ISSUE #2  •  OCTOBER 2026

THE CHANGE ORDER

Projects. Change. Real life.
One idea a month from 30 years in the work.

Hi, it's Amy — PM and Change leader behind Ahavah Unlimited.

Here's a number worth sitting with: there are about 12 working weeks left in the year once you subtract the holidays. Every project on your list and every change you rolled out this year is about to meet the same deadline — December.

This issue is about the finish line: deciding what actually gets finished, closing it so it stays finished, and making sure the changes you already shipped don't quietly unravel while everyone's attention moves to 2027 planning.

The year doesn't finish your projects. You do.

Most dates don't die in December. They die quietly in October and November — a slipped week here, an unmade decision there — and nobody calls it until the holidays make it official.

The fix isn't heroics in December. It's an honest portfolio call in October. Every open project gets one of three stamps:

• FINISH — it ships before the holidays, with a named owner and a real date.
• PARK — it stops costing you attention now and gets a January restart date in writing.
• KILL — it was never going to make it. Write down one lesson and let it go.

And the OCM side of the finish line matters just as much: the changes you launched this year aren't done just because they went live. Reinforcement — the follow-through after go-live — is the single most skipped step in change management, and the data on it is stark:

Translation: an hour of reinforcement in Q4 is worth more than a month of planning in Q1. Before you build the 2027 plan, protect what 2026 already paid for.

AI leadership is officially conference-season's headline.

PMI opened October with its 18th Project Management South Asia Conference themed "Future-Ready Leadership in the Age of AI" — on the heels of publishing the world's first global standard for AI in project work earlier this year. The signal is consistent: the profession's governing bodies are moving AI from "interesting tool" to "governed practice."

Why it matters for your team: AI will be in your 2027 projects whether you plan for it or not — your people are already using it. The leaders who come out ahead next year are deciding now which work gets delegated to AI, which stays human, and who's accountable for checking the output. That's a governance question, not a software question — and it belongs in your year-end planning, not your mid-year scramble.

The Finish-Line Review (one hour, one page)

A technique I've run with teams of every size — it works in a 30-person firm exactly like it works in a Fortune 500 portfolio review. Book one hour this week:

• Minutes 0–15: the list. Every open project on one page — client work, internal fixes, rollouts, hires. If you can't list them from memory, that's finding #1.
• Minutes 15–40: the stamps. FINISH, PARK, or KILL for every line. No "we'll see." A parked project costs nothing; an undecided one bills payroll every week.
• Minutes 40–55: the adoption check. For each change that went live this year, ask one question: "Is anyone back on the old way?" If yes, that's your cheapest Q4 win — reinforce it before you build anything new.
• Final 5: write it down. Owners and finish dates for the FINISH list, restart dates for the PARK list, one lesson per KILL. One page. Revisit weekly until the holidays.

One project you can't afford to miss?

If one line on your finish-line list is the one that has to land — the system rollout, the client deliverable, the change your team is still fighting — bring it to a Power Hour: 60 minutes, 1:1, and you leave with a written action plan for getting it across the line before year-end.

Book a Power Hour — $197 Browse all tools

Here's to finishing the year on purpose,
Amy
PMP • ITIL • OCM • CSM — 30 years of projects and change