Fifty things worth saying to a program manager that never sleeps, grouped by who is asking. Things to ask it, things to tell it to change, and rules to set once and never repeat. The highlighted words are the parts you swap for yours.
SAMPLES · NO SYNTAX TO LEARNYou are accountable for it, you do not run it, and you read about it once a week.
Are we going to make [date]? Give me the honest answer, not the polite one.
It answers with the chain that decides it, not with a colour.
What would embarrass me if the board asked about it today?
Finds the thing that is true, unowned, and not in anyone’s deck.
What changed since I last looked, and what should I actually care about?
Written for someone who reads the program once a fortnight.
What decisions are waiting on me, and what does each day of waiting cost?
Turns your inbox into a number instead of a nag.
Show me the three risks most likely to move the date, and who owns each.
Three, not thirty, ranked by effect on go live rather than by severity.
I have approved [thing]. Record it, redate what it unblocks, and tell the owner.
One sentence closes the decision, moves the rows, and sends the note.
Move go live to [date] and show me everything that breaks.
Proposed with the full ripple attached, before you accept a single row.
Send me five lines every Monday at 7am and nothing else all week.
Sponsors get one message, not a dashboard login they will never use.
You own the plan, the governance, the reporting, and the argument about the date.
What is on the critical path this week, and what is sitting behind it?
The chain, in order, with the first thing that has to move.
Which rows have no owner, no date, or neither?
The audit that normally costs a PMO analyst a day and a spreadsheet.
Where are two workstreams assuming different things about the same date?
Contradictions between plans, which is where slippage is born.
Build the steering pack for Thursday.
A deck from live rows, not last month’s deck with the dates typed over.
What did we agree in the last three steering meetings that has not happened?
Decisions have a half life. This is the list of the ones that expired.
Re-baseline against [date] and mark what moved, by how much, and why.
A baseline you can defend, because every move carries its reason.
Add a stage gate before cutover with these exit criteria: [list].
Governance you described in a sentence, wired into the plan.
Close [risk or issue id]. The mitigation landed and the evidence is [where].
Closes it with the evidence attached, not just the status changed.
Chase anything with no update for five working days, then escalate to me on the eighth.
Your follow-up rhythm, running every morning without you.
Our RAG rules are [rule]. Use ours and stop using yours.
It reports in your language, against your thresholds.
You own the systems, the interfaces, the environments and the cutover sequence.
What depends on [system or interface], and what happens if it lands late?
The blast radius of one component, counted in outcomes and days.
Show me the fit gap items with no decision, sorted by how much they block.
The gaps that matter, ahead of the gaps that are merely open.
Walk me through the cutover sequence backwards from go live.
Backwards is the only direction a cutover plan survives.
Which environments are needed by when, and is anything double-booked?
The clash that usually surfaces the week you need the environment.
What is being built that nothing in the plan actually asked for?
Scope that arrived without a requirement behind it.
Add a dependency: [A] cannot start until [B] is signed off.
Adds the edge and redates everything downstream of it.
Split [process area] into the sub areas that genuinely have different owners.
For when one area is really three and one person is carrying all of it.
Mark [requirement] as a gap, give it to [name], and date it against the build freeze.
A gap with an owner and a date, which is the only kind that closes.
Treat anything touching [integration] as high risk until data migration passes.
A standing rule, applied to rows that do not exist yet.
You own one slice of it, and you are being asked when it will be done.
What is mine this week, in the order I should do it?
Sequenced by what it unblocks, not by whoever asked loudest.
What is blocked on me, and who is waiting?
Names attached, so you know whose week you are holding.
Am I going to hit [milestone]? If not, by how much?
A number of days, before somebody else discovers it.
[Task] is done. The evidence is in [link].
Closes the row the way you would say it out loud.
I need two more days on [thing]. What does that hit?
The cost of the slip, before you ask anyone to accept it.
Hand [item] to [name] from Monday, they have the context.
Re-owns the row and tells both people, in one line.
You own the process after go live, and the team who has to work in it on day one.
What is changing for my team, and when does it actually land?
Your slice of the program, in plain language and real dates.
Which of my processes still have no tested design?
What is on paper versus what somebody has actually run.
What am I on the hook for before go live?
Your commitments, pulled out of a plan you did not write.
What happens to my team on day one and in week one after cutover?
The part everyone plans last and feels first.
Sign off [process area]. We tested it on [date].
Signs it off with the date and the evidence, in one sentence.
We cannot train in [month]. Move ours and tell me what that costs.
A real constraint from a real team, priced before it is accepted.
Anyone. The first hour of the program, and the questions that keep it truthful after.
We are replacing [system] across [number] sites, live by [date]. Build the program.
The cold start. Everything underneath follows from this one sentence.
Here is our charter. Build the program from it, then tell me what it does not say.
Uses a document you already have, and names the gaps instead of filling them quietly.
Our stage gates are [names]. Nothing passes one without evidence.
Your governance, enforced on every row from then on.
Escalate after two silent days, and do not reset the clock when somebody replies without answering.
The rule that stops a chase turning into a conversation about chasing.
Never change a date without asking me first. Propose it, do not apply it.
It proposes and you approve. That is the default, and it stays that way.
What do you still need from me before this plan is safe to work from?
Ask at the end of set-up. The answer is usually shorter than you expect.
What are you least confident about in this plan?
Ask an agent where it is guessing and it will usually tell you.
What have you been asking about that nobody has answered?
Everything it is still carrying, in one list.
I changed [thing]. Do you disagree with it?
You get the last word, but you do not have to take it uninformed.
What would you do first if this were your program?
A different question from what is wrong, and often a more useful one.
Nothing matches that. Try a shorter word.