Introduction
Projects, by nature, have a lot of uncertainty built into them, which is why Project Managers (hereafter referred to as PMs) have to identify risks throughout the project and need to plan meticulously for mitigating (or avoiding wherever possible) those risks. There are various other aspects as well to managing projects such as timelines, quality, scope, resources, etc. But to my opinion and in my experience, the reason most of the projects fail or do not get delivered to the customer satisfaction, is improper planning and management of risks throughout the life of a project. However, we are not here to talk on Risk Management, since its such a big topic that it warrants a different discussion altogether. What we are going to focus here is some of the common mistakes that PMs do, that result in project failures, especially by those who have just stepped into PM’s shoes.
As mentioned earlier, there are different aspects that make up a project, and each one of those aspects require serious planning and effective management. A PM is expected to have all the necessary qualifications and skill-sets for managing projects effectively and this is where proper training and certifications like PMP or Prince2 help.
Project Management is an art as well as a science and hence no matter what classroom trainings a PM has acquired or which certifications he has earned, true project management skills are developed only on the job. We also need to understand that there is no “Perfect” Project! Every project has its own set of challenges and every project is unique. Even then, almost all principles of Project Management hold true while managing any type of project.
Going with that understanding, here are some common mistakes that PMs do while managing a project.
Mistake #1: Stakeholders know it all!
This is the most common mistake that most of the PMs do, especially the newcomers. The fundamental task of any project manager during a project is to communicate! And communication can be inbound or outbound.
Inbound communications refer to the communications with the project team and the project sponsor. Outbound communications refer to the communications with the customer, other vendors and any other stakeholder listed in the Stakeholder Register.
A PM’s primary responsibility is to ensure that the communications flow seamlessly across the channels at every stage of the project. A lot of PM’s get themselves involved into day-to-day execution of the project to such a level that they tend to neglect their responsibility of managing a project. This is where they go wrong and tend to miss out on most important communications to the stakeholders who matter. They function under the impression that “Stakeholders know it all!” or “I will update stakeholders when I get time!”. The biggest risk that a PM can run into, is the important project stakeholders not being up-to-date on the status of the project!
A PM also needs to understand that though he/she is in control of the project, he/she may not have an authority to take some important decisions that may impact the project significantly. Usually those decisions lie with the Project Sponsor OR the Customer. And if both these stakeholders are not updated regularly by the PM, timely decisions may not happen, which in turn may badly affect the project. In these situations, a well drafted and approved Communications Management Plan helps.
The Communications Matrix mentioned in the Communications Management Plan sets the process and method of communications to all the important stakeholders throughout the project lifecycle. A PM needs to follow this plan to the T and throughout the project lifecycle, not only when there is an issue or an escalation.
Mistake #2: Project will deliver on its own!
Another costly mistake in Project Management!
Imagine that you are admitted to an ICU in a hospital. The doctors and nurses attending you have attached some wires to your body that are connected to a monitor screen. The screen displays some of your health vitals that the doctors study and accordingly supervise the treatment. Now what if the doctor or the nurses do not monitor the readings regularly? What if they leave it to the monitor to analyze the readings and prescribe a treatment? Do you think you will ever walk out of that ICU?
Same is the case with projects. They need regular monitoring and tracking. Every activity done by any project team member gives out a reading that needs to be understood, monitored and basis the understanding, further action needs to be decided. This is what a PM needs to do – track, track and track the project till its closure. Most of the PMs do not focus on project tracking, citing time constraints. But what they forget is that they are playing a role of a doctor here and qualities of a good doctor are observation and analysis, without which they will never be able to correctly diagnose the ailment and prescribe the correct medicine/treatment.
As the project progresses, situations might change or new situations may come up that may need changes to be done to the project plan. These changes may also affect other aspects of the project, including time, cost, quality or even scope. Unless these changes are monitored closely, timely actions will not be taken, communications will not flow and it may put the entire project in jeopardy. Hence, project tracking and monitoring is one of the most important activities that the PM must perform throughout the project.
There are many ways a project can be tracked, all of which cannot be discussed here. But the best way to track the project is to use a Software like Microsoft Project or an alternative tool. The software not only allows you to track the project, but also provides multiple views and reports to analyze the health of the project and thereby enable timely action basis the analysis.
Mistake #3: Project delivery is like sailing on smooth waters!
A ship is always safe at the port. But that is not what the ship was built for!
A ship is built for sailing in waters and not for staying in the docks. It HAS to take risks of sailing in rough waters at times and cannot expect the water to be calm all the time. Similarly, there is no project on Earth which is without any risks!
A PM needs to take this into consideration and identify risks early in the project cycle. That does not mean that risk identification should stop for the rest of the project. Risk identification and mitigation is a continuous process and has to be followed throughout the project lifecycle. A lot of PMs usually focus all their energies on execution of the project and tend to miss out on the opportunities to identify risks before they occur. In those cases the typical response is a reaction to those risks rather than planning the mitigation in advance. This at times consumes a lot of project time and resources, which in turn negatively impacts the project timelines.
The PM has to use his experience on past projects to identify risks and have a mitigation plan ready. Alternatively, a PM can also work along with a Risk Manager/Officer to identify the risks. Once the Risk register is updated, the PM can then have a Risk Management Plan that details out the steps and processes to manage the risks as and how they occur in the project. The risks identified also have to be a part of the daily/weekly/fortnightly status reports shared with the Stakeholders, so that all the stakeholders are aware about the risks in the project.
Mistake #4: Documentation is an unnecessary overhead!
There cannot be a bigger misunderstanding in the Project Management world than this one!
As discussed earlier, since the PMs fundamental task in any project is to communicate, documentation becomes all the more necessary. Documentation forms the basis of all the communication happening in the project.
How do the stakeholders get a weekly status update if there is none documented? How does a PM communicate the Project Plan to the team if it doesn’t exist? Now here, a document need not necessarily mean long Microsoft Word document running into pages. It can be in any format for that matter – Excel Sheet, Microsoft Project Plan or even Email. But documentation is an essential part of PMs job and he will be running into all kinds of problems in the absence of required documents at different stages in a project.
A lot of times PMs come from a technical background (mostly in IT industry) and hence the resistance for documentation. They believe more in focusing on execution of a project, due to which documentation is neglected and PMs end up missing out on finer details of managing the project. Documentation becomes all the more important when it comes to doing post mortem of the project, post the project closure, so that the lessons learned on the project can be made available for future projects. It also needs to be handed over to the customer as a part of project deliverable and also needs to be added to the project archives for future references.
This makes it very clear that documentation is NOT an unnecessary overhead, but in fact a transcript of the entire project that will guide the future project teams.
Mistake #5: Projects do not need to be closed!
PMs who spend a lot of time and energy in trying to keep up with the project timelines, usually end up NOT closing the projects formally. I say formally, because this process is usually skipped and PMs directly shift to other projects.
By not ensuring that the projects are closed properly, PMs run a risk of repeating the same mistakes in future projects, that they did in their current project. This point is related to the previous point that talked about importance of documentation. In absence of sufficient documentation for a project, there is really nothing with the PM to formally close a project.
No formal closure means no post-mortem of the project, no performance evaluation of the team, no ready references for the future projects or future teams. The formal project closure is also linked with final payment milestones, where the remainder of the project payment from the customer depends on a successful handover of a project.
Epilogue
Project Management in itself is a vast subject and outside the scope of this blog post. There are a lot of useful resources available on the web to guide PMs on this subject, of which my personal favourites are ProjectManagement.com, The Digital Project Manager and ProjectManagementDocs.com (for project management templates).
The primary objective of this blog post was to share my experiences on working as a project manager and to present pointers that may help other project managers deliver successful projects by avoiding mistakes that can be avoided easily. Hope readers of this post will benefit from the information shared here.
Please feel free to comment for any suggestions, apprehensions or corrections.
