How I Manage Multiple Project Deliveries at the Same Time Without Dropping the Ball By Maria Duncan | Technical Project Manager & Delivery Lead One of the most common challenges I hear from project managers is this: “I have too many things running at once and I do not know where to focus.” It is a real problem. And without the right system, competing priorities will pull your attention in every direction until nothing gets the focus it needs. Over the years I have developed an approach that works. It is built on three principles: visibility, tiered attention, and protecting your team’s capacity. Here is how each one plays out in practice. Start With a Portfolio View When you are managing multiple deliveries simultaneously, gut feel is not enough. I rely on a portfolio dashboard that gives me a single view across all active projects, showing current status, risk level, and upcoming milestones. This is not about micromanaging every workstream. It is about always having situational aw...

No Client Should Ever Be Surprised by Bad News: How I Manage Expectations Throughout a Delivery By Maria Duncan | Technical Project Delivery & Service Delivery Leader No client should ever be surprised by bad news. Ever. That is not just a preference. It is a professional standard I hold myself to on every engagement I lead. And in my experience, the delivery teams that live by it are the ones clients actually trust, as opposed to the ones clients simply tolerate. As a Technical Project Manager and Service Delivery Lead, some of my most important work has nothing to do with timelines or budgets. It has everything to do with communication, and more specifically, with making sure clients always know where they stand. Here is how I approach it. Start With Clarity Before the First Task Kicks Off Before a single task begins, I align with the client on how updates will be delivered and how often. Not in a vague, “we will keep you posted” kind of way. In a specific, agreed-upon way: what ...

The Secret Behind a Smooth Office Move: Why ITSM Thinking Is the Unsung Hero of Technical Project Delivery By Maria Duncan | IT Project Manager & Service Delivery Leader Hundreds of employees. A brand-new office. New technology deployed on day one. And almost zero support tickets. That wasn’t luck. And it wasn’t just good project management either. The Project A few years ago, I led a large-scale office buildout and relocation as the Technical Project Manager. Hundreds of employees moved into a new space with new infrastructure, new devices, and new conference room technology... all activated on a single day. Projects like this are high-visibility and high-pressure. There is no hiding on day one. Every issue surfaces immediately, in front of everyone. We had planned for hypercare: additional IT support on the floor, clear escalation paths, and dedicated communication channels. But we barely needed them. Day one was quiet. Almost unusually quiet. So what actually happened? Why It We...

The Hand-Off Is Not the Finish Line: How I Approach Post-Go-Live Transitions Differently By Maria Duncan | Technical Project Manager & Delivery Lead There is a moment on every project that feels like the finish line: go-live day. The technology is deployed. The users are in. The steering committee is pleased. The project team exhales. But in my experience, that moment is not the finish line. It is the beginning of a different kind of risk. I have seen technically successful go-lives unravel within weeks. Not because the solution was flawed, but because the transition to operations was never treated with the same discipline as the build itself. The delivery team moved on, the operations team was handed a half-finished playbook, and the organization was left to figure out the rest on its own. Over the years, I have learned to do it differently. And it starts with one mindset shift. Treat the BAU Transition as a Project Deliverable Business As Usual does not happen by itself. It has t...