PM Errors

We thought about calling this article Project Management don’t, but then we thought you might think it was an article about doughnuts for Project Managers – which entertaining as that might have been, it isn’t. Instead this is a short article listing a couple of the things it really is essential that Project Managers shouldn’t do, hence the title – Project Management errors.

Estimation errors.

Good project planning can reduce project errors.

By and large Project Managers tend not to involve many of their senior staff in estimating schedules and even quantities of materials needed for a project. As far as many Project Managers are concerned involving too many people simply leads to vast over-estimates in time required for jobs and/or the materials needed to accomplish them. Excluding team members from the scheduling process can be a mistake. As the Project Management you must be open to their recommendations/suggestions, after all, as the Project Management you have the final say anyway. Don’t forget too that your ‘final say’ can be further informed if you also refer any scheduling estimates to your Business Analyst(s), the Project Architect and even the end-user, to check with them that the advice you’ve been given is in keeping with their thoughts too.

Ignoring recording progress.

Never feel that you’re so busy, or worse too important, as to not keep up to date with recording the progress that the project is making. Having developed a project plan you must keep returning to it and maintain it as a record of work done/completed. Without developing proper documentation for the project, if a critical member of staff leaves you will not be able to effectively lead the team of people they were responsible for until a replacement can be brought in – wasting time and resources. Also, here we need to say something about ensuring your project progresses successfully. At the beginning of it progress will seem slow and can demotivate some staff. So, whilst your project plan will have all sorts of long-term objectives and mile-stones, build in to the plan some short-term ones to be achieved early on in the life of the project. These will help to get you into the habit of recording work completed into your project plan and will help your staff to work to deadlines from the beginning.