14 Common Project Management Mistakes
I got these from PC World:
Mistake No. 1: Projects Lack the Right Resources with the Right Skills.
Mistake No. 2: Projects Lack Experienced Project Managers.
Mistake No. 3: IT Doesn’t Follow a Standard, Repeatable Project Management Process.
Mistake No. 4: IT Gets Hamstrung by Too Much Process.
Mistake No. 5: They Don’t Track Changes to the Scope of the Project.
Mistake No. 6: They Lack Up-to-Date Data About the Status of Projects.
Mistake No. 7: They Ignore Problems.
Mistake No. 8: They Don’t Take the Time to Define the Scope of a Project.
Mistake No. 9: They Fail to See the Dependencies Between Projects.
Mistake No. 10: They Don’t Consider Murphy’s Law.
Mistake No. 11: They Give Short Shrift to Change Management.
Mistake No. 12: Project Schedules Are Incomplete.
Mistake No. 13: IT Doesn’t Push Back on Unreasonable Deadlines.
Mistake No. 14: They Don’t Communicate Well with Project Sponsors and Stakeholders.
I am most guilty of Mistake No. 10. If I were to paraphrase Mistake No. 13, I don’t push for reasonable quotas and deadlines. I can be lenient at times. I can also tweak Mistake No. 4 by saying that I get hamstrung by too much attention to details and processes. Bad, I know, and I vow to improve on this in the coming days.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:53 am
Interesting list. I think the one I’ve seen a lot is #3. Not following any process.
I have a similar (much more detailed list) series of articles on PM Hut, mainly having to do with governmental projects (but it can really applied anywhere), the series is 15 Deadly Project Management Mistakes Government Agencies Make. Let me know what you think!
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October 17th, 2008 at 11:17 pm
Hi, yeah this is a good list, too. What makes it special for me is that it refers to government agencies, which to me really need excellent PM skills! =)
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