Leah Warwick: Hi everyone. I’m Leah Warwick, and you’re listening to The Admin Edge. At the American Society of Administrative Professionals, we provide training on project management, aspects of which also include event management and change management to drive business forward.

If you’re looking to flex your strategic muscles in these skill sets, start by listening to this conversation between ASAP’s Lydia Davidheiser and trainer Lauren Kelly from the show floor at EA Ignite.

Lydia Davidheiser: Hi, I’m Lydia Davidheiser, Senior Content Coordinator for ASAP. My guest today is Laurin Kelly, CEO and Principal Consultant at Battle Plan Strategic Consulting and a speaker at this event, EA Ignite. Welcome to the podcast, Laurin.

Laurin Kelly: Thank you so much.

Lydia Davidheiser: We’re so happy to have you, and who better to have than yourself: I must say, you are quite the project management expert. You’ve done a webinar with us before on asaporg.com, Pivoting into Project Management. It was a hit with out audience.

And now here at EA Ignite, our conference for executive assistants, you’re training on change management and event management. So, some really heavy hitters that really resonate with our audience. So who better to have than to talk about this topic of, You’re Already a Project Manager, Own It. We’re so happy to have you on.

Laurin Kelly: Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Lydia Davidheiser: Let’s start out by talking about some recent data here at ASAP. We talk a lot about admins being more strategic, and our recent 2026 State of the Profession report shows there’s still misalignment in what strategic work means. Do you think that project management is one of those areas that’s being undervalued or misunderstood?

Laurin Kelly: Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s undervalued and misunderstood. I personally did not know anything about project management until I was on my administrative journey. I was an executive assistant when I learned more about it. Then I started connecting the dots, and I was like: A lot of what project managers do is exactly what executive assistants do. It’s just a different title.

I think that a lot of executive assistants and administrative professionals already manage projects and it just has to come to the conclusion of identifying it as such.

Lydia Davidheiser: Right, exactly. We find a lot in our community that kind of idea that, “Oh, I do participate in so much project management, but I don’t have that official title.”
And so I want to ask you, when you look at the day-to-day work of an EA supporting senior leaders, where do you see project management showing up that they might not even realize?

Laurin Kelly: Yeah, that’s a great question. It’s in so many facets of what administrative professionals do. One, and first and foremost, is calendar management. A huge part of project management is timelines and scheduling. You have to have a start date. You have to have an end date. You have to meet certain milestones, and a part of that is managing calendars and timelines.
Other projects that come to mind are when an administrative professional has to onboard or offboard personnel. That is definitely a project, because it has a start date and an end date as well.

Also, something that comes to mind is documentation management or knowledge management systems—whether that’s cleaning up SharePoint or establishing a new infrastructure in SharePoint or Microsoft Teams or Google Workspace, wherever you all work. That is a project, because you start it on one day, and you have a goal in mind of when you want to finish it, and then there’s a new, more efficient structure that has been implemented. At the end of a project, there’s usually a change that happens—and I feel like administrative professionals are so important in stewarding that change.

Lydia Davidheiser: Yes, absolutely. We talk about that so much on our website, in our data, in all our reports: having that leverage of knowing that you contribute to the bigger picture.

Laurin Kelly: One more thing that I’m speaking on is event planning. Administrative professionals play such a major role in the event planning, whether it’s the staff retreat, activities. All of those are also considered projects, but maybe not something that is regularly identified as a project.

Lydia Davidheiser: Yes, you talked about that in your webinar with us as well. And we always get so many comments about how “I’d love to enhance my project management skills in terms of event planning.” Because there’s so much that goes into that, whether it’s meetings, whether it’s board meetings which tend to be larger, it can be an offsite venue. I look forward to stepping into your session later today to learn what you have to say about that.

If there’s anyone listening and thinking, in response to what you just said, “Ok, I am doing this already. Now what?” – how can they start formalizing those skills, or making that work more visible without overcomplicating it?

Laurin Kelly: That’s another great question. I would say with Project Management Institute. They are the most widely renowned and recognized organization for project management, and designation and certification. That’ll help you familiarize yourself with project management verbiage, understanding how you can maybe tweak your resume so you’re speaking more of that project management-speak in your resume versus administrative verbiage. And also, consider training and certification so you can get that formal designation and that formal expertise in your background and credentials.

Adding the PMP to your name does hold some weight. I obtained my PMP in 2020, and it definitely is something that I leverage even in my consulting firm, when I’m writing proposals. I put, “We are PMP certified.” It carries some leverage there.

I would say also if project management is not something internally at your organization that is understood or there’s misalignment, as we talked about previously—be the champion in explaining what project management is, using that project management verbiage and socializing it more so there’s a better shared understanding across the organization as well.

Lydia Davidheiser: And we will get into that in just a second. There is a listener question that talks exactly about that, so we will definitely get there.

What do organizations risk missing out on when they don’t recognize or fully leverage the project management capabilities their admins already have?

Laurin Kelly: The answer to that is in the question that you ask. They risk not having efficient project managers.

Every organization has to have project managers—whether they have them officially designated by title or not is really irrelevant. There are so many projects that take place within an organization on a daily, weekly, monthly, annual basis. So when you’re not fully tapping into the, the admin capabilities and expertise, you’re missing out on people who can efficiently manage projects and get things done.

Lydia Davidheiser: Right. Exactly. And this really ties into our listener question, which was submitted by a community member.

They asked: “What do you say to an executive who genuinely doesn’t see the project management happening right in front of them?”

Laurin Kelly: Yeah, that’s a great question. And yeah, I will go back to what I started touching on previously. Once you have familiarized yourself with all things project management—whether that’s through your certification or through your research, through the Project Management Institute resources—then you bring that back to your organization. You bring that back to your executive. You explain how the operations and things that are currently happening tie into project management, and that the work that you’re already doing is project management.

And then you also wanna demonstrate the value add. You understanding project management, having that expertise and that background, what is the value add to the executive? What is the value add to the organization?

And then you really want to get that buy-in. In project management-speak, we call it power skills. The ability to influence is one of those power skills. You want to be able to influence your executive to see it.

Lydia Davidheiser: Right. Amazing, Laurin. Thank you so much for all your advice and wisdom today.

Laurin Kelly: No problem, thanks for having me.

Lydia Davidheiser: Where can listeners find you online?

Laurin Kelly: I’m on LinkedIn, pretty active on there: Laurin Kelly. Look me up. I’d be happy to connect with you. Also, we have a website, www.BattlePlanSC.com. So you can visit our website as well.

Lydia Davidheiser: Alright. Thank you so much, Laurin. It was a pleasure having you on.

Laurin Kelly: Thank you.

Leah Warwick: Thank you for listening to The Admin Edge, produced by the American Society of Administrative Professionals. Original music and audio editing by Warwick Productions, with audio and video production by 5Tool Productions. If you like this podcast, please leave us a nice review, five stars, and subscribe.

If you’d like to submit a listener question, you may do so on our website at asaporg.com/podcast.