About Me

I once spent four hours in a meeting that could have been an email. I have never fully recovered.

I’ve been doing this in one form or another for over 20 years.

I started as a full-stack developer – HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, the lot. I mention this because it matters more than it sounds like it should. When a client asks “can’t you just move the button”, I know exactly what that “just” is going to cost someone. Turns out understanding the work is a decent shortcut to managing it.

Somewhere along the way I became a project manager instead. These days I’m a Senior PM at Filter, working across website and digital product builds for clients ranging from small businesses to big, complicated ones with several layers of sign-off.

I use PRINCE2 when a project needs structure and grown-up governance. I use Agile when it needs to move fast and figure itself out as it goes. I don’t have a favourite methodology. I have a favourite for the situation.

Here’s what twenty-odd years has taught me: projects don’t usually fail because of bad process. They fail because someone didn’t say the awkward thing in week two, and by week eight it’s a crisis with a name and a Slack channel.

So the bit I actually care about – the bit nobody puts on a slide – is noticing when a stakeholder’s gone quiet, and going to find out why before it becomes a problem with a paper trail. That’s most of the job, if you ask me. The Gantt chart is just the bit people can see.

Recognised in BIMA100 2024. I’ve also spoken at #WPLDN, on keeping WordPress projects from falling apart – using a Bake Off analogy, because a soggy bottom and a missed deadline have more in common than you’d think.

My project management hero is Kleya Marki. She’s not real. She’s from Andor. I stand by it.