Below is the list of top 5 project management mistakes
1. Unclear Statement of Requirement (SOW) resulting in incomplete Scope – There are times when many project managers assume certain things, basis their past experience or limited knowledge. The scope of the project should be documented in detail with each and every information in black and white. You need to document – who, what, why and how of your project.
But most of the time people don’t, they fall victim to scope creep, and the project veers wildly off track.Consider 3 things while defining the scope of the project- What is required, how much it is required and why it is required.
“What“will take care of all the features of the project or the product.
“How much” will take care of the all tangible things like size, total number of users, time and cost. Many projects fails due to inadequate information. For example –In an IT Company, after go live of a new application, performance of the application was reported as too slow.Later on it was found that the total number of concurrent users were around 800 whereas the load test was done for 500 users only. Now this count was an average count assumed by the project manager, resulting in project failure.
“Why” will justify what all should be included and what should be excluded from the scope document.
2. Acceptance of Change Request without a second thought – If the scope document is created considering all three factors “what”, “how much” and “why”, then there is very little chance for a change request. Even then if you get one, first look at your own list of “include” and “exclude”. If it is found in the exclude list, look for the reason why it was not included at that time. You should stop and ask a critical question-“Is there a legitimate justification for the change? If not, you have all the rights to reject the same.
Remember scope creep is the primary cause of most project failures, so utilizing change control procedures to manage the scope of the project.
3. Incomplete Stakeholder Identification – You might identify who all are the stakeholders of your project, but do you know it is equally important to make a list of people who are not your stakeholders. You might think it to be mere wastage of time to pen down people who are neither directly nor indirectly involved in your project. Also it will be a long and difficult list. But this is equally important because once you are through with this list, there is a possibility that you might want to shift few from “Not a stakeholder” list to your stakeholders’ list, at the time of reviewing this list. You never know at a later date, some of them might turned out to be most critical, influential and directly affected ones. Remember for a successful project you must have list of all the stakeholders with further segregation of Negative/Positive stakeholders and Direct/Indirect stakeholders and “Not stakeholders”.
4. Improper Communication Plan – You and your team should create a communication plan that addresses how and when the team communicates with each other, with key stakeholder, with non-critical stakeholders, with the sponsor and with external team members. This is often done with status reports (showing current project status), progress report (how it got there and change reports (major changes and impact on the project due to these changes).
Be very careful while marking a mail to internal and external stakeholders. Especially in the case of internal matters, please ensure to start a separate email chain. This is very common practice that people uses the same email chain and discuss the internal conflicts, without removing the outsiders from that list. Even if the outsiders are carefully removed from that email, there is a possibility that the incorrect chain mail is selected while you or any other recipient reply back. So it is advisable to change the subject line as well so that you can maintain the confidentiality and integrity of your company.
5. Incomplete Status Report – It’s great if your project is on time and on-budget – but what if the status report doesn’t indicate that you’ve only produced 10% of the widgets you were supposed to create? Make sure your metrics reflect the overall progress of the project and include relevant business metrics.
The report should be focused on current efforts, don’t continue mentioning past status and achievement. Be very careful while mentioning figures and other statistics as even a small mistake can leave a wrong impression on the stakeholders. If your data is not accurate or is incorrect it would show that you lack dedication resulting in loosing stakeholder’s confidence.
A little bit of precaution can prevent a project manager from any such mistakes, which can really cost a lot in the long run.
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