/pm — 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:
| Invocation | Mode | Target |
|---|
| setup | the named business |
| triage | the named business (or ask) |
| next | the named business |
| next | across all boards (cross-portfolio) |
| status | the named business (or ask) |
| unblock | the named business (or ask) |
| weekly | all boards (Friday pulse) |
| weekly | the named business |
Step 2 — Load board config + personal overlay
Read
${MAKERSKILLS_CONFIG:-$HOME/.config/makerskills}/pm/boards.md
(personal — real business list + tool mapping per business). Falls back to
in the repo if the local file doesn't exist yet — that's a template.
Also try to load
${MAKERSKILLS_CONFIG:-$HOME/.config/makerskills}/pm/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.
| Field | Example |
|---|
| business | |
| tool | / / / / / |
| board_id or URL | tool-specific |
| column overrides | only if this board doesn't use the default 5 columns |
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
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 → (already in zshenv). Database with select property.
- GitHub Projects → CLI (already authed). , .
- Plane → Plane API (needs 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}/pm/boards.md
- 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 ( 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:
markdown
# [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:
- For each board: shipped this week, in progress, blocked
- Cross-portfolio: where's momentum? where's drift?
- Plan next week: 3–5 Q2 items to pull from Ready into In Progress on Monday
- Output the combined snapshot — pasteable into Notion weekly log, partner update, or personal journal
WIP limits
Default WIP per column (override in your local
per business):
| Column | Default WIP |
|---|
| In Progress | 3 |
| Review/Blocked | (no limit — but flag if >5) |
If WIP exceeded in
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
- — when a project hits a real decision, route to
- — when a card needs research before it's actionable
- — when an idea on the Backlog deserves pressure-testing before triage
- — when status / shipped items become BIP-post material
- Memory () — 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 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. pm speaks Kanban + Eisenhower; the adapters (Notion / GitHub / Plane / Linear / Obsidian / manual) translate. Adding a new tool = one adapter file, not a rewrite.