The undervalued skill of doing your own footwork as a Project Manager

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In the world of project management, we often focus on timelines, budgets, and stakeholder communication. However, there’s one critical skill that frequently gets overlooked:

The ability to do your own footwork and status checking. When you can independently investigate, gather insights, and verify information, you become far more effective in your role and less of a burden to your team.

As a project manager, you should be able to:

  • Track and raise issues and tickets with whatever system your client uses (ServiceNow or what have you).
  • Track sprints and work allocations in Jira (or any other tool) for any team, not just your own.
  • Review automated business process statuses (success or failure) after a new release goes live.
  • Understand logs at a high level, even if you’re not the one managing a system.

You might not need to dig into every technical detail (like sifting through Apache logs), but you should know where to look and what to look for.

Most modern project management and cloud-based tools offer robust logging, reporting, and monitoring features. If you have the right access, you can keep tabs on your project without constantly interrupting your team.

 

How Research Skills Make You a Better Leader

Stay Informed

Having the ability to quickly pull reports or check logs means you’ll have a real-time understanding of your project’s status. You’ll be the first to notice if something looks off, which gives you a chance to investigate further and proactively address issues.

Avoid Getting Deceived

When you rely solely on others to inform you of problems or progress, you risk missing critical details. By verifying information yourself, you’ll be much harder to mislead, intentionally or unintentionally.

Ask Better Questions

Instead of starting a daily stand-up or group chat with, “Where are we today?” do some quick research beforehand. This allows you to ask more targeted questions, which leads to more productive discussions and less frustration for everyone involved.

Earn Your Team’s Respect

Your project team members are often subject matter experts; they expect leadership that understands (at least on a basic level) how systems work. By showing that you can pull a quick report, interpret the data, and escalate issues properly, you’ll gain credibility.

 

Getting the Right Access

One of the biggest barriers to doing your own research is lack of access. If you’re unsure of how to proceed, follow these steps:

Request Reader Rights

Even if you can’t edit or contribute to certain systems, having reader rights allows you to see logs, ticket details, and reports. This is usually enough access to get an overview of what’s happening.

Learn Basic Navigation

Make sure you know how to navigate the tools your team uses: ServiceNow, Jira, etc. Practice pulling standard reports and locating the areas where jobs or tickets might be flagged.

Stay Updated

Tools change frequently, and new features are added all the time. Keep yourself updated on any new views, dashboards, or analytics that might help you monitor your projects more effectively.

Contributing During a Crisis

In critical situations, like a production outage, tensions run high. Instead of interrupting your team’s efforts to fix the issue:

Dive into the logs yourself.

Check job statuses, error messages, or recent updates so you can give higher-level managers real-time updates.

Consolidate Findings.

Summarise the situation for senior stakeholders, reducing the time your team spends reporting.

 

By doing so, you become a valuable contributor rather than an extra layer of overhead. You free up your technical experts to focus on solutions, while you handle stakeholder communication and status updates.

Final Thoughts

Doing your own research doesn’t mean you need to become a full-fledged developer or system administrator. However, by taking the initiative to learn basic investigative skills, you’ll:

  • Make more informed decisions.
  • Command greater respect from your team.
  • Present clearer updates to stakeholders.
  • Minimise downtime in a crisis.

Ultimately, self-sufficiency in information-gathering is a game-changer for any project manager. Challenge yourself to gain basic reader access in all key project tools, and practice using that access daily. The payoff in efficiency, respect, and overall project success will be well worth the effort.

Spin Bike Backache: How a Tiny Adjustment Can Make a Huge Difference

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I regularly do spin classes, typically twice a week, every week, and I’ve been consistent enough to invest in my own spin bike. Spin has become a core part of my cardio routine, but recently, I’d started experiencing persistent pain in my lower right back. Initially, I chalked it up to getting older or perhaps overdoing it.

However, during a recent consultation, my personal trainer wasn’t convinced that age alone was the culprit. After thorough examination and a series of unusual exercises, he suggested something I’d never even considered: the pedals on my spin bike might be too close together.

Following his advice, I purchased two pedal spacers to widen the stance on my bike. These simple 16 mm spacers cost only £23 and took me just five minutes to install. During my next spin session, the impact of this small adjustment was incredible.

Like many people, I have a dominant side that’s significantly stronger, especially pronounced because of my fencing activities. Due to my pedals being too close together, my feet were slightly angled inward rather than aligned vertically. This misalignment caused my stronger leg to dominate, forcing the weaker leg into awkward compensations, ultimately contributing to my back pain.

Since installing the pedal spacers, my back pain has vanished entirely. Even during intense sessions, I no longer experience cramps, and my overall pain during workouts has dramatically decreased.

If you’re experiencing similar back pain and discomfort from your spin bike workouts, especially if you’re larger or taller than the typical spin enthusiast, consider checking the spacing of your pedals. A minor adjustment could lead to substantial relief, transforming your spin experience and keeping you pain-free.

Real-Life tips for Moving Tech from On-Premise to Cloud: Part 2

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Welcome back to part two of our real-life series on moving technology from on-premise systems to the cloud. This post follows up on my previous entry, highlighting additional hidden challenges often encountered during cloud migrations. Many of these issues can in recent years, stem from the maturity of cloud infrastructure, which is now complete with its own established processes and methodologies. Let’s get started:

1. Outdated Methods May No Longer Be Supported

One common challenge arises from previously acceptable practices or technologies becoming obsolete, especially concerning security protocols. Methods that evolved naturally over the years in an on-premise environment may now be explicitly disallowed in the cloud. Whether it’s due to new compliance regulations or discovered security vulnerabilities, practices you’ve relied on for decades might no longer be viable.
It’s essential to collaborate proactively with your security team. Security departments often focus strictly on what is disallowed rather than proposing alternative solutions. Engaging them early in the migration process ensures practical and secure solutions are developed, especially when dealing with existing system integrations and established support procedures.

2. Loss of Assumed Features

When operating on-premise servers, many built-in features are taken for granted, such as logging, connectivity, remote access tools, and even physical infrastructure integrations. Virtual servers, Docker instances, or cloud-based platforms often lack these default features, requiring additional setup or third-party solutions.

A notable real-life example includes systems that rely on physical hardware integrations, like emergency pagers plugged directly into servers. Transitioning such setups to the cloud can become complicated and costly, potentially requiring extensive system rewrites or redesigns.

3. Hidden Re-coding Costs

Migrating legacy systems often involves substantial rewriting. In some cases, the original platform or coding language is unsupported in modern cloud environments, necessitating a full rebuild of the application. These hidden recoding costs can escalate quickly, making a simple “lift-and-shift” virtual machine approach sometimes the only feasible short-term option.

4. Bandwidth and Communication Chatter

On-premise systems often generate substantial communication noise, particularly regarding data storage and retrieval. Because bandwidth was essentially free and readily available locally, efficiency wasn’t a priority. However, in cloud environments, such frequent communication can incur significant costs and performance issues.

Evaluate how your existing systems communicate and store data. Modern cloud solutions may require optimised, efficient communication patterns to avoid inflated expenses and ensure long-term sustainability.

5. Day-to-Day Maintenance Costs

On-premise systems often conceal maintenance costs within periodic capital expenditures, typically every three to four years, covering licenses, hardware, and infrastructure. Conversely, cloud environments shift to recurring monthly costs, which can accumulate unexpectedly if not accounted for upfront.

To avoid financial surprises, thoroughly analyse the ongoing costs of cloud infrastructure, licensing, and resources before migrating. Accurate budgeting helps mitigate unexpected expenses and ensures smoother operational planning post-migration.

Summing Up

Sorry to add more items to the problem of moving to the cloud, but these are worth considering when you work out how you will move an older application to an existing and established cloud platform.

Corporate term: “Evergreen Deck”

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Definition:

A continually updated presentation slide deck that serves as a single, evolving reference. New slides are added at the beginning, and older slides are progressively moved to an appendix at the end of the presentation.

Explanation:

Unlike traditional slide decks, which are typically versioned, published, and then archived, an evergreen deck is continuously maintained and adjusted. This practice is common in Agile projects or rapidly changing environments, providing an ongoing historical record and enabling easy access to past decisions or discussions.

Disclaimer: As always these posts are not aimed at anyone client or employer and are just my personal observations over a lifetime of dealing with both management and frontline associates.

 

How to Sort Out and Assign Owners in Large-Scale IT Organizations

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Ownership and responsibility can be a never-ending challenge in large IT organisations. In fact, it’s rare to find a corporation that doesn’t struggle with these issues. Many people want the authority and control that come with ownership, but they’re wary of the overhead involved, especially in complex cloud environments. This post explores why ownership can be so complicated and offers strategies for clarifying and streamlining it.

Why Ownership Gets Complicated

The Cloud Factor

When dealing with traditional on-premises systems, like physical servers, switches, and firewalls, it’s relatively straightforward to identify who “owns” each piece of infrastructure. But cloud systems often lack the same physical presence and involve more abstract services. For instance, setting up networks across multiple cloud environments or even inside a single cloud environment can involve numerous layers of security and function-specific configurations. Because these configurations are invisible and frequently shared across teams, pinpointing a single owner can be tricky.

Support Costs and Billing

Support in the cloud world is more expensive and convoluted. If something breaks, it could be failing in one of many places, a network misconfiguration, a permissions issue, an application bug, or a problem with the underlying cloud service. Finding who is accountable can feel like detective work:

  • Identify which piece is failing.
  • Prove that this failure lies in a particular team’s domain.
  • Negotiate any associated costs (e.g., cross-charging or project billing).

Because support often entails additional expenses, teams may not want ownership if it means they’ll be on the hook for increased costs. This can lead to a cycle where no one steps forward to take responsibility, and “the last person who touched it” becomes the de facto owner.

Three Layers of Ownership

In many large organisations, ownership tends to break down into three informal layers:

Official (Paper) Owner

The person who appears on the org chart as the owner. They often have sign-off authority and budget oversight. However, this owner might not be the one who reacts quickly when things go wrong.

Escalation or “Real” Owner

Often a senior architect or hands-on manager who steps in during a crisis. This person makes quick decisions, coordinates teams, and resolves technical or logistical bottlenecks.

Issue Owner or Specialist

The subject matter experts who actually fix problems. They hold deep knowledge of a specific system or process. Everyone goes directly to them for specialised help, sometimes bypassing formal channels to avoid paperwork and costs.

This layering can create confusion. The “paper” owner might not actively manage the system, while the “real” owner and specialists handle the day-to-day issues without official recognition or the resources to do so.

The Impact of Fuzzy Ownership

When ownership is unclear, or people avoid it, multiple problems arise:

  • Overburdened Specialists: The same experts get called on repeatedly, leading to burnout and capacity issues.
  • Budget Battles: Cost centres fight over who pays for support, making cross-charging and billing an administrative nightmare.
  • Slowed Innovation: If key people are always dealing with “firefighting,” they have less time for new projects or strategic initiatives.
  • Blame Culture: Support rarely gets recognition for maintaining the status quo, but mistakes draw immediate criticism.

How to Fix Ownership Challenges

Define Clear Boundaries

Document who owns what, especially for cloud services. Even if a service is abstract, outline the specific responsibilities of each team or role. Invite technical architects to clarify details for senior management, ensuring everyone understands the scope of each service.

Establish Transparent Budgets

Make sure that ongoing costs (beyond initial project budgets) are well-defined. If a new service or feature will increase the support burden, communicate this early. Agree on how expenses will be allocated so that nobody is surprised.

Prevent “Sneak-Ins”

Some projects quietly introduce new dependencies, only to leave the supporting team footing the bill. Insist on a formal review whenever something new enters production. Ensure that the project’s budget covers the required support or that the correct owner is identified from the start.

Track and Justify Costs

As environments grow more complex, support will inevitably cost more. Keep detailed records of what each service or system requires to run smoothly. This way, you can demonstrate the value provided and justify budget increases when necessary.

Reward Ownership

People often avoid ownership because support work is undervalued. Leadership should incentivise and recognise the teams or individuals who keep critical services running. Providing career growth opportunities, bonuses, or public praise for effective ownership can shift the culture from blame to appreciation.

Final Thoughts

Ownership in large-scale IT isn’t just about assigning a name on an org chart; it’s about ensuring that the right people have both the responsibility and the resources to manage complex infrastructures. By clarifying boundaries, aligning budgets, and recognising the contributions of those who take on support roles, organisations can foster a culture where ownership is genuinely shared and valued, rather than avoided.