#69 - The Relevance of Project Management in Tech Today - Jana Axline

“Successful project managers have a bias for action. They’re out there pushing the project forward all the time and doing all the things that need to be done to make the project successful."

Jana Axline is the founder and Managing Director of Project Genetics, with over 20 years of experience in leadership, project, and portfolio management. In this episode, we discussed in-depth about the important role of project management. Jana explained how project management is still much relevant in the current era of agile and “project to product” movement within the tech industry. She outlined the important skill set required to become an effective project manager, how a project manager can earn much respect from the team, and pointed out some of the common project management anti-patterns we should avoid. She also gave her practical advice on how to do effective status report and project escalation. Towards the end, Jana gave her insightful perspectives based on her vast experience of why IT projects tend to have a high failure rate.

Listen out for:

• Career Journey - [00:06:05]
• Relevance of Project Management - [00:07:30]
• Project to Product Movement - [00:12:26]
• Skills of an Effective Project Manager - [00:14:41]
• Purpose vs Checklist - [00:18:23]
• Leaders vs Coordinator - [00:19:29]
• Earning the Respect - [00:21:20]
• Project Management Anti-Patterns - [00:23:26]
• Status Report - [00:26:54]
• Escalation - [00:29:36]
• Project Management Tools - [00:32:32]
• Tips for Project Management Career - [00:35:08]
• Tech Projects Failure - [00:37:59]
• 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:40:31]

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Jana Axline’s Bio
Jana Axline is the founder and the Managing Director of Project Genetics. A focused leader and project manager, her expertise stems from more than 20 years of experience in leadership and almost ten years in project and portfolio management in many industries such as Health Insurance, Healthcare, Financial Services, Mining, Retail, Government, FMCG and Supply Chain Management. Jana was also the past president of the Project Management Institute Mile High Chapter. She speaks internationally on project management, employee engagement and leadership. She is an active PMP, ACP, Scrum Master, and Scaled Agilist and holds an MBA in Finance from the University of Colorado.

Follow Jana:

• LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/janaaxline/
• Blog – http://www.janaaxline.com/
• Project Genetics – https://projectgenetics.com/
• Instagram – @projectgenetics

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For more info about the episode (including quotes and transcript), visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/69.