/project-manager — Project management across the portfolio

Methodology-first project management. Kanban + Eisenhower + async. One board per business. Tool-agnostic via adapters.

Mental model

Each business gets its own kanban with 5 columns:

Backlog  →  Ready  →  In Progress  →  Review/Blocked  →  Done/Archived

• Backlog: everything that might matter — not yet committed
• Ready: triaged, well-defined, can be picked up
• In Progress: actively being worked
• Review/Blocked: waiting on someone else, review, or external dependency
• Done/Archived: shipped or killed

Eisenhower sits on top of the board — used to triage Backlog → Ready (which items make the cut) and to pick next from Ready (which Ready item to pull).

                Urgent          Not Urgent
Important       Q1: Do          Q2: Schedule    ← Q2 is the high-leverage zone
Not Important   Q3: Delegate    Q4: Delete

Async-first: every status snapshot should read like a Loom you didn't have to record. Make work visible without requiring a meeting.

Step 1 — Detect mode and target

Parse the invocation:

Step 2 — Load board config + personal overlay

Read ${MAKERSKILLS_CONFIG:-$HOME/.config/makerskills}/project-manager/boards.md (personal — real business list + tool mapping per business). If that directory doesn't exist but ${MAKERSKILLS_CONFIG:-$HOME/.config/makerskills}/pm/ does (the skill was called pm before v0.2.0), read from pm/ instead and offer once to move it: mv "${MAKERSKILLS_CONFIG:-$HOME/.config/makerskills}/pm" "${MAKERSKILLS_CONFIG:-$HOME/.config/makerskills}/project-manager". Never move it without a yes. Falls back to references/boards.md in the repo if the local file doesn't exist yet — that's a template.

Also try to load ${MAKERSKILLS_CONFIG:-$HOME/.config/makerskills}/project-manager/team.local.md if present — this is where the user lists partners, active clients, and typical blocker phrasings. Use it to make status output specific ("Waiting on <partner>'s review") instead of generic.

If the business has no mapping yet, jump to setup automatically — ask which tool, save the mapping, return to the requested mode.

Step 3 — Load the adapter

Read the relevant section of references/adapters.md for the tool. Each adapter section explains how to:

• List cards / issues / pages by column
• Read a single card's full content
• Create a card
• Move a card between columns
• Add a comment / note

Adapters use:

• Notion → $NOTION_API_KEY (already in zshenv). Database with Status select property.
• GitHub Projects → gh CLI (already authed). gh project item-list, gh project item-edit.
• Plane → Plane API (needs $PLANE_API_KEY and workspace slug).
• Linear → Linear MCP or API key.
• Obsidian → local kanban markdown files in the vault. Read/write directly.
• Manual → ask the user to paste the current board state; offer to write back to a local markdown file.

Step 4 — Run the mode

setup

• Ask which tool the business uses
• Walk through column setup (default 5 columns; offer custom)
• Save mapping to ${MAKERSKILLS_CONFIG:-$HOME/.config/makerskills}/project-manager/boards.md (NOT to references/boards.md in the repo — that's a template only). Create the parent directory if it doesn't exist yet.
• Optionally seed the board with starter cards from a conversation about what's on the user's mind for that business

triage

• Pull the Backlog column
• Apply Eisenhower (Q1/Q2/Q3/Q4) — show the user the matrix view
• Recommend moves:
  • Q1 (urgent + important) → move to Ready or In Progress now
  • Q2 (important, not urgent) → move to Ready, schedule when
  • Q3 (urgent, not important) → delegate (to whom?) or move to Ready if no one
  • Q4 (neither) → archive
• Apply moves via the adapter (or output text the user applies manually)

next

• Single board: pull Ready, then In Progress. If WIP exceeded, surface what to finish first. If WIP available, recommend top Ready item by Eisenhower priority.
• Cross-portfolio (/project-manager next with no business): pull Ready from every board, Eisenhower-rank, recommend top 1–3 across all businesses. Bias toward Q1 then Q2.

status

Generate an async-shareable snapshot:

# [Business] — Status as of YYYY-MM-DD

**Shipped this week:** N cards
- <card title>
- <card title>

**In progress:** N cards
- <card title> — <who/what>

**Review/Blocked:** N cards
- <card title> — blocked on <reason>

**Up next:** top 2–3 from Ready
- <card title>
- <card title>

**Open question:** <one thing that would unblock progress if answered>

Output is paste-ready for Slack, Notion, email, partner DM.

unblock

• Read everything in Review/Blocked
• For each card: surface the blocker, suggest an action (nudge X, escalate to Y, descope, kill, move back to In Progress if blocker is gone)
• Output a short list of moves

weekly

Friday pulse + planning:

1. For each board: shipped this week, in progress, blocked
2. Cross-portfolio: where's momentum? where's drift?
3. Plan next week: 3–5 Q2 items to pull from Ready into In Progress on Monday
4. Output the combined snapshot — pasteable into Notion weekly log, partner update, or personal journal

WIP limits

Default WIP per column (override in your local boards.md per business):

If WIP exceeded in next mode, don't pull more — recommend finishing or moving something to Review/Blocked first.

Async-first writing rules

When generating status / weekly outputs:

• Lead with the headline — what shipped this week, or what's at risk
• Be specific — "shipped X" not "made progress on Y"
• No verbs without subjects — write so the reader can pick up cold
• Blockers name the blocker — "waiting on designer's review" not "blocked"
• Open questions are explicit — one bolded line per status that asks for what would unblock momentum

Composes with

• decide — when a project hits a real decision, route to /decide
• deep-research — when a card needs research before it's actionable
• business-brainstorm — when an idea on the Backlog deserves pressure-testing before triage
• jab-hook — when status / shipped items become BIP-post material
• Memory (project_*.md) — for portfolio context per business

Notes on quality

• Limit WIP. Multitasking is the most reliable way to ship nothing. Cap In Progress at 3 (override in your local boards.md per business if truly needed). If the cap is hit, don't pull more — recommend finishing or moving something to Review/Blocked.
• Lead with the headline in every status output — what shipped this week, or what's at risk. Not "made progress on X" — that's noise.
• Be specific. "Shipped the primary logo variant" beats "made progress on branding." Specificity signals real motion; vagueness signals none.
• No verbs without subjects. Write status so the reader can pick up cold — 3 weeks later or forwarded to a partner who missed the last update.
• Blockers name the blocker. "Waiting on designer's review of the homepage draft" — not "blocked." Blockers without names create no urgency.
• Open questions are explicit — one bolded line per status that asks for what would unblock momentum. Async momentum lives or dies on how well open questions are surfaced.
• Tool-agnostic by design. project-manager speaks Kanban + Eisenhower; the adapters (Notion / GitHub / Plane / Linear / Obsidian / manual) translate. Adding a new tool = one adapter file, not a rewrite.