Archive for the ‘ Hot Topics ’ Category
Priority #5 in project rescue – Communications management
This is the last in a series on Rescuing Projects by our friend and colleague, Bob Louton, PMP. This article discusses the 5th-most urgent area of a project, communication management. This is also the last on my list. As you address the big problems with team communications, you can progressively turn your focus to the remaining project problems. One
Top Ten Reasons Why Projects Fail – Reason #10
Reason #10 – Monitoring and Controlling Perhaps one of the less well understood facts about projects is that they need to be monitored and controlled. Basically what this means is that in a project you create baselines. (Let’s deal only with the schedule baseline for sake of argument). That baseline is an approved snapshot of the tasks
Top Ten Reasons Why Projects Fail – Reason #9
Reason # 9 – Team Planning Sessions As I mentioned before, PMI devotes fully twenty processes in the PMBOK just to planning. And they will be devoting even more in v5. Point being, planning on a project is extremely important. That seems like a fairly obvious statement. But in my travels, as I go into and out of companies either as consultant
Top Ten Reasons Why Projects Fail – Reason #8
Reason #8 – The accidental project manager I talked in my last post about the fact that so many projects fail because the concept of project management is not well understood and so therefore, is not supported in some organizations. And so I mentioned that people who are asked to manage projects are often not trained. And very often these
Top Ten Reasons Why Projects Fail – Reason #7
Reason #7 – Unsupported Project Culture In my twenty years in project management, I’ve noticed an interesting phenomenon. If you ask 100 random people walking down the street what a lawyer, doctor or accountant does, they will all know. Now ask that same group of people what a project manager does. Some will know, many won’t. They won’t
Top Ten Reasons Why Projects Fail – Reason #6
Reason #6 – Risk Put simply, risk management is one of the most powerful (and, I think, easiest) techniques you can use in managing projects. Why is it so powerful? Because projects have uncertainty. And by predicting risk, you can lower that uncertainty and increase the likelihood of completing your project on time. And so if I tell you
Top Ten Reasons Why Projects Fail – Reason #5
Reason #5 – Estimates The Project Management Institute’s (PMI) book of all things project management (PMBOK) has a chapter dedicated exclusivey to risk. There are several facets to risk management but the one I want to mention today is risk identification. Yes, I know, we’re talking specifically about estimates here. But what I wanted
Top Ten Reasons Why Projects Fail – Reason #4 (continued)
Stakeholder Management (Part Two) So, duly chastened, my team and I went home that night then returned to the office in Manhattan on Monday morning. Meanwhile, I had to report something to my boss. And so I told him what went on and what our speculation about Tom’s motives was. Needless to say he hit the roof. And he started making phone calls.
Top Ten Reasons Why Projects Fail – Reason #4
Stakeholder Management – Part 1 I had originally intended each post in my “Why projects fail” series to be one page. But I wanted to tell this particular story which speaks so well to bad stakeholder management that it will be in two posts. So, still overall a ten-part series on what makes projects fail. But maybe more than ten
Top Ten Reasons Why Projects Fail – Reason #3
Reason # 3 – Communications One of my colleagues said something interesting recently that hadn’t occurred to me. He stated that many people on a project will know the project manager only through his or her communications. So the PM is often working in a virtual environment and some of his team members are in another part of the country
Top Ten Reasons Why Projects Fail – Reason #2
Reason # 2 – Resources In my first post on why projects fail, I talked about scope being the number one problem. And truthfully, I might just as well have said resources. These issues are typically number one and number two in companies I work with, not necessarily in that order. So what exactly is the issue with resources and why does it
