Most of the mistakes made by IT departments in project management are caused by improper planning or poor communication. These mistakes seriously reduce the chances of success of the project. The following will list 14 common project management mistakes to help you compare, measure and improve.
1. Lack of appropriate personnel and skills
Impact: Improper employment and resource allocation are the most common phenomena in project management mistakes. Whether a project can be successfully completed depends on the configuration of personnel and skills. The result of improper employment often leads to the inability to continue the project, so even if the plan is good, it is still an armchair strategist.
Solution: IT and project managers should fully understand and control skills and resources, including detailed evaluation of project consultants, contractors and outsourcers. Using project management software can help the project manager to fully grasp the skills and workload distribution of all team members. After understanding the division of labor and responsibilities, IT and project managers can decide how to allocate resources reasonably in their daily work and projects. It is also a good idea to assign a special resource manager to solve the problem of personnel and resource allocation.
If you still have difficulty in allocating project personnel, you can consider looking at the project portfolio of the whole company first, and then suspending those projects that have little to do with business strategy or tasks, thus releasing some available resources.
2. Lack of experienced project managers
Impact: Without an experienced project manager at the helm, the project is likely to get out of control with development.
Solution: Hire a project manager who meets the project requirements and has excellent interpersonal skills. He should be charismatic, able to manage risks and play a coordinating role between team members and external participants. In addition, an excellent project manager should also have the knowledge and skills of related technologies.
3. The standard project management process was not followed.
Impact: This is the second most common mistake in project management. Lack of reasonable process will increase the project risk, increase the possibility of project failure, and ultimately lead to the failure to complete the project within limited time and budget.
Solution: Making a good project management process can help you improve the efficiency of the project, catch all kinds of problems in the process of project implementation in time and control risks.
IT and project managers should establish a repeatable process for project planning, resource allocation and communication with members in advance. Only in this way can the return and effect of the project be guaranteed.
4. There are too many processes.
Impact: Too many processes will make the project inflexible, and then affect the enthusiasm of participants.
A software developer once told the project manager of a client company that they could add extra functions without increasing the cost and workload, but the project manager rejected the suggestion because he felt that the company users did not ask for this function. In fact, as long as it does not affect the project budget and progress, and with the consent of users, adding more functions is more beneficial than harmful.
Solution: Improve flexibility and actively communicate with project supporters and participants.
5. Lack of tracking of project changes
Impact: Either the budget is overspent or the progress is slow (or both).
Solution: Establish a formal change application process. Any change within the scope of the project (such as adding new functions) shall be specified in the change document and signed by the top project supervisor for approval. In addition, the project manager needs to determine what impact the application will have on the budget and schedule.
6. Lack of understanding of project dynamics
Impact: Management guru peter drucker once said that if you can't manage it, you can't measure it. Reflected in the project, it is unable to coordinate resources or respond to changes in time.
Solution: Use software.
7. Take small problems lightly
Impact: The problem will not solve itself. If a small problem is taken lightly, it will turn into a big problem and eventually multiply the project cost.
Solution: Strengthen the attitude and consciousness of project team members and correct mistakes as soon as possible. It's too late to make amends.
8. The project scope is undefined.
Impact: If the business and IT departments do not define the scope of the project in advance, the project will eventually fail to achieve the expected results, and it will also lack the direction to complete the project on time.
Solution: Correct the wrongly defined project through business use cases and scope definition.
9. Ignore the association between projects.
Impact: Ignoring the relationship between projects will lead to the imbalance of resource allocation (for example, the personnel assigned to one project are also needed by another project), thus affecting the progress of the project. As a chain reaction, other projects will also be dragged down.
Solution: Consider relevant factors when making the project plan. Communicating with project participants and drawing a project association table can help you clearly understand the relationship between projects.
10. Risk assessment is too arbitrary.
Impact: The project deviates from the track and needs to clean up sudden troubles.
Solution: Risk assessment should be part of the project plan. You can brainstorm in the team, collect possible risk factors, and then try to avoid these risks. It won't take long for this activity, and it can also help you fully understand the weakness of the project before it officially starts.
1 1. Insufficient understanding of users' resistance.
Impact: users' resistance to new technologies will waste the investment and energy of the project.
Solution: In the project planning stage, consider the obstacles in the implementation process and try to solve them. Communicate with users whose work will be affected by the new project and explain the beneficial changes and values that the project will bring to their workflow.
12. The schedule is not perfect.
Impact: Team members don't know when to finish what tasks, which hinders the timely completion of the overall project.
Solution: The easiest way is to identify all activities in the project and mark the expected completion date after these activities. Project management software can also be used to create schedules.
13. Don't refute the unreasonable project duration.
Impact: I am caught in the dilemma of not finishing the project on time, and IT will damage the credibility of the IT department.
Perhaps the project deadline set by the company is too harsh, and IT will only be counterproductive if it is forced to complete it.
Solution: The IT manager should explain to the management of the company the actual difficulties that cannot be expected to be completed and the costs that need to be forcibly paid (such as sharp increase in costs, resource budget overruns, etc.), so that the management can choose between cost and speed.
14. Lack of communication with project supporters and participants.
Impact: Not up to the expected requirements.
Solution: While explaining the key written documents and forms in person, briefly explain the main points in a way that the other party can understand (some business people don't understand long technical terms).
In this kind of communication and interaction, in fact, the company's business analysts have played a very important coordinating role between users and IT.
It is suggested to provide a project summary (from planning to deployment) to all business members involved in or affected by the project, and indicate which activities require business personnel to participate in the interaction and the purpose of interaction. In a word, more time should be spent to guide business departments to understand the steps of project implementation.
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