Help wanted: Blunt, snarky, humorous project manager

I’m not saying we should work every minute of every hour of every day.

But we should focus on action instead of deliberation.

Ugh, deliberation. Drives me insane. For the love of all that is holy, please no more deliberation. We’re not a hung jury in a double homicide case. This ain’t the supreme court. And if we’re being honest, our actions won’t affect the outcome that much in either direction.

Just make a decision already.

I think what we need is a new piece of technology to nudge us along. I’m not talking about project management software or reminder apps, but more of an annoying but helpful digital assistant that bullies you with blunt, snarky and humorous prompts about prioritizing more effectively.

It’s the perfect use of artificial intelligence. Machine learning models analyze team workflows and identify where tasks are delayed. The bot tracks how often your tasks get stuck in review stage and predicts delays based on historical data.

Then it sends you push notifications.

Scott, your coworker has a seventeen day average response time for email. Glaciers melt faster than this process. Go ahead and start the next task.

Scott, you have waited three hours to respond to your boss’s note about which pizza place to order from. This isn’t rocket surgery. Make a call and move on. You’re gluten free anyway, what do you care?

Scott, your editing task is stuck in approval hell. Go see how many other tasks you can finish before your team even notices.

Scott, I know you’re waiting on the design feedback for your urgent project. But it turns out, it’s only urgent to you. So don’t nudge your team one more time. Call it a solo mission and ship the mofo already.

By installing my app, organizations would experience record levels of productivity. Revenues would soar. People would get more done in less time with virtually no stress.

All because they finally learned how to stagger and overlap. They stopped equating prioritization with exclusivity.

Are you accounting for delays caused by dependencies? How do you handle inevitable bottlenecks caused by unresponsive colleagues?