Project Management for People Who Hate Project Management

(This is a guest post from Brian Wilson, a senior leader at Sagan, former Marine, and executive coach)

Not to take too much away from the brilliant productivity gurus selling $2,000 courses on ClickUp mastery (there's a bunch of "life-changing automations" on YouTube if you're into that, and if you don't know what a Gantt chart is, maybe just... don't learn), but yowzaa….!

I did not notice how much project management advice completely misses the point until I started teaching actual middle managers who need to get actual work done while also managing actual humans.

If you missed the memo on why most project management frameworks fail in real organizations and are unfamiliar with the concept: following a surprise realization that nobody on your team knows what they're supposed to be doing, a poor schmuck who works at a mentally exhausted startup team (let's call them a "team leader") finds themselves the owner of a curious productivity system they name "Our Process.”

We find out that this curious system has the magical ability to bring clarity and efficiency to those around it, but only if it is fed... endless meetings about optimizing the process itself.

The Two Biggest Problems (That Nobody Talks About) In terms of the philosophical layers: there's so much going on with why we overcomplicate this stuff (right at the top is fear of failure and the shame that goes with that).

But let me cut through the productivity theater and give you the two things that actually matter if you're a team leader trying not to lose your mind:

First: You have a right and a duty to inspect what you expect. If you ask somebody to do something and you don't have clear evidence it's done, or you're confused about how it's done, you can say "show me." It's not because you don't trust them—it's because you need to get eyes on the product so you can provide guidance and see how much they're making decisions (which you want them to do).

I've heard plenty of times: "Well, they said they did it." NOPE! The point is, you have to do this as a leader and you need to get your team comfy with you doing it.

Second: Planning should support tempo, not slow it down. By using frameworks and communicating consistently, you're actually speeding up tempo because you're reducing confusion, reducing those huddles and pauses of "I don't know what's going on." If you create a clear framework that you and your team understand, you're gonna build tempo.

Enter BAMCIS (pronounced “BAM!!!-sis))

So we've got complexity addiction and tool worship, what are we missing? Well, I think there's a case to be made that BAMCIS and SMEAC are the grown-up versions of project management that don't require a PhD in methodology to understand.

BAMCIS (again, stress on the “BAM!”) is my mental checklist to make sure I'm doing everything necessary for a successful project:

Begin Planning - Define the goal as best you can (it’s allowed to change), understand constraints, figure out if this is time-determinate or task-determinate

Arrange Reconnaissance - Get people working on getting eyes on the target (talk to ops, sales, product, start finding the data you need, etc)

Make Reconnaissance - Actually do the research, organize the data, have the meetings (quickly!)

Complete the Plan - Write it down, assign ownership

Issue the Order - Present it using SMEAC format

Supervise - Monitor, inspect what you expect, adjust as needed

The beauty is that as soon as something pops up, you know how to get started. No wondering or worrying, just start with B and keep going.

Let's Talk About SMEAC!

SMEAC is how you communicate the plan—Situation, Mission, Execution, Admin/Logistics, Command/Signal.

Think of it as a way to encapsulate all the information somebody should need to execute something without having to decode your stream-of-consciousness email.

Here's what blows people’s minds about writing this stuff down: it forces you to be clear, and it's a great check on yourself. If you don't hit all the SMEAC points, your team's gonna be confused, and they might not tell you (especially if you're new to managing).

When you show up in week 2 of your manager job and send a written SMEAC, your team is like, "Oh boy! They're not messing around. They took time to explain this in detail. I gotta up my game."

You're also providing predictability, which is key to leadership. Friction comes from everywhere—life, customers, whatever—so if you as a leader can provide some predictability, it's gonna lower the temperature and let people use their frontal lobes instead of their reptilian brain that's just like "I'm scared, I'm hungry."

The Dirty Secret About Tools (Or: Why I've Never Seen ClickUp Actually Work)

In about 70% of companies I've done consulting with, folks over-engineer there project management. A spreadsheet will work! I say again: A SPREADSHEET WILL WORK!

A weekly update on Slack is a great way to avoid meetings. I have never seen these very robust project management tools actually encourage tempo and help you get stuff done.

The only places I've seen complex tools work are in complicated development companies with lots of technical folks doing very technical stuff and need documentation and continuity because they are longer projects with a lot of moving pieces. Most places can get away with a shared spreadsheet with names and tasks, plus some comms on Slack.

[Pause for the ClickUp devotees to sharpen their pitchforks]

When we start getting into super robust Asana stuff with 27 different projects and 27 different Kanban boards, or Gantt charts (loophole for construction project management, you guys def need a Gantt chart), you're slowing stuff down. You're not getting stuff done, you're playing with PM toys.

As a team leader, if you can handle a shared spreadsheet, use a shared spreadsheet. If logging into ClickUp means you gotta find the right board, add stuff, look at priorities, figure out who to tag—all of that can be momentum killers.

Added Benefit aka Risk Management for People Who Aren't Risk Managers

Most risk management is about people—wrong person, wrong seat, wrong skills = operational tempo issues. By being diligent in how you communicate and track projects, you learn about your people. Do they overscope? Do they jump quick but miss stuff? Do they push back on everything you say (which can be helpful)? Do they just say "yes, boss" every time?

Look for signals before you hit roadblocks. Haven't heard anything in 3 days? Consistently communicating late? Over-communicating? Your job is helping them express the best parts of themselves while knocking off the rough edges and getting them in harmony with you and the rest of the team.

Anytime you think you see a mistake, use it as a learning opportunity. Maintain psychological safety when somebody messes up—just say "okay, what happened and what should we do to fix it?"

Because

a) that’s how you and they can develop your abilities and

b) it's your fault anyway. You're the team leader. Even if it's completely their fault, it's still your fault because you kept them in that seat and didn’t have the clarity, skills or support they needed.

How to Pair these concepts with meetings: Battle Rhythm Reality Daily stand-ups if you're high-tempo (15 minutes). At least weekly team meetings where you show that spreadsheet or board. Bi-weekly one-on-ones where you talk to them like human beings ("How was your weekend? I see you have a birthday coming up—take a day off, I've seen you every day for three months, TAKE A DAY OFF!").

Public task assignment is key—if everybody sees what everybody else is doing, that prevents the "Nick isn't doing anything while I get 100 tasks" problem when actually Nick has 100 tasks too, you just didn't know about it.

The Real Performance 

What I love about BAMCIS and SMEAC is they assume you're working with actual humans who need actual guidance, not productivity ninjas who live and breathe project management. They work for planning and execution, and since they work so well together, you can communicate plans very quickly.

The goal is building systems that let you manage by design, not by crisis.

Anytime something comes up, you use the same methodology to communicate the what, why, and who. Everything is clear and concise, and your team speaks the same language as you do.

Stop feeding your team's time to productivity systems that promise everything and deliver endless process optimization. Start with frameworks that create clarity, keep your tools as lightweight as possible, and remember: if your project management system is adding stress because you can't figure out how it works, you're slowing things down.

The Language Learning Effect (Or: Why Your Third Framework Actually Makes You Smarter) Here's something I tell people in class: learning BAMCIS and SMEAC is like learning your third or fourth language.

Even if you go back to using Eisenhower matrix or COPE or whatever framework you were using before, you'll understand those tools better because you've had to think about the underlying concepts more deeply.

When you only know one planning framework, you use it without really understanding why. But when you learn SMEAC and have to parse the differences—why does this have a separate "Situation" section when Eisenhower just assumes context? Why does COPE combine execution and logistics when SMEAC separates them?—you start understanding the mechanics of what these frameworks are actually trying to accomplish.

It's the same reason people who speak multiple languages often think more precisely about communication. You've had to consciously break down the components of planning and execution instead of just going through the motions. So even if you decide SMEAC isn't for you and stick with whatever you were using, you'll use it more effectively because you understand what good planning structure actually looks like.

Overall Assessment

Great job to anyone who made it this far without immediately opening a new browser tab to research the perfect project management automation. Not having the perfect system while you're trying to actually lead people and get work done is the reality of being a middle manager, and you should be proud of making progress anyway.

The real lesson?

Water flows through the path of least resistance—that's how I think about getting stuff done (See MCDP-1 for a meditation on this Daoist concept).

If you've got to go through something instead of around it, you need to think through that. But the path of least resistance is usually a shared spreadsheet, clear communication rhythms, and frameworks that your team can actually understand and use.

Yallah Habibi,

Jon