Category: Blogging

I once stood in a conference room watching a project manager draw stick figures on a whiteboard. He was adding them to a timeline that had already gone sideways, as if more little stick people would magically bend the deadline back into shape. I knew, right then, we were in trouble. That moment has stayed… Continue reading The Problem With Thinking That Adding People to a Late Project Helps

I learned the difference between a target and a threat the hard way. It was 3 AM, I was on my fourth cup of coffee that had gone cold an hour ago, and I was staring at a Gantt chart that looked more like a ransom note. The launch date sat there, circled in red,… Continue reading How to Tell When a Deadline Is a Target and When It Is a Threat

I once sat through a project kickoff where the lead developer said, “This feature will take two weeks.” Everyone nodded. The product manager typed it into a spreadsheet. Three months later, we were still untangling a mess of integration nightmares and half-baked requirements. The two-week estimate wasn’t a lie—it was just built on a stack… Continue reading Why You Should Write Down Your Assumptions Before You Estimate Anything

I once sat in a meeting where a senior engineer said, “This integration will take about three weeks.” When I asked how he arrived at that number, he shrugged and said, “Feels right.” Six weeks later, we were still untangling authentication tokens. That wasn’t an estimate — it was a guess wrapped in confidence. In… Continue reading The Difference Between Estimation and Guessing in Project Planning

I once watched a senior developer tell a room full of stakeholders that a feature would take “about two weeks.” He said it with the kind of confidence you usually reserve for knowing your own name. Eight weeks later, the feature shipped, and the stakeholder trust wasn’t just bruised—it needed a full-body cast. The problem… Continue reading Stop Calling Your Guesses Estimates: A Field Guide for Engineers Who’ve Been Burned

I once watched a senior engineer slap a sticky note on a whiteboard, scrawl “3 days,” and walk off. No requirements. No breakdown. No conversation. When I asked how he’d arrived at the number, he grinned and said, “Experience.” Two weeks later, the feature still wasn’t done, the client was seething, and that sticky note… Continue reading Sticky Notes and Wishful Thinking: What Estimators Know That Guessers Don’t

Scope creep rarely kicks off with a client banging the table and demanding a full redesign. It begins with a shrug. A nod. A tossed-off “sure, we can tweak that” during standup—half-thought and completely dangerous. I’ve watched six-figure projects wobble off the rails because nobody wanted to be the difficult engineer who said “that’s out… Continue reading How Scope Creep Happens One Tiny Decision at a Time

It took me years to figure out that the project managers I looked up to weren’t the yes-people. They were the ones whose “no” made the room squirm—and then they delivered anyway. My name is Simone Adeyemi. I’ve been in tech and engineering for over a decade, watching projects either crash or coast. The difference… Continue reading Why the Best Project Managers Are the Ones Who Say No Most Often

I once watched a team burn two months and a modest pile of cash migrating their task management system because the old one was “too clunky.” The new tool had colour-coded everything, drag-and-drop sorcery, and automated reminders loud enough to raise the dead. Six months later, the same team was missing the same deadlines—just with… Continue reading The Problem With Thinking That Better Tools Solve Process Problems

I once stood in a conference room where the project sponsor kicked things off by saying, “We’re all excited about this—we just need to align on the vision, secure the budget, and figure out who’s actually available.” The coffee was still hot, but the project was already cold. I’d seen that look before: the polite… Continue reading How to Recognize When a Project Is Already Doomed Before It Starts