To build solid processes and reduce churn, I begin every project by learning how work actually flows. I conduct interviews, review existing documentation, and watch as the team does the work. I find the pain points, see where the risks will be, and smooth the bumps. I build processes that are clear, repeatable, extensible, and owned by the team. They're flexible enough to change as business needs do, but robust enough that following the process will make the work faster and easier to complete.

At Rocket Mortgage I started with cross-functional interviews before writing a single process document. At Commonwealth//McCann I built and refined the Chevrolet.com production methodology over 11 years and across 4 platform migrations, continuously improving speed to market and reducing errors. I worked with our partner agency to document cross-organizational processes and establish a formalized system for process improvement and rollout. And at Cengage Learning, I entered a situation without process documentation and created it. That documentation was implemented department-wide and used for future onboarding.

The processes I created built upon themselves—changes to responsibility matrices led to changes to file storage, which led to gains in accuracy. And that led to better work and less stress for team members and clients alike.

No process can thrive without changing as its scope and needs expand. A good process is not only living, it's evolving.

We've all seen and experienced heroic efforts—those long hours and great ideas and clever last-minute fixes that save the day. As digital work expands in scope and becomes more technically challenging, those kinds of efforts aren't optional—they're day-to-day business. And they don't happen by accident. Heroic efforts require a strong base of process. People need to know their roles to step beyond them. They need to know the way things are done to get them done under pressure. They need the support, resources, tools, and clarity to focus on the project's needs. And they need to be heard and their voices amplified—those closest to the work produce the best solutions.

In my 11 years at Commonwealth//McCann, I onboarded over a dozen new employees and regularly trained colleagues from our partner agency and vendors. I provided extensive process documentation, training, and cheat-sheets. Regular check-ins let me assess their progress, surface their needs, and refine my documentation. I worked hands-on with them, first via job shadowing, then by partnering and mirroring on small tasks, and then through increasingly complex assignments. The sound cross-agency procedures I created gave production teams the ability to work independently, to advocate for their roles, and to know what to expect from a project. And several temporary employees trained in my processes were hired into full-time roles because they knew everything they needed to immediately contribute. At Cengage, I hosted and trained international colleagues not only on sound Agile process but on global business interactions, sharing our home and exploring our city together.

I believe the best PM outcome isn't just a delivered project — it's a team that doesn't need me to deliver the next one.

The way I deal with clients is very similar to the way I deal with teammates. I ask questions, get to the core of what they need from the project, and then continually check in as the team executes the client's vision. I keep the clients and team aligned on schedule, budget, and functionality as those change throughout the project. The best communication with clients is often over-communication, so I maintain weekly reporting cadences and stay available for touch-bases and quick pivots. I serve as the center of stakeholder communication, making sure no one is overwhelmed or under-informed.

That said, client interactions aren't always easy. Project managers sometimes have to deliver bad news, or to point out limitations in either approach or technology. Whenever these difficult interactions come up, I provide clear factual context, an explanation of the cause, and an understanding of the consequences. If I bring a problem to clients, I always bring a solution alongside it. This immediately establishes accountability, encourages conversation, and defuses tension.

At Commonwealth//McCann, I served as the primary point of contact between major global brands and cross-functional agency teams. I've represented the agency and production perspective to clients at all levels through dozens of high-visibility vehicle reveals and several critical platform migrations. I've been there from project start to launch, handling the last-minute fire-drills and emergencies while leading teams in executing the creative vision. I've been at the center of brand managers' weekly priorities, executives' schedules, and vendors' work. I've also had the hard conversations: pushing for a resistant vendor to create a CMS, asking a partner to put in extra time to overcome a late hurdle, or telling clients desired functionality would have to be post-launch.

Good process helps teams do great work. Great work makes clients happy. And happy clients mean more projects to do, more creative solutions to explore, and more people to engage with.

To avoid the inevitable problems in any project, I start with data. Carefully tracking project details like budgets, schedules, and backlogs ensures nothing falls off the radar and provides critical process insights. Slowdowns, late decisions causing churn, and opportunities to save time become apparent. After project launch, I always hold a postmortem. Gathering the team not only recognizes the group's heroic efforts, but surfaces the process speedbumps that made the heroism necessary, which gives us the opportunity to eliminate them.

Accountability culture is not blame culture. Statistics and postmortems show the team what went wrong, and accountability defines the next steps. When something on the team goes wrong, we pull together, find the solution, and then clearly present the issue and the solution together. We work as a team, and when issues inevitably arise, we accept collective responsibility for them and find a solution. Then we incorporate that into the process so we avoid similar issues in the future.

In my time at Commonwealth, I'm proud not only of the numbers I was responsible for, but the cultural change I effected. My team processed over 300 maintenance requests per year. We managed 20-25 individual vehicle launches each year in addition to monthly retail campaigns and numerous redesigns and platform updates. Those statistics would have been impossible without sound, evolving process, and a culture of improvement and accountability. During my time leading process improvement efforts, turnaround times for small maintenance projects dropped from days to hours. Turnaround times for vehicle releases and large projects dropped by weeks. With everyone on the same page, cross-agency relations improved. Churn over roles and responsibilities was replaced with a common understanding of the process, which led rounds of changes to drop from 5 to 2. I also established a system to allow all team members to propose and refine process improvements, which helped our pipeline grow to accommodate far more ambitious projects and schedules.

Tracking successes while acknowledging pitfalls is the best way to improve processes. Projects fly by fast, and it's easy to get heads down and miss both the risks and the opportunities. Engage with the people and track the numbers during and after a project. The numbers tell you what happened. The team tells you if it worked.