70+ Best project management memes for 2023

Project management is growing ever more popular, so much so that the demand for project professionals is expected to reach 25 million by 2030 at a rate of 2.3 million annual job openings.

This demand is so high that — according to project management statistics — more than half of all projects are run by non-certified project managers.

In short, project management is the way of the future, but not enough people in the present know how to take advantage of it.

This inevitably leads to some tense situations. I could describe them, but it’s best to just show you.

As the old adage goes, a meme is worth 1,000 words, so let’s take a look at the current state of dysfunctional project management and see how many images you can identify with.

70+ Best project management memes - cover

Project manager struggles memes

It takes a lot to be a project manager. Even the most competent ones will butt heads with clients, team members, or stakeholders over the course of a project.

But they all handle their responsibilities in unique ways. Let’s take a look at some examples.

Ol faithful project management meme
Forwarding emails project management meme
Two red buttons project management meme
Surprised Pikatchu project management meme
Let me in project management meme
Paimon painting project management meme
PMBOK project management meme
Types of headaches project management meme
Hard to swallow pills project management meme
Goosebumps project management meme
Vince McMahon project management meme
Checking emails project management meme
To do list project management meme
World according to project managers meme
What is my purpose project management meme
Zoom calls project management meme

Developers in project management memes

Ideally, your project manager should have working knowledge relating to the field of their project — a PM working on a construction project should understand how construction works, just like a PM working on a software development project should understand how software development works.

For one reason or another, this isn’t always the case, leading project team members to work under a leader who doesn’t understand how work gets done.

If you’ve had such a project manager, then these project management memes should feel relatable.

Spongebob burning paper project management meme
Time estimate project management meme
Green block project management meme
Avengers level threat project management meme
Backlog project management meme
Developers and project managers project management meme
Senior and junior developers project management meme
Im tired of pretending its not project management meme

💡 Plaky Pro Tip
Want more developer memes? Check out the following blog post:

Risk management memes

A common cause of project failure is a lack of risk management

Statistics show that 34% of PMs don’t use it at all. 

Now, we don’t know why they refuse to go near anything that sounds like it could be related to project risks or project assumptions, but we can depict the chaos.

Draw 25 or project management meme
This is where I would put my risk response plan meme
People rejected his message risk management meme
Project assumption management meme
No risk management meme
It wasnt important risk management meme
Spongebob project management meme
Scroll of truth risk management meme
Panik project management meme

Clients in project management memes

Project managers have a hard time dealing with clients who don’t understand the project management process. They don’t mean to make disruptive requests, but these requests typically result in scope creep and extend the project timeline.

So, for all the PMs who have had these types of dealings, these memes are for you.

Cost us 51 years project management meme
Batman slapping Robin project management meme
This whole operation project management meme
Project running late project management meme
Features requests project management meme
Gandalf management meme
Bad clients project management meme
It scares me project management meme
Clients project management meme
Run from clients project management meme

The corporate side of project management memes

The reason PMs do some things that seem inexplicable sometimes has less to do with their eccentricities and more to do with the way businesses treat projects.

Some companies care about quality, so they’ll be willing to grant the PM’s request for additional time to complete the project.

Others care about meeting a deadline, even at the cost of delivering a mediocre product. They may throw more money at the project, but this isn’t always the solution.

The following memes illustrate the latter.

Constraints project management meme
Project management I sleep meme
Bernie project management meme
Project budget and inflation project management meme
How companies deal with SPI
Drake project management meme
Trainwreck project management meme
This is worthless project management meme

Scrum bad memes

There’s no denying that Scrum is one of the most popular Agile frameworks out there, if not the most popular.

There’s also no denying that many people working in project management hate Scrum, so if you’re one of them, enjoy.

Scrum vs Kanban meme
Scrum go nap nap meme
Standup meetings meme
They dont know Im a Scrum master meme
Too afraid to ask Scrum meme
Daily standup meetings meme
Literally anything else Scrum meme
Scrum developer envy meme
Scrum is a waste of time meme
Hiding from scrum master meme
Act like youre better than me Scrum meme

Miscellaneous project management memes

To cap things off, here are some memes that don’t fit snugly into any of the previous categories.

Is it possible to learn this power project management meme
PM software project management meme
Product managers meme
Its the same picture project management meme
Wagile project management meme
Harry potter project management meme
Godzilla had a stroke project management meme
Agile frameworks go brrrrrrr project management meme
Now there are two of them project management meme
Communication problems project management meme
Junior developer meme

Avoid some of the common pitfalls of project management with Plaky

Most of the problematic situations that inspired these memes come from the people-side of things.

An incompetent ship captain is an incompetent ship captain, whether they’re in charge of a large cruise ship or a small supply ship.

But this doesn’t mean that a good captain will be able to accomplish the same things on a state-of-the-art ship as they would on a creaky old galley.

That’s why project managers should use Plaky to simplify and modernize the project management process for their whole team.

With Plaky, you can assign roles and manage tasks visually and intuitively. And, unlike a creaky old galley — or most other PM tools of its kind — it doesn’t limit the number of users you can add or task cards you can make by locking them behind paywalls.

Plaky productivity meme

✉️ These memes have been created by sifting through common complaints of project workers and identifying commonalities among them. If you have any pain points regarding project management that haven’t been depicted, you can email us about them at blogfeedback@plaky.com and we may include them.

VladimirSamolovac Vladimir  Samolovac

Vladimir Samolovac is a project management author and researcher who enjoys distilling various PM topics to their essence and presenting them to (aspiring) PMs in a streamlined and intelligible manner. As an experienced teacher and project management aficionado, his goal is to help create a library of useful resources that will positively affect his readers’ project success rates.