A minimal, outcomes-first way to run projects when the usual frameworks are too heavy, too slow, or just don’t work in the real world.
- Outcomes – success = customer signs off. Nothing else counts.
- Minimalism – only use what earns its place. Tools, docs, meetings — cut the rest.
- Flexibility – projects move, budgets shift, people vanish. BPM bends, pivots, survives.
Bootstrap-PM has come about after decades in consulting and seeing the well-known frameworks being warped and applied poorly and inconsistenlty. In consulting you deal with:
- Customers changing goals halfway but still wanting the budget spent
- Budgets running out and projects having to pivot
- Fights over who owns and supports what was built
- Pressure to burn budget by a date, not deliver value
- Gatekeepers slowing things down on purpose
- Third-party IT refusing to move without a work order
- People disappearing without notice
- Teams across timezones never quite in sync
- Consultants making changes behind the PM’s back
- Being parachuted into a failing project and told to “get it back on track”
Existing Frameworks tend to not cover these scenarios, they have no methods for dealing with what happens when people stop following them. Bootstrap does; Bootstrap expects the process to fail and provides tools for the PM to bring the project back on track.
Bootstrap acknowledges the mess and and sets to work organising and cleaning up.
- Lock down outcomes and KPIs. If halfway, map what’s signed off, what’s left, what needs renogiating.
- Run kick-offs with every stakeholder group (customer, internal, partner). Identify key decision makers.
- Document what each stakeholder actually wants. Customer stake is top priority.
- Get sign-off on outcomes and KPIs. Evidence matters — contract, email, whatever.
- Build the delivery plan: kanban, gantt, grid — doesn’t matter. Outcomes as milestones. Plan is alive, not fixed.
- Keep a lighter customer plan — milestones only, including theirs and their 3rd party deliverables.
- Watch the budget. If it’s going to run over, tell the customer straight and renegotiate.
- Spot undocumented changes? File a retroactive change request and get sign-off.
- Sign-off locks the work. Once it’s signed, it’s done.
- Startup
- Mid-Project Takeover
- Defining Outcomes
- Stakeholder Kick-offs
- Stakeholder Stakes
- Delivery & Customer Plans
- Execute and Track (Budget Control)
- Change Management
- Sign-offs
Reference
- It’s not Agile with a new hat.
- It’s not Waterfall with a new name.
- The second you graft that stuff on, it stops being Bootstrap.
- For every project.
- This is probably not going to work for every project and certainly not where regulatory procedure requires documentation (but you could bootstrap the creation of regulatory documentation). The primary fit is software consultancy with a solution delivery model.
Bootstrap-PM is for you if:
- You landed a project and have no idea where to start.
- You're taking over a failing project and just need to get it over the line.
- You don't want to implement a full fat framework but you know your project needs structure.
- Your project has two or more entities in a customer-supplier relationship.
- You need to deliver in an adversarial environment or competing stakeholders.
Bootstrap-PM is not for you if:
- You're looking to integrate it into another PM methodology. Just don't. Bootstrap is aware of other frameworks, it just chooses to ignore them and borrow the useful bits.
- You're primary concern is process - Bootstrap is framework that can be used by anyone who has to deliver a result (outcome) to a customer. The goal of Bootstrap is to deliver outcomes, not deliver process. Bootstrap seeks an end.
- Your project must meet specific regulated execution standards following a recognised project framework.
- You can confidently say, "everyone in my team follows the process!"
No studying, no cetification needed... Get Started!
Need a quick primer? Understand the Terminology.
- Docs: CC BY 4.0
- Code/scripts: MIT