There are two kinds of operations people

There are two kinds of operations people: ones who love their project management tool, and liars.

I've run formal evaluations for this. Five platforms, months of demos, a scoring matrix, a 44-slide executive deck. Real rigor. I take that work seriously.

Here's what 25 years has taught me anyway: it almost doesn't matter which one you pick.

Every platform promises to be the single source of truth. Every platform slowly becomes the place truth goes to die. And somewhere in the building, a project manager is quietly running the actual work out of a spreadsheet she maintains like a samizdat document, because the $200-a-seat tool doesn't do the one thing she actually needs.

That's the part nobody evaluates. The tool was never the source of truth. The person who refuses to let the work fall apart is the source of truth. We keep buying software to avoid saying that out loud.

Every tool is missing the one feature you actually need. It's like they do it on purpose. What's yours, and what's the duct-taped workaround you actually used?