Project management is often measured by timelines, deliverables, and whether a project gets across the finish line. Justin J. MacBale, Founder of Pragintion PM and Co-Founder of PM Career Growth, sees the role more broadly.
His career across sales, IT consulting, digital transformation, M&A implementation, and project recovery showed him the need for a stronger connection between projects and the businesses behind them. Through Pragintion PM and PM Career Growth, he challenges conventional thinking and encourages project professionals to become trusted business advocates.
His approach comes down to one principle: learn the business, not just the project. Understanding the ideas of people, processes, technology, and data helps project professionals realize a better perspective and facilitate the value their work is meant to create.
A career shaped by challenges, change, and closure
Justin J. MacBale entered the professional world through the consumer-packaged goods world of sales, beginning his career before the Kraft and Nabisco merger and later spending nearly three years with Frito-Lay. Alongside his sales and management responsibilities, he took on special projects that gave him the opportunity to apply his analytical strengths. Those experiences eventually opened the door to a specialized role in managing growth and development projects.
After an accelerated MBA, Justin moved from sales into IT consulting, which expanded his perspective. Justin gained experience across digital transformation, product development, quality assurance, operational improvement, change management, and project leadership. He later moved from IT consulting into M&A post-merger integration work, where his IT consulting background in ERP and transformation projects proved particularly valuable.
One demanding assignment became a defining moment. Brought into a distressed program, Justin J. MacBale helped turn the situation around and earned the nickname from his clients as “The Closure.” This experience exposed a larger issue in project management. Across the projects he encountered, project management was frequently reduced to schedules, tasks, and processes, while the connection between the project and the business was overlooked.
After building a career rescuing distressed projects from nine certified professionals, over the last three years, Justin began looking beyond individual project failures. He questioned whether project managers were being prepared to understand the business impact of their work, not simply to manage a list of deliverables.
When managing the project wasn’t enough
Justin’s questions pointed to a larger issue. Across the projects he encountered, project management was often treated as a project support role (admin, analyst, or coordinator), which neglected the true value an adept project manager could bring.
Rather than seeing project delivery as an isolated function, Justin began focusing on the business behind the project and the role project professionals could play in protecting and facilitating the business value as defined by the project sponsor.
That thinking ultimately shaped two businesses: Pragintion PM and PM Career Growth. Justin’s goal was to set out to create a more practical approach to project management, one that brings business thinking into project delivery and helps professionals develop the judgment, perspective, and leadership skills needed to move beyond menial execution.
Making project management more strategically visible
Justin’s approach to project management starts with a simple shift in perspective: project managers need to understand the business they serve, not just the projects they manage. He believes projects are tied to business survival, and professionals who understand that connection can become stronger advocates for the business.
Within the tenets of PM Career growth, there is a focus on strategic visibility, which harkens to the importance of optics management and rapport building. In understanding what matters to the business, one can become a trusted voice among stakeholders and influence how project decisions affect the wider organization. He believes this broader perspective can also create greater career opportunities for project professionals.
As the saying goes, “The devil is in the details.” For Justin J. MacBale, those details go beyond schedules and deadlines. They lie in understanding the business context and relationships behind the project and knowing how to contribute to it.
Two approaches to professional growth
Going into more detail around this business advocacy-driven project management, Justin explains.
Pragintion PM takes a more personalized approach through one-to-one coaching and fractional delivery services, working more directly with individuals and businesses to maximize the business value potential of an initiative.
PM Career Growth focuses on on-demand learning, group coaching, and training, giving professionals a different way to access the ideas and lessons Justin J. MacBale believes are often missing from traditional project management education.
Together, the two platforms provide different ways for professionals to engage with the same business-focused approach to project management.
Empowerment means helping people stand on their own
For Justin, business advocacy is not limited to understanding organizations, projects, and stakeholders. It also means understanding the people behind the work and helping them develop confidence and judgment to succeed independently. This belief in individual growth is closely connected to the way he approaches project management: strong outcomes are built by people who understand their value, recognize opportunities, and have the confidence to act on them.
To Justin, this empowerment is not just related to the professional role but also career development. It starts with helping people learn how to stand on their own rather than taking advantage of them when they are at their most vulnerable. He spends a significant amount of his free time offering advice, sharing what he knows, and connecting people with opportunities.
That same approach shapes the way he works with project teams. He focuses on helping team members strengthen their careers while learning how to navigate and succeed within their organizational environment. Seeing someone develop a new perspective, recognizing possibilities they had not considered, and finding a path toward career growth gives Justin J. MacBale a particular sense of satisfaction.
To him, the idea that a rising tide lifts all boats reflects what empowerment should look like: creating the conditions for people to grow, becoming more confident in their abilities, and moving forward on their own.
Challenging the conventional approach to project management
Justin’s biggest challenge has extended beyond building two companies; it has been changing how the profession thinks about project management. One of the biggest hurdles has been creating greater awareness around the importance of business advocacy-driven project management and why it matters to the future of the field.
Early thought leadership around this approach was met with heavy criticism from practitioners. That started to shift when larger organizations, including PMI, began publishing ideas that aligned with the perspective Justin J. MacBale had been advocating. With that recognition, much of the uncertainty within the field began to ease.
A different challenge exists on the commercial side. The project management education space already has numerous established courses and independent platforms with strong recognition. Many are built around certification attainment, while Justin’s approach focuses on a more nuanced way of thinking beyond certification and field growth.
Reaching the project management community with that message requires time and education. People need to understand why a platform that moves beyond certification and focuses on business advocacy offers something different. It is not about adding another course to the market; it is about introducing a different way of thinking.
Questioning the norm to shape what comes next
Justin takes a direct approach to challenging the status quo, using Pragintion PM and PM Career Growth as platforms for social media content and thought leadership.
Justin and his team do not want to remain passive when gaps in the profession could affect how project management is perceived or influence how future professionals approach their careers. Instead, they actively examine these issues and encourage broader conversations around them.
Their perspective also remains independent. They review different publications, social media voices, and industry entities while maintaining an agnostic and objective approach rather than aligning themselves with one source or viewpoint.
The focus ultimately goes beyond immediate trends. The bigger picture matters more than the quick win. Both companies consider the long-term consequences of what the profession chooses to address, or chooses to leave unaddressed, and use that perspective to guide their work.
Turning ideas into conversations that matter
Over the past two years, Pragintion PM has deliberately used its platform to publish articles that challenge conventional thinking in project management. Some of these perspectives have been controversial, but they have gradually gained traction. Justin J. MacBale has also had opportunities to appear as a guest on webinars, discussing the methodology and theory behind Pragintion PM.
The impact is becoming visible in the conversations that follow. More project professionals are beginning to look at their work through a stronger business lens and, importantly, ask thoughtful questions about how project management should grow.
PM Career Growth has added three significant milestones to that progress. The platform launched a podcast featuring conversations across different roles within the project management ecosystem, introduced a monthly membership model giving professionals around the world access to distinctive lessons and topics not taught elsewhere, and launched a newsletter offering timely perspectives on the field.
Together, these efforts have helped Justin J. MacBale and his platforms reach more professionals, connect people across the project management community, and encourage discussions around perspectives that often receive less attention.
Shaping the future from within
Pragintion PM and PM Career Growth will continue to focus on ideas and conversations that receive less attention within the project management field. That means publishing thought leadership, hosting podcasts, and creating content around topics that are often overlooked.
The larger goal is to encourage professionals to challenge familiar ways of thinking and take an active role in changing the profession. Justin J. MacBale wants that influence to extend beyond written content and into the way project managers work with business stakeholders and deliver projects within their own organizations and professional environments.
The vision is not to wait for the field to change from outside. It is about giving professionals the confidence to contribute to that change from wherever they are.
The future of project management is not something that belongs to a select few; it is in the hands of every professional working to shape it.
| Open Letter Dear Readers, One of the greatest things you can do for your professional career is to learn the business you work in. I do not mean just learn workflows; learn the industry, the market, how a business operates, how the departments all work together, and learn what is important to each department across the 4 interdisciplinary skills of data, people, technology, and processes. When you have a better understanding, you can help protect and facilitate value capture as defined by the project sponsor and their decision-making delegates. This is the key to making you both a trusted business advisor and generating new career opportunities. From, Justin J. MacBale, Founder of Pragintion PM, Business Advocacy Driven Project Management Co-Founder the Project Management Learning Platform, PM Career Growth. |
Quick takes
01 | Tool of choice
Jira – Enterprise version
Justin’s first choice is Jira, particularly its enterprise version. Its flexibility and extensive plugin ecosystem make it, in his view, difficult to match in task management. He also recommends Miro and Excel as a supplement.
02 | Quote to remember
“It does not matter your intent; perception is key.”
A strong idea only matters when people believe in it and care about it. Without that, even the best intentions may have little impact.
03 | Advice for future leaders
“Do the right thing, always.”
Justin also emphasizes keeping four groups in mind: your client or customer, your company, your team, and yourself.
04 | Book recommendation
Unusually Excellent by John Hamm
A leadership-focused book that Justin recommends for its exploration of nine leadership skills needed for success.
Key takeaways
- Learn the Business, Not Just the Project
- Become a Trusted Business Advocate
- Challenge Conventional Thinking
- Empower People to Grow Independently
- Shape the Future of Project Management
