Welcome To Our Annual Letter.

Our goal for this letter is to summarise what has been, and give our thoughts on what is to come.

Firstly we would like to thank each and every one of you project management professionals who have joined us this year. We had no idea that 2023 would be the year we started on this journey. But it spoke to us. We felt that we had arrived at a place where we could guide, with some confidence, the professionals we encountered.

Be a guide not a guru ~ Unknown

We are not at the pinnacle of project management. We may be a few steps ahead of you, we may trail you. But our experience is unique. Our ideas are unique. And we have tested them. We know they work (they have worked for us and for dozens of those we have helped individually).

So as we sit at the end of a rollercoaster 2023, let’s review what has been:

Things We Started

On The Internet

We started our presence on the internet less than 6 months ago, with no idea how to do it. Newbies in the online space. Everyone told us to Tweet this and Instagram that and LinkedIn ourselves 24/7. Hit them with clickbait and reel them in. We decided against that. Our content is measured. We post a few times per week and we only post the most important details of our long-form articles. Those are our central gift to the project management community. We spend our days crafting detailed, very detailed, articles. The long form article will always be the thing we are most proud of. Then we condense them and put them out on social media platforms where hopefully they find readers, who in turn find them valuable. We found our social media manager (and trusted friend) and let them help us show our work online. We are proud of our presence.

Our Newsletter

Our newsletter is our pride and joy. Other than creating long-form articles, nothing makes us happier than sharing a newsletter with our subscribers each week. It is literally mind-blowing that anyone, let alone hundreds of you, would voluntarily says yes to receiving our thoughts weekly. Each new subscriber gives us the same excitement as the very first one. Sending out those hundreds of emails every Sunday is truly a highlight.

The Future of The Effective Project Manager

We asked, and you answered. So these are our plans. To give you, our readers, what they want:

Audio/Visual Learning: Our followers (we do not like that word here, please tell us a better one) want some sort of audio/visual learning in addition to the written word. So we will be starting our podcast. The exact format we don’t quite know yet. If you have suggestions, DM us, email us or fill in our contact form. But as is our ethos, we will not do a podcast with low-quality information. We will always make sure that it is packed with actionable information to make you better at your work.

Online Courses: We would also love to create some courses. Take the information from our 50+ (at this stage) articles and put them together into convenient packages so that you can get the best information in the best way. We will test these out with our subscribers first, giving them access to as much as possible and getting their input before we finalise each course. We believe in giving our loyal subscribers free value, to show our appreciation for them. When we do create a course it will also feature as many add-ons, worksheets, templates and resources as we can pack in. Another way we want to go above and beyond for those who show us their support.

Our Goals For 2024:

• Grow our email list to over 1000 subscribers

• Launch our first course (after testing it for free with our existing subscribers)

• Expand our total social media base to 5000+ followers.

The Future of The Industry

We believe that the next 10 years of Project Management are going to be truly exciting. Many of you are nervous. Artificial Intelligence has come quickly into our collective consciousness and project managers are scared it will take their jobs. We do not share that fear. We believe that project managers will have access to a new and trusted co-pilot to help them work better. And be more free. Live their lives more, be happier and more fulfilled. BUT, project managers must learn to work with the technology, not ignore it. We will keep providing you with the tools to do just that.

We recently put our heads together, studied the information and trends in the industry and came up with the top 5 skills that you will need to thrive in the next decade. They will all be posted in great detail on our website, and in our newsletter soon, but here are the top 5:

• Generative Artificial Intelligence

• Managing Remote Teams

• Data Science

• Hybrid Project Management

• Copywriting

Master these skills and this will be the most effective and fulfilling decade of your career thus far.

What Won’t Change

Our most cherished belief is that you can do more, in less time, and live a life free to pursue your other loves. We will strive to give you the tools to do that.

The Effective Project Manager will always give you the tools you need to make a life, not just make a living.

Here’s to a wonderful, fulfilling 2024.

The Effective Project Manager