The PM Skill Nobody Talks About
How to develop “data fluency”—the rare skill that separates PMs who react from those who lead.
👋 Hey, Kyle here! Welcome to The Influential Project Manager, a weekly newsletter covering the essentials of successful project leadership.
Today’s Overview:
I spent the first three years of my career convinced I was terrible at project management. Then I met Tyler, and realized I wasn’t bad at my job. I was just playing a different game entirely.
Everything you touch is actually a database. Problem is they’re all siloed, forcing you to play detective every time you need answers.
How to develop “data fluency”—the rare skill that separates PMs who react from those who lead.
🏗️ Today’s issue is sponsored by Softr.
Softr just launched Softr Databases - and it’s pretty brilliant. You can now build your database AND your app in the same place (without API limits or sync delays). They give you templates to start with, plus you can import your existing CSV files.
I’ve been testing their templates (CRM, client portal, project tracker) and honestly... this is how no-code should work. Everything just connects.
📊 The PM Skill Nobody Talks About
Filed under: Construction, Project Management
I spent the the first three years of my career convinced I was terrible at project management.
Every day felt like archaeological work. Need to check if that steel delivery will impact the schedule? First, hunt through my inbox for the latest procurement spreadsheet (hoping my teammate didn’t overwrite my version). Then dig through digital folders to find last week’s P6 schedule export. Cross-reference delivery dates with activity start dates. Manually.
It was insane. Everyone on our team had their own spreadsheets. Digital folders were a disaster. I was blown away by how unproductive this was—but I thought it was normal.
Then I met Tyler.
Tyler was a project executive who seemed to operate on a different level entirely. Before I knew it, he was a VP. Then EVP. I’d never seen anyone rise that fast.
Watching him work was like watching someone play chess while the rest of us were stuck playing checkers.
He could look at any schedule activity and instantly know the complete data kit that went with it—critical RFIs, submittal approvals, permit requirements, predecessors, successors, QA/QC checkpoints, pre-mobilization meetings needed three weeks prior, the dollar value at stake.
Tyler had what I now call a “third eye”—the ability to see how every piece connected to every other piece, and predict problems before they exploded.
Here’s what hit me watching him:
Everything we touch in construction is actually a database.
Your schedule? Database of activities and dependencies.
Your RFI system? Database of design clarifications and details.
Your meeting minutes? Database of commitments and decisions.
Your contract documents? Database of requirements and specifications.
Your procurement log? Database of suppliers and delivery commitments.
Your contact list? Database of stakeholders and responsibilities.
The problem isn’t that we lack data.
The problem is that none of these databases talk to each other.
They exist in silos. Isolated islands of information that should be connected continents.
Most PMs will never figure this out because they think the chaos is inevitable. They accept detective work as part of the job. They’ve been conditioned to believe that juggling thirty open tabs and hunting through folders is just “how it works.”
You’re not failing because you’re incompetent. You’re failing because the system is designed to fail.
But there’s one skill that cuts through all of it:
Data fluency.
Not spreadsheet wizardry. Not software mastery.
The ability to turn scattered information into clear sight.
Why You’re Drowning (And Don’t Know It)
Every time you hunt for information, you’re not only wasting time. You’re creating blind spots.
When data lives in silos, problems hide until they explode. That RFI approval that’s three days late? You won’t know it impacts your electrical rough-in until your superintendent calls you at 6 AM, pissed off because his crew is standing around with nothing to do.
When systems don’t talk, people make decisions with incomplete information. Your purchasing agent places that bulk order without knowing the schedule just shifted. Your superintendent commits to a start date without checking if approvals are ready.
Most PMs treat data like a necessary evil—something to be endured, not leveraged. They’re drowning in information but starving for insight.
The One Skill Nobody Talks About
Data fluency is about developing three interconnected capabilities:
Information Architecture: Building systems where data connects instead of hiding
Diagnostic Thinking: Reading patterns to predict problems before they explode
Communication Clarity: Translating insights into action items teams actually follow
Master these, and you stop playing archaeology. You start playing chess.
10 Ways to Build Unshakeable Data Fluency
Information Architecture
1. Create a single source of truth for everything you touch.
Stop accepting data chaos as inevitable. Pick one platform for each data type and force everything through it. Yes, this means saying no to the additional app your teammate swears will change everything. Standardization isn’t sexy, but it’s what separates pros from amateurs.
2. Standardize your inputs.
Every report, every update, every photo should follow the same format. Create templates that guide people into giving you what you need. The five minutes you spend standardizing saves five hours of detective work later.
3. Build daily data rituals.
Set aside 30 minutes every morning to update your dashboard. Don’t confuse this with busy work. You’re scanning for early warning signals that separate disasters from minor hiccups.
Diagnostic Thinking
4. Track leading indicators, not just lagging ones.
Stop obsessing over what already happened. Track permit approval timelines, material delivery dates, and crew productivity trends. These tell you what’s coming, not what’s past. Leading indicators beat lagging indicators every time.
5. Create your own early warning system.
Build alerts for the metrics that matter: when actual costs hit 95% of budget, when any critical path task falls two days behind, when weather delays start stacking. Your phone should buzz with data, not disasters.
6. Master pattern recognition.
That material delay isn’t random—it’s the third time this supplier has been late this month. That subcontractor’s productivity drop isn’t a bad day, it’s a trend that started after the design change. Train yourself to connect dots others miss.
Communication Clarity
7. Force everything onto one page.
If you can’t explain your project status on a single page, you don’t understand it well enough. Distill everything into: current status, key risks, next critical decisions. Complexity is the enemy of clarity.
8. Speak in trends, not snapshots.
Don’t just report where you are. Show where you’re heading. “We’re 3% over budget” is data. “Our material costs are trending 15% over, driven by steel price increases that will impact the next three phases” is insight.
9. Visualize the story your data tells.
Numbers make people’s eyes glaze over. Charts that show trajectories wake them up. Learn to make your data tell a story that forces action, not just acknowledgment.
10. Build feedback loops.
After every major milestone, ask: What did our data predict correctly? What did we miss? What did we learn? How do we improve? What new metrics should we track? Your data fluency compounds when you treat every outcome as education.
What Changes When You Can See
I’ll be honest—developing this skill isn’t easy.
But once you can see the whole board, everything changes:
Meetings change. Instead of reactive problem-solving, you're having strategic conversations about choices and trade-offs.
Stress drops. When you can see problems coming, you solve them before they become crises.
Trust builds. Your team starts coming to you for answers because you actually have them.
People start asking: “How did you know that was going to happen?”
Bottom line:
You stop working harder and start working clearer.
You don’t win because you’re the smartest person in the room.
You don’t win because you put in the longest hours.
You win because you can see what’s coming and can apply your influence over it.
The Reality Nobody Mentions
My guess is most will never develop this skill because it requires something our industry doesn’t reward: slowing down to speed up.
Building data fluency means saying no to the urgent-but-unimportant fires. It means investing time in systems when deadlines are screaming. It means choosing sight over speed.
The chaos isn’t going away. The only question is whether you’ll learn to navigate it or keep drowning in it.
Once you can see the whole board, you move faster than everyone else.
World-changing PMs aren’t the smartest or most talented in their organizations. They’re exceptional at aggregating data and communicating it simply and effectively.
Data in, vision out. Build that skill, and you’ll always be valuable.
Until next week,
Kyle
P.S. If you’re getting tired of fighting with the same thirty open tabs and spreadsheets, ProjectOS is built to connect your chaos and let you finally run the project.
LAST WORD 👊
IMPORTANT!
I'm hosting a 90-min group call where 50 PMs share what's going on in their careers and help each other with real solutions.
Here's what I need from you:
The form below asks about your current situation, goals, roadblocks, desired situation, and what you've tried.
Don't rush it - I need real details about where you're at, where you want to be and what's blocking you. I'm only looking for serious PMs, so give me as detail as you can, not just one sentence answers.
I'm personally reading every response to select who gets in. The more detailed you are, the more valuable our call will be.
Takes 15 minutes if you do it right.
Whenever you’re ready, here are 4 ways I can help you elevate:
Read my Book. No Bullsh*t Project: A Project Manager’s guide to successful project leadership.
Install ProjectOS. My complete operating system for project leaders and their teams. A done-for-you toolkit—templates, agendas, KPI’s, and workflows—to run complex projects like a pro. (Our most popular product).
Join Antifragile Project Management. Supercharge your project leadership. My flagship program combining training, tools, and community. Book a discovery call to learn more.
Promote Your Business. Get your brand in front of 8,000+ highly engaged construction leaders and decision-makers with a 51% open rate.
Awesome post! Thanks for this info. This sounds like a fantastic direction, but I’m struggling to grasp how exactly this would be implemented. We use Procore for our PM software, I would love to understand how I can extract information from Procore to create a live tool like you’re describing.
This is fantastic. Absolute gold. Thanks for taking the time to publish this. All of this makes so much sense. 30 minutes in the morning to update dashboards will save hours in data calls from stakeholders who have the confidence that what they are looking at is up-to-date information.