The Experience Maker's Question
You are always making an experience for your team. The question is whether you're doing it on purpose.
Topic
Newsletter Archive
A collection of 30 issues
How Markdown Has Come to Rule the World
What if the tool you're already using spoke a language you've never learned?
The format that powers GitHub, Obsidian, and every AI model you've ever used — and why project managers need to know it.
You've already seen it hundreds of times. Maybe
The Distinction Almost Nobody Is Teaching
Are you using AI to go faster or to think better?
So you have been using GenAI for a while now. A year. Two years. Three years.
You run everything through it. Status reports, meeting prep, email drafts, risk summaries. You have excelled at prompting. Your outputs are consistent. Your
The Ladder Most PMs Don't Know They're On
What if your AI already knew your project?
Project managers have been using (or trying to use) GenAI for a few years now.
Status reports, meeting prep, risk summaries, funder updates.
It saves time. The outputs are decent. We keep using it.
But...is that beginning to bother you?
Do
Two Ways Project Managers See AI — And Why It Matters
The word “artificial intelligence” contains a hidden diagnostic. Which word do you land on first?
Do you emphasize the ARTIFICIAL of Artificial Intelligence?
Or do you emphasize the INTELLIGENCE of Artificial Intelligence?
Pay attention to how your colleagues talk about AI.
Some say “it doesn’t really understand anything — it’
What would change if you held your AI tools to the same standard you're held to?
Seven principles. In my experience, most tools fall short on at least three. Here's what you have the right to expect.
Here's a scenario.
Six months ago you signed up for a new AI tool. You asked all the right questions first:
Does it integrate with
The AI mode that makes you harder to blindside
Most PMs only prepare for the pushback they expect. Telescope Mode changes that.
You prepared for the two stakeholders you knew would push back.
You rehearsed the counterarguments. You had answers ready for the timeline concerns, the scope questions, the budget skepticism.
And then the VP of Operations (the one
The AI Mode Nobody Uses — and Why It's the Most Valuable One
Imagine A PM working on preparing a major program review.
She used AI extensively — pulled together the project narrative, drafted the exec summary, structured the slide deck. The output was polished. She was confident going in.
And imagine, the review didn't go well.
The exec sponsor challenged the
Are you using AI to go faster or to think better?
Hammer Mode is useful. It's also the least valuable way to use AI.
Picture this.
A PM opens their AI tool and types: "Draft a stakeholder update for my digital transformation project."
Thirty seconds later, there's a polished, confident paragraph ready to go. They
Your brain isn't meant to remember everything
The best PMs don't try to hold it all in their heads. They build systems to think for them.
Here's what your Tuesday looked like:
You opened your laptop at 8 AM. By 8:15, you had 14 browser tabs open, 6 Slack channels blinking, 3