Top 10 mistakes ever made in project management

When it comes to projects someone once said:" If everything is going exactly as planned, something somewhere is going massively wrong." And it is true, although project managers have difficulty saying it loud, in the everyday workflow of the project, mistakes do happen. But the biggest question is whether these mistakes will be something which team members and project manager could learn from and never repeat or they will be constantly diminished and misjudged. The constant battle between customers’ requirements and time and resources is what makes the project complex and repetitive process In such an environment mistakes are every day routine. But what are the crucial areas where project managers can always try to improve and decrease possible errors?

Here are several proposals:
1. Communication – It could never be too much. In order to know every detail, task or a certain problem, responsibility of project manager is to make sure that everyone involved is constantly updated on what is happening, what their role is, the timeframes and the dependencies. What you think is a vital indication of approaching disaster might appear to your project team as a minor glitch in the system. What you consider to be a major alteration to the customer’s original specification might seem to the designer to be a simple modification. To ensure that you receive the necessary information, one solution is to inform all project staff in advance of what information your require, how often, and in what format.

2. Set goals and expectations – Each stakeholder has a different expectation and picture for the project. In order not to miss customers’ requirements you need to define details, time, and resources and budget properly so each side could get what is expected. And of course, to be sure that your team could deliver what was promised. One of the project goals might be to "increase the overall satisfaction level of clients calling the company helpdesk with support needs". For example, General Dynamics ensures its PM’s are familiar with the company’s needs by holding weekly meetings to discuss and debate new and ongoing projects, increasing the odds for selecting the best solution, and keeping projects on schedule (Heekens 2002). Banco Itamarati, a privately held Brazilian bank, attributes the success of its IT project to clear vision and documented specific objectives. The company produced an annual net profit growth of 51% and moved from 47the to 15th place in the Brazilian banking industry.

3. Be flexible, but learn to say no – The list of stakeholders whishes could be endless, but what is really applicable and feasible only you and your team know. Yes you need to be flexible and accept changes in the project but never accept something that will carry away the project into over budget zone and having to deal with over allocated resources, time and efforts.

4. Consider Murphy's Law-Never neglect risk management. Too many project managers treat risk management as optional item rather than a need-to-do recurring event in the planning and controlling phases. Risks need to be brainstormed, properly estimated and calculated, in order not to bring any surprises to the project.

5. Start before you hear the whistle- Often project managers start the project, without having contract signed and terms agreed. This could be a bad idea which may lead to profit loose or dissatisfied customer. You want to build the relationship and the client wants results quickly, so you go against your policy and act. But sometimes customer may change its opinion and leave you in the middle of nowhere. That is why the project manager must document and at least get sign-off on projects features and needs from the client side. That’s some protection, which can be skipped if you have built a long term relationship with your client.

6. Nothing without the Right Resources and the Right Skills - Suitable project staffing is critical, yet inadequately allocated resources is still one of the top common project management mistakes. Not having the right people with the right skills doing the right things on a project, can kill it. A survey conducted by IT Cortex, on "Reasons for Project Impaired Factors" conducted among 365 IT managers from companies of various size and in various economic sectors showed that lack of resources is one of the main reasons for project failure followed by lack of executive support. It is interesting to point out that lack of IT management and technology illiteracy was at the bottom of the list, showing soft skills super ceding technical skills. The best plan or project ever could be ruined with the lack of skills. Therefore project managers should carefully review staff abilities and assignments.

7.Unreasonable Deadlines – Setting deadlines that could not be achieved is a major problem. In order to impress and get project approval from stakeholders project managers often overestimate the team capabilities. Major compromise between budget and time must be made, so either on time delivery of the project or staying within the budget could be central goal. The project manager must develop accurate and realistic time estimates for the project, and use these to convince the sponsor that the timelines can't be achieved.

8. Losing touch with WBS – Work break down structure is the essential of the project, which provides confirmed scope, inclusive of phases and deliverables. It is useful for creating the bigger picture of project requirements, and then for using it as a reference throughout. WBS should be properly shaped in the scoping phase, completed in the planning phase, and used as the key control document throughout the rest of the project life cycle.

9. Always stay customer focused - When deeply involved within the project, team members, lose sense of customer requirements. The most relevant rule to follow here is that "The customer is always right even when he is not". The team unique goal should be to attract and retain the customer in the base and make him satisfy. One popular technique is called Quality Function Deployment (QFD). QFD is a systematic procedure that places intense focus on customer needs and translates those needs into detailed requirements. It is one of the best ways to ensure that project requirements are aligned to customer needs. Another technique is called a CTQ (Critical to Quality) Tree. A CTQ tree is used to decompose broad customer requirements into more easily quantified requirements.

10. Always use a Project Management Tool- In today’s dynamic environment the project management tool is a must for every project. One of the biggest mistakes a company can make is using a new technology on a highly visible and large project. Having the right tool is really helpful to keep projects on track, update stakeholders and manage multiple projects at the same time. It makes your work a lot easier and your project more flexible. For example, the task update feature of Seavus Project Viewer could save a lot of time, lost documentation and track the progress of the project immediately.

Recent study of the Faculty of Computer Science & Information Technology, University of Malaya showed the critical factor of project success and failure. Between the top 10 reasons for failure were: the lack of user input, unclear objectives, project and user focus and constant change of requirements. These pretty much correspond to the proposed errors and fields for progress.

As a conclusion we can say that there are many other mistakes which we can meet on the road of successful project management process, but this field is constantly changing and developing so there will always be place for improvement and learning. Maybe the biggest mistake of all is if you never learn from your mistakes in order to prevent bigger ones. Project managers should take the time and make the commitment to learn from experience, and the learning curves will start to stack up on each other, processes will improve and productivity will increase.