Collecting approvals and signatures is never fun, but in order to implement a large change in any organization, it needs people with authority to "buy in" to the change. In a large organization, that includes signatures and presentations; in a small business it might be pausing between bites of lunch to mention the change and see if the owner objects. Either way, if the people with the power to implement or stop a change aren't in favor, the change won't happen. One of my first tasks in 2023 upon assuming a new role was learning about a key initiative and pushing its approval through many layers of management.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a manager in possession of a project, must be in want of a project schedule ( With apologies to Jane Austen ). On large projects for the US government there is an "Integrated Master Schedule" (IMS). The IMS is often used as a report deliverable, and so is updated monthly for the customer to see it. I have found that the IMS is most useful as a working document. This is for two reasons: 1) it saves me all of the time to update the IMS for the customer because it's already updated for me, and 2) the IMS is recommended for a reason, and I try to take full advantage of it. 1937 Panama Canal schedule My peak time using IMS as a tool was doing new product introductions for military landing gears. At that time I had several simultaneous projects, all requiring Department-of-Defense-compliant Integrated Master Schedules, which included a 14-point compliance check as well as a variety of metrics that defined the "health" ...

Complying with US export regulations can be surprisingly tricky: at various times in the 2010s and 2020s I've had to be hip-deep in them as part of my various roles. Today I'll focus on an urgent assignment I was handed in late 2024. Normally I don't explicitly name my former employer when talking about projects, but I'll be referring to certain public documents so it'll be pretty obvious this time. Also, the US State Department files are exclusively downloadable PDFs, as far as I know you can't just view them online, sorry. "Uh-oh" In late 2024 my boss pulled me into a meeting to ask how I could help with an urgent project. The company had just negotiated a consent agreement and $200M fine for export violations to China, and I was one of the people who would help with the urgent work of ensuring that we weren't going to find any further violations and identifying any programs or product lines with any export-regulations risk in China. This i...