Burn That Project Down

A Salty Guide to Level Up & Get High-Friction Projects Done

Are there days you sit at your desk daydreaming of your slow-motion walk-away from the burning rubble of your project that just exploded in the background behind you?

You may be facing down friction and frustration, disillusioned with what I call the ‘slog of war’: —a relentless battle against the daily grind of bureaucratic red tape; the monotonous drone of meetings better suited to emails; and the Herculean effort required to get so many people to agree with one another over minutiae that can seize projects faster than an ungreased motor.

Burn That Project Down is a plain-language guide to help you level up and get high-friction projects done and not lose your sanity in the process. This guide offers direct wisdom I’ve accumulated by falling and scraping my knees; bumping my head and bruising my ego; and eventually navigating to a successful outcome.

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Chapter 1 | The Bitter Truth About Project Management
Chapter 2 | Building Your Signature System
- It’s Alive!
Chapter 3 | Get It Done; Be Decent About It
- You’re Graded on What You Get Done
- You’re Remembered for How You Got It Done
Chapter 4 | Know the Game You’re Playing
- The Game is Afoot!
Chapter 5 | You Are the Brand
- Straight Talk on Personal Brand for the Salty PM
- Fear and Loathing in Self Promotion
- Tactics for Building Your Personal Brand
Chapter 6 | The Myth of the Perfect Plan
- The Art of Expecting the Unexpected
Chapter 7 | The Illusion of Control
- The Conscious Competence Ladder
- Tactics: How to Climb the Ladder
- What You Can Control
- What You Can’t Control
- Choking Progress: The Art of Micromanaging
- Tactics: Let Go of Your Inner Micromanager
Chapter 8 | Mastering the Small to Conquer the Big
- Other People Depend on Done
- Caring is Doing
- Small Trust is Big Trust
Chapter 9 | Communications Redux
- Steer the Narrative
- Frame Your Plan, Flex the Details
- Manage Your Trust Bank
- Say It Already
- Keep It Simple Stupid
- Quit Jawing and Practice Listening
- Fall Forward
- You’re in Sales, Afterall
- The No-Nonsense Takeaway
Chapter 10 | The Dynamics of Herding Cats
- Managing Different Personalities Without Losing Your Sanity
- Building a No-BS Team Dynamic
Chapter 11 | Building Bridges Between Dreamers and Realists
- Dancing With Dreamers
- Balancing Innovation with Practicality
- The Art of Compromise
- Trust Is the Bridge
- The Problem-Solve
Chapter 12 | Saving the Day Ruins the Team
- Superhero Syndrome
- Ask the Dumb Questions
Chapter 13 | Scope Creep: The Monster Ate My Deadline
- Creepy Monsters
- Ego Monsters
- The Eisenhower Matrix
- Guard Your Boundaries
Chapter 14 | The Whoosh and Thud of Deadlines
- The Sound of Deadlines
- To Timebox or Not to Timebox
- Timeboxing Is Not a Weapon
- Tactics for Hitting Tight Deadlines
Chapter 15 | Real Money Really Matters
- Tactics for Managing Budgets
Chapter 16 | Chasing Quality: When Perfection Paralyzes Progress
- The Mask of Perfection
- Tactics for Prioritizing Progress Over Perfection
- Lions and Tigers and Birds, Oh My!
- Planning for Plan B
- Mission, Not Methods
- Get Those Birds in the Air
Chapter 17 | Crisis Management: When the Shit Hits the Fan
- When Crisis Strikes
- Red is My Friend
- Autopsying the Corpse of Crisis
Chapter 18 | Falling Victim to Fads and Gimmicks
- Sticking to What Works
- Pursue Moderation in All Things
Chapter 19 | Embrace the Suck
- Adopt a Salty Sense of Survival
- Secrets to Being Salty
Chapter 20 | Escape Your Job’s Emotional Shackles
- Recognize Your Prison
- Free Your Mind
- Tactics: Break Your Emotional Chains
Chapter 21 | Finale: A Feast for the Vultures

Chapter 1: The Bitter Truth About Project Management

Are there days you sit at your desk daydreaming of your slow-motion walk-away from the burning rubble of your project that just exploded in the background behind you?

If you’re reading this, you may be facing down friction and frustration, disillusioned with what I call the ‘slog of war’: —a relentless battle against the daily grind of bureaucratic red tape; the monotonous drone of meetings better suited to emails; and the Herculean effort required to get so many people to agree with one another over minutiae that can seize projects faster than an ungreased motor.

Burn That Project Down is a plain-language guide to help you level up and get high-friction projects done and not lose your sanity in the process. I’ve watched so many project managers fall into the same trap time and again: They fail to be effective; miss avoidable communication opportunities; and—as a result—get lost, frustrated, and eventually just flame out. Their clueless floundering inflicts misery on everyone involved, and for some reason everyone just accepts it as the only way to live. This guide offers direct wisdom I’ve accumulated by falling and scraping my knees; bumping my head and bruising my ego; and eventually navigating to a successful outcome.

You want the truth? Most project management advice is about as useful as a chocolate teapot. So why read any further? You don’t need another guru selling you the latest, whiz-bang project tools or new-fangled frameworks. Those glossy books and overpriced bootcamps are selling you on a dream, not reality. What you need is—well—practical. In the real world—where you and I live—your meticulously crafted burndown charts and risk assessments are as likely to hold up about as well as a house of cards in a tornado. When friction grows you gotta get real.

The truth is project management isn’t for the faint-hearted or the hopelessly optimistic. Sure, it seems like an “Easy A” of a career at first, but it ain’t. It’s for the thick-skinned, the hard-nosed, the ones who don’t flinch when the going gets tough. You’re not managing a kindergarten although you might feel like you are most of the time. You’re running a project with deadlines tighter than a drum and a budget that’s always two dimes short of a dollar. You gotta have grit.

It’s time to get your projects out of the mud and back on the road. From managing a project’s first contact with battlefield conditions to dealing with the dreamers who want the pie in the sky, this manual covers the practical bits about managing projects learned through decades of hard-won victories—and failures. If you’re a new project manager, a frustrated project manager, or the boss of a project manager who is frustrating you, this book will give it to you straight.

Make no mistake about it, books won’t replace real world experience. But it can help you avoid and navigate the challenges of your own project management journey.

Where do you start?

While starting at the beginning of the book makes the most sense to me, I’ve developed this book to be a kind of choose-your-own-adventure style reference. Yes, I’ve arranged the chapters in a certain order. That said, you are welcome to break the rules and read in any order you like. As you read on, I suggest you take what you want and leave the rest for the vultures’ feast.