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New Project, No Clue — Surviving When You’re Dropped in the Deep End

How to Fake It Till You Make It (Without Drowning).

May 04, 2025

Helping PMs work smarter, sound sharper, and stress less. One to three lazy tips at a time.

Hello fellow PMs,

You have just landed a new project. Or maybe you have just laded the job.

You smiled through the kickoff, nodded at every acronym, and said “Great, I will get started!” while secretly Googling:

“What is this project actually about?”
“Can you lead a project if you don’t understand the tools?”
“Is mild panic a valid project management phase?”

Whether you arre a new joiner or a seasoned PM tossed into unfamiliar waters, today’s issue is your Lazy Survival Kit — so you don’t just stay afloat, you quietly run the pool

3 Lazy PM Survival Moves

1. Host a “Tool Tour” (Without Exposing Yourself)

You don’t need to admit you’ve never opened Confluence or that Jira looks like a spaceship console.
Instead, say:

“To ensure alignment, let’s do a quick walkthrough of how we will use the tools for this project.”

You will:

  • Learn what matters (without clicking every menu)

  • Spot inefficiencies (they always exist)

  • Sound like a leader, not a learner

It’s like asking for help without looking helpless.

2. Ask for a “Benchmark” — Not Instructions

Instead of “What should I do?” ask:

“Do we have a similar past project I can benchmark this against?”

You will get timelines, templates, buried context, and maybe even old risks you can copy/paste into your RAID log.

3. Find the Unofficial Expert (My favourite 😃 )

There is always someone who knows where the real project skeletons are buried. It’s not always the sponsor — it might be the senior BA, the dev team lead, or even the office joker.

Ask:

“Who is the best person to give me the unfiltered version of this project?”

You are not looking for gossip (okay, maybe a little). You’re looking for:

  • What’s already been tried (and failed)

  • What the team actually cares about

  • Who gets things done quietly behind the scenes

One coffee chat = weeks of confusion avoided.

Tool of the Week: Lucidchart

Use it to:

  • Sketch out what you think is happening in the project (someone will correct you — great)

  • Clarify processes across unknown tools

  • Build visual maps of stakeholders or workflows before you're neck-deep in acronyms

🎁 Bonus: Lucid works beautifully with Jira, Confluence, Slack, MS Teams... basically, your life.

Lazy PM Challenge of the Week

  • Pick a tool you’re pretending to understand

  • Invite a team member for a 15-min “alignment” walkthrough

  • Bonus points: Turn what you learn into a cheat sheet — and quietly become the go-to person

And remember:
You don’t have to know everything to lead something.
You just have to look calm, ask smart questions, and know when to let the team talk while you take notes that make you look strategic. 😉

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