Tuesday Brief: Halloween week brings two familiar monsters to the project plan: a requirement that keeps changing shape and a dependency that will not stay resolved. Ronald B. Smith has the survival guide, Dale Howard shows how to flag work added through change control, and Google Sheets canvas turns a tracker into a live Kanban board. Tomorrow’s live session recaps what Atlassian announced in Amsterdam.
Featured Article: A PM’s Halloween Survival Guide - The Sequel You Didn’t Want but Definitely Need
Ronald B. Smith returns with Part II of his Halloween survival guide, and this year’s monsters will feel familiar to anyone who has ever baselined a schedule. One is a requirement that changes shape after everyone has signed off. The other is a dependency that gets marked Resolved and shows up again a few days later. Ronald pairs the horror-movie fun with practical defenses for each, so you can enjoy the late-Friday request for one small change and still leave with something to try on Monday.
Read Article (5 minutes)
Resource Article: Google Sheets Canvas Turns Your Project Tracker Into a Live Kanban Board
For many project managers the working tracker is a spreadsheet, even when the PMO has standardized on something else. This article looks at Google Sheets canvas, which builds an interactive view from a prompt and your own data. A drag-and-drop Kanban board is among Google’s first examples. It also lays out the limits listed in Google’s help documentation, including one that affects any tracker split across several tabs, and recommends testing on a copy before the feature touches live project data.
Read Article (7 minutes)
Video Tip: Apply Conditional Cell Background Formatting for New Tasks Added through Change Control
Microsoft Project looks a lot like Excel, so people ask whether it has conditional formatting too. Microsoft Project MVP Dale Howard explains what it can do, then puts it to work on tasks added through change control. He also answers two viewer questions, including how to set this up once so every new project starts with it. It makes a handy follow-up to the change requests Ronald recommends above.
Watch Video (8 minutes)
Live Event (October 28): Atlassian Team ‘26 Amsterdam Recap - What’s New in the Atlassian Ecosystem
Jira Cloud expert and Atlassian Community Champion Gal Fatal recaps the announcements from Team ‘26 Europe, held October 6 to 8, with an eye on what they mean for teams running Jira workflows, enterprise IT operations, or cross-functional delivery. He starts with Rovo and the shift toward AI-native teamwork, then moves through updates across Jira, Confluence, Loom, and Jira Service Management.
What You’ll Learn:
- Which feature updates, product collections, and platform changes Atlassian announced at Team ‘26 Europe
- How Rovo, Rovo Studio, and embedded AI agents can take routine work off your team’s plate in Jira and across your project workflows
- How the Teamwork Graph links information across Jira, Confluence, developer tools, and third-party apps to give you better visibility for decisions
🗓️ Wednesday, October 28
🕛 12:00pm - 1:00pm ET
📍 Live on Zoom
🏅 1 PMI PDU: Business Acumen
Q&A is built into the hour, so come with the Atlassian changes you are still trying to make sense of.
Learn More + Register Here
MPUG members get live access and replays. Not a member yet? Join today.
Upcoming Live Events
MPUG hosts live events with leading experts on Wednesdays from 12:00 - 1:00 PM ET. Members get live access and replays.
10/28: Atlassian Team ‘26 Amsterdam Recap: What’s New in the Atlassian Ecosystem | Learn More + Register Here
12/2: Upskilling Project Leadership: Building the Capabilities to Lead What’s Next | Learn More + Register Here
View Our Upcoming Event Schedule
PM Best Practice: Make Acceptance Criteria Explicit Before the Next Enhancement Request
Pick the requirement on your project most likely to grow, write down what done looks like for it, and ask the stakeholder to confirm. Ronald B. Smith lists explicit acceptance criteria, confirmed assumptions, and controlled changes as his defenses against a requirement that expands after sign-off. With the criteria on paper, a request for one small enhancement can be checked against them, and anything beyond them can go through a change request.
Don't let requirements scare you this week!
