# firstaidpm.com

> Green on paper. Stuck in reality


## Posts

- [When Praise Falls Flat](https://firstaidpm.com/when-praise-falls-flat/): Your team seems tired. Not burned out—just disengaged.You try praise, positivity, maybe a small celebration. Nothing changes. That’s where the frustration sets in. You’re expected to deliver top-quality work, but the levers that truly drive motivation aren’t in your hands. Before you give up, take a moment to revisit Herzberg’s ideas. You may not control the environment. But you live in it. And knowing what’s really broken beats throwing more cupcakes at the problem. In the 1950s, psychologist Frederick Herzberg studied what drives satisfaction at work. His insight? The things that make people unhappy aren’t the same as the things that […]
- [What’s Been Happening Behind the Scenes](https://firstaidpm.com/now-what/): It’s been a while since I last posted here — and that’s mostly because life and projects have been moving fast in the background. After publishing my memoir, Now What, I started FirstAidPM as a place to share lessons, thoughts, and tools from my years in project management. What began as a side blog slowly turned into something more, a space to reflect on how projects actually feel when you’re in the trenches, not just how they look in a methodology guide. But over the past year, another idea started to take shape. I wanted to build something practical — something […]
- [Should it be a meeting](https://firstaidpm.com/should-it-be-a-meeting/): We have a tendency to gather. To call people in, form a group, and talk things through. It’s human, we huddle, we align, we conspire toward the next goal. But in a business setting, that instinct isn’t always the best use of time. Answer a few simple questions below to find out whether your meeting is really necessary, or if there’s a better, faster way. Are you trying to share information? Yes No Start Again
- [Why ‘ASAP’ is a terrible deadline](https://firstaidpm.com/why-asap-is-a-terrible-deadline/): Too often I’ve heard a manager say they need something “ASAP.” While it might feel like a clear signal, it is one of the most counterproductive phrases you can use in any communication. It creates urgency without information, pressure without parameters. What does “as soon as possible” mean? To one person, it might mean “drop everything now.” To another, it could mean “once I’ve cleared today’s other priorities.” The result? Confusion, misalignment, and stress, all because the timeline was never clearly defined. Worse still, ASAP erodes trust. It suggests the task is critical, but doesn’t tell the team why. It asks […]
- [Why I hate status meetings](https://firstaidpm.com/why-i-hate-status-meetings/): Too often, a status meeting is something you inherit from your predecessor. A weekly one-hour session in which everyone gives an update on what they worked on, and all the successes they booked during the week. It sounds professional, but does it actually add value? If you need that meeting to really know what’s been going on, ask yourself whether you actually have a grip on your project. And let’s not forget: everyone knows that management will be watching, so the slides are carefully tailored to appear, at the very least, green. Creating those slides eats up several hours that could […]
- [Bullshit Bingo](https://firstaidpm.com/bullshit-bingo/): How Many of These Have You Survived This Week? Every project meeting has its language. Some of it helps, most of it just fills time. Next time you’re in a call, see how fast you can fill this grid. If you hear five in a row, you’ve earned yourself a coffee. If you hear ten, take the afternoon off. The Bingo Card: Note: If your card fills up before the hour is over, you are officially in a performance, not a meeting. Ask yourself, is this really worth your time?
- [ALV](https://firstaidpm.com/alv/): ContextI was the fourth project manager on a long-running initiative.The project had already gone through three different contractual setups: fixed price, time and materials, and finally a feature-driven agreement. Despite the changing structures, all billing still ran through a single contract number. There was no formal handover or clear boundary between contracts. As a result, each invoice triggered a discussion. Was this item part of contract one or contract three? The lines were blurry, and the conversations unproductive. I took a different stance. I did not care how it was classified, as long as we were paid. At one point, the […]
- [Harmony Retreats](https://firstaidpm.com/harmony-retreats/): ContextThe idea was solid.Project teams are often expected to function as if they are already aligned. But in reality, most start fragmented. They speak different work languages, have no shared history, no mutual expectations, and not enough trust to perform well under pressure. On the other side, teams that went through a hard project often receive nothing more than a shallow retrospective. There is no space to decompress, no processing of what happened, and no sense of closure. So I designed a different approach, a retreat format. The DragThe need was real. People were interested. The concept made intuitive sense, but […]
- [Oracle](https://firstaidpm.com/oracle/): ContextI was assigned to run a project for the business side. The plan looked straightforward. Until you compared the numbers. I was given three extremely senior consultants. The budget had been written for juniors. The timeline required the seniors. I was warned by colleagues: “Don’t let them make this your problem.” The DragBut they did. And I didn’t stay quiet.I raised the flag early. I made the mismatch clear. I escalated through every proper channel. But management didn’t move.They acknowledged the issue, but left it unchanged. The TwistI tried to keep the project afloat anyway.I managed the tension. I buffered the […]
- [SBB](https://firstaidpm.com/sbb/): ContextIt started with a simple request. A small change was needed, but no one could say who owned the topic. Every name led to another. Every question led to a redirect. The DragWhen I tried to organize a kick-off, the calendar invite kept getting forwarded. Everyone added someone “just to be sure.” By the time the meeting happened, there were 26 people on the call. For the first hour, no one made a decision. Everyone looked around. Everyone deferred. The TwistSomewhere around minute 55, we identified the three people who were actually responsible. They had been in the room the entire […]
- [UNHCR](https://firstaidpm.com/unhcr/): ContextThe project wasn’t moving. Developers weren’t delivering. Management assumed the business analyst was overworked, so they brought in a second one – me. But the issue wasn’t workload. It was friction. Geneva was the business side. Madrid was managing. Budapest held the analysts. India was coding. The geography alone made it political. And the project had no real center of gravity. The DragYou can’t fix a broken dynamic by adding more people.You have to fix the dynamic. The team didn’t work well with a remote PM disconnected from daily interaction. I offered to take the lead and keep coordination local. That […]
- [Belgacom](https://firstaidpm.com/belgacom/): ContextI was brought in as a technical resource, but got temporarily pushed into the project manager role when a persistent failure appeared in the service request pipeline. At random times, service requests would disappear. No error. No retry. Just lost. The DragThree weeks of deep diagnostics followed. Logs were combed. Simulations were run. Nothing reproduced the issue in a controlled environment. The team was under pressure and speculation was everywhere. Eventually, we found the cause. A specific server was hard-limited to 1,768 transactions per second. At the 1,769th, it dropped requests silently. No queue. No throttle. Just discard and continue. Since […]
- [Credit Suisse](https://firstaidpm.com/credit-suisse/): ContextAnother data stream, another swamp of mismatches, formatting errors, missing values, and contradictory fields. The receiving side knew the drill. We had already defined how to handle each type of data issue. Exception handling was in place. Rejection logic was mapped. Everyone assumed we were in control. The DragDespite the planning, errors kept piling up. Processing was slow. Frustration grew. The data migration team started to look like the blocker. But most of the issues weren’t caused by technical flaws. They came from upstream, from the teams sending in incomplete or inconsistent data. Still, nobody raised the question. The TwistSo I […]
- [Belgian Federal Police](https://firstaidpm.com/belgian-federal-police/): ContextThe implementation team had recently been absorbed by a larger company. The change in ownership brought new reporting lines, new stakeholders, and no real continuity. Both sides of the project, customer and vendor, became cautious and political. Roles blurred. Trust eroded. The DragAt one point, a senior stakeholder on the customer side stated he would no longer speak with anyone from the implementation team. The friction had grown that deep. Then he saw me standing nearby and said, without pause, “Except for him. He can come in.” Not because I was neutral.Because I was aligned.Not with a company, but with the […]
- [Daimler Chrysler](https://firstaidpm.com/daimler-chrysler/): ContextThe task was straightforward. Migrate a large HR dataset, around 250,000 records, from the old system to the new. I was responsible for the transformation, validation, and import logic. On paper, everything looked good. For weeks, I processed file after file. Numbers lined up. Nothing flagged as wrong. Until the final QA round. The DragRoughly 2,000 data rows were missing from the target system. No errors, no rejection messages, just gone. On a set that large, the gap was small enough to escape notice. But it was real. I spent two weeks chasing it. Days of parsing logs, nights of step-by-step […]
- [Banque Audi](https://firstaidpm.com/banque-audi/): ContextThe bank was replacing a locally built HR system with one that could support international operations. The goal was clear: enable growth across multiple countries. External conditions weren’t ideal. The 2006 Lebanon War created logistical delays. But most of the friction came from within the organization. The DragLate in the process, someone introduced a requirement: employee numbers must reflect seniority. The longest-serving employee should have the lowest ID number.This had no impact on functionality. It didn’t affect payroll, reporting, or access rights. It was cultural, not operational. Still, it was treated as essential. The migration was delayed by several days. Senior […]
- [What did it cost](https://firstaidpm.com/what-did-it-cost/): You just sat through a 90-minute meeting with six people. One manager prepared a 14-slide deck.Two others edited it.And it took a calendar dance to get everyone in the room. So… what did it actually cost? This isn’t a philosophical question. It’s a number. Why it matters A surprising amount of project effort goes into things that feel normal but aren’t tracked or questioned.Status reports. Review decks. Strategy alignment meetings. Internal retrospectives. Most have value, but none are free. Understanding the real cost of meetings and documents can expose where time and money quietly disappear. It’s not about precision — it’s […]
- [Mini Project Plan](https://firstaidpm.com/mini-project-plan/): A basic Excel template to sketch out a short project — fast.Intended for small initiatives where the goal is to roughly plan based on assumptions and effort estimates, not build a full work breakdown structure. Includes: This is not automatic. You drag, color, and adjust by hand.It’s useful because it’s fast — and it helps you get to an educated guess for how long something will take, before tools and detail take over. Instructions to further set up and maintain: Select the full range: C7:AG20 Go to Home → Conditional Formatting → New Rule Choose “Use a formula to determine which […]
- [Daily Tracker](https://firstaidpm.com/daily-tracker/): Daily Status Snapshot — Done / Doing / To Do A lightweight daily status report structured around movement, not decoration. Each day, contributors fill in: The value begins on day two: This tool isn’t about tracking, it’s about surfacing early warning signs before they rot into status noise. As a Manager, I don’t really care what you are working on, I care you are progressing. This shows me there is progress (or not).

## Pages

- [Fun Resources](https://firstaidpm.com/fun-resources/): Because not everything should be serious Who hasn’t sat through another endless meeting?pay attention, you might find you have a BINGO Need a plausible sounding excuse? Generate Excuse Click below for a fresh excuse.
- [Blog](https://firstaidpm.com/blog/)
- [Resources](https://firstaidpm.com/resources/)
- [Contact Us](https://firstaidpm.com/contact-us/): Disabled due to excessive abuse
- [Profiles](https://firstaidpm.com/profiles/): Edwin Hommes – Active since 2025 Interim Project Management – Assessments – Coaching
- [Services](https://firstaidpm.com/services/): First Aid PM connects people who work in complex, unclear, or misaligned environments — and know how to fix them. We don’t sell pre-packaged solutions. We offer two things: 1. Join the Platform If you’re a practitioner with field-tested experience — delivery, design, facilitation, clarity — you can publish your own profile here. No gimmicks.You keep your voice, your terms, your work.The platform offers structure, visibility, and shared principles. Apply to Join(Coming soon — for now, contact us if you’re interested.) 2. Find the Right Profile You’re not here for a glossy vendor pitch.You’re here because something isn’t working, and you […]
- [Edwin Hommes](https://firstaidpm.com/edwin-hommes/): 🧭Role Project recovery specialist. Systems realist. I come in when things don’t move, and I leave when they do. 📍Example Scenarios 🎯What I Do I take over projects, programs, or delivery initiatives that are stuck, stalled, or spinning.Not to maintain. Not to manage. To resolve. I bring clarity, re-establish motion, and get out before I become part of the structure. 🛠️Services I Offer Diagnostic Interventions2–3 weeks Temporary Ownership4–12 weeks Focused EscalationShort-term, part-time 🧠How I Work I don’t arrive with a toolkit. I arrive to map what’s real.I gather what’s not being said. I notice what’s missing.Then I act, quickly, precisely, and […]
- [Background](https://firstaidpm.com/background/): This site didn’t come out of a branding workshop. It came out of real project work. The kind where everything is green on paper, but no one can name a single actual deliverable. Vision To bring clarity when delivery drifts, stalls, or quietly fails.To treat difference — especially neurological difference — as a design advantage, not a defect.When the paperwork says everything is fine but reality disagrees, the typical move isn’t to fix the paperwork. It’s to push harder on reality until it complies. It’s like claiming grass is blue, discovering it’s green, and instead of updating your statement, going out […]
- [Cookie Policy](https://firstaidpm.com/cookie-policy/): Last updated: 25 – May – 2025 This Cookie Policy explains what cookies are used on firstaidpm.com, why they are used, and how you can manage them. 1. What are cookies? Cookies are small text files stored on your device by websites you visit. They are used to remember settings, improve user experience, or gather analytics data. 2. What cookies we use This site is designed to use as few cookies as possible. Essential Cookies Functional / Consent Cookies Analytics Cookies 3. Third-party cookies This site does not use: If this changes in the future, this policy will be updated accordingly. […]
- [Impressum / Legal Disclosure](https://firstaidpm.com/impressum-legal-disclosure/): Site Owner and Responsible Party Edwin Hommesedwin@firstaidpm.comSwitzerland This website is operated as a personal professional project by the individual named above. There is currently no registered legal entity. Legal Jurisdiction This site is subject to the legal framework of Switzerland, including data protection regulations, and respects the requirements of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) for visitors from the European Union. Purpose of This Website The purpose of this site is to provide information about project delivery services, tools, and resources. It may also offer consulting services or digital products for purchase in the future. Liability for Content While care […]
- [About Me](https://firstaidpm.com/about/): I’ve been doing project work long enough to recognize the difference between motion and progress. I’ve worked across sectors, across borders, and across more frameworks than I care to name. What hasn’t changed is this: when things go wrong, it’s usually not because of the method. It’s because no one is saying what they see. I’ve stepped into failing projects at international organisations, federal agencies, banks, railway operators, and telecom providers. I’ve come in as the third or fourth project manager. I’ve restarted programs that were “on track” but going nowhere. I’ve taken delivery teams off autopilot and restored direction. I’ve […]
- [Home](https://firstaidpm.com/): First Aid Project Manager Delivery problems don’t fix themselves. I stop the bleeding. Most projects don’t fail loudly — they just slow down, drift off track, or quietly bleed resources. When that happens, more status reports won’t help. You need a short-term intervention. That’s where I come in. I’ve never seen a project fail because the method was wrong. I’ve seen plenty fail because no one wanted to name the actual problem. Who I Help What I Do Not a long-term PM. Not a vendor. Just a fix. Availability Currently open for 1–2 new engagements.If your project feels off but no […]
- [Privacy Policy](https://firstaidpm.com/privacy-policy/): Last updated: 25 – May – 2025 This Privacy Policy explains how information is collected, used, and protected on this website: firstaidpm.com. 1. Who is responsible Edwin Hommesedwin@firstaidpm.com There is currently no legal business entity associated with this site. Responsibility for data handling rests with the individual named above. 2. What data we collect This site is designed to collect minimal data. We do not use tracking cookies or third-party analytics tools. We may collect: We do not use: 3. Why we collect data We collect only the data necessary to: We do not share your data with third parties. 4. […]

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