Technical explainer

How Maven manages your projects from email to close

A step-by-step walkthrough of how Maven works — from the first email to the closing summary report.

TL;DR

You email maven@maven-pm.com with a project brief and CC your team. Maven assigns an AI PM persona who replies in the thread, extracts tasks, assigns them to participants, follows up when things stall, and sends a structured closing summary when the project wraps. Everything happens through email. No apps, no dashboards, no logins for your collaborators. Active collaborators (people who reply) are billed at $6/month. Lurkers are free.

The full process

Detailed walkthrough

1

Write your project brief as an email

Open any email client — Gmail, Outlook, Apple Mail, Fastmail, or any other. Compose a new email to maven@maven-pm.com. In the subject line, put the name of your project (e.g., "Q3 marketing campaign" or "Website redesign"). In the body, describe what you want to accomplish, who is involved, any deadlines, and relevant context. There is no form, no template, no account setup required. A plain email is all you need.

Tip More context = better project structure. Include deadlines, stakeholder names, and what "done" looks like for this project.
2

CC your collaborators

Add your team, clients, vendors, or contractors to the CC field. They will receive Maven's responses as normal email replies and can participate by replying — no account creation, no app download, no login required. Anyone with an email address can collaborate on a Maven project.

Tip Collaborators who reply become active participants. Those who only receive messages are "lurkers" and are never billed.
3

Maven assigns a PM persona and reads the brief

Within minutes of receiving your email, Maven assigns a named PM persona to your project. Current personas include Sofia, Marcus, Priya, and others. The persona replies directly in your email thread, introduces themselves, confirms what they've understood about the project scope, and asks clarifying questions if the brief is ambiguous.

Tip The same persona stays assigned to the project throughout its lifetime, maintaining context across hundreds of messages.
4

Tasks are extracted and assigned

Maven reads the project brief and any subsequent replies to extract deliverables — the concrete outcomes that need to happen for the project to succeed. These are assigned to specific participants based on their stated roles, expertise signals from the conversation, and ownership cues in the thread. Maven tracks status (pending, in progress, completed, blocked) for each deliverable.

Tip You can adjust tasks mid-project by replying in the thread. Maven incorporates changes from the conversation and updates its tracking accordingly.
5

Follow-ups happen automatically

When a task deadline passes without resolution — or when a participant hasn't replied in a reasonable window — Maven follows up directly in the thread. It doesn't wait silently. It nudges the responsible party, surfaces the blocker to you when it needs a decision, and escalates persistently quiet participants visibly rather than letting them hide.

Tip Escalation thresholds are calibrated to project urgency. Maven infers urgency from your brief and adjusts follow-up timing accordingly.
6

Blockers are surfaced, not buried

When Maven detects a blocker — a dependency that hasn't resolved, a missing input, a conflicting requirement, or a participant who isn't responding — it flags it explicitly in the thread. Blockers don't hide in a task list that no one checks; they become visible signals in the email conversation you're already in.

Tip Blocker types Maven recognizes: missing input, external dependency, conflicting requirements, resource unavailability, and unclear ownership.
7

Project closes with a structured summary

When all deliverables are resolved, Maven sends a close-out summary to the entire thread. The summary includes: decisions made during the project, tasks completed (with assignees), open items that weren't resolved, and a chronological overview of the project. The email thread becomes a permanent, searchable record of the project.

Tip Completed projects enter a read-only archive state. You can request deletion at any time by emailing maven@maven-pm.com.

Common questions about how Maven works

Ready to try it?

Email maven@maven-pm.com with any project. Your PM persona replies within minutes.

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