

Asking questions like why, what, when, who, and how.

These principles are the foundation of all great projects. The exact format matters less than you think.

Over the next few weeks, we're diving deep into these conversations and (re)building your project leadership first principles together.

Let’s make project execution your unfair career advantage!

Cheers,

Jasper

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PPS: this is a different format than you usually get from me. Sometimes, a story like this just pours out after a bunch of reader questions. If you enjoyed this, reply with a quick “yes” and help shape future content!