10 Undeniable Truths of Project Management

By Tom L. Barnett, PMP

Lists are as old as humankind. It’s natural for us as creatures to enumerate items into an index (just ask David Letterman!). It’s what we do. Having spent several years managing corporate IT projects, I have seen many tactics used by fellow manager-soldiers. New project managers should heed the lessons of those that came before. Therefore, I emerge from the misty corners of the project arena, shake off the dust of combat and hereby present for the annals of history the 10 Undeniable Truths of Project Management. And by the way, don’t forget to update yourself by improving your PM reading.

1. Project Scope Is Not Defined On PowerPoint Slides

As hard as this is for people to swallow, a slide deck of 20 or so slides giving an overview of a project is not sufficient enough to define the scope. I can’t tell you how many times I have seen both project managers and high-powered consulting companies try to execute an engagement and want to rest upon their “project overview” presentation as the synthesis of what they will be delivering and, most importantly, what the customer will get their for their money. This never works and almost always leads to cost overruns. Project charters, scope documents and work breakdown structures are a better start. Not glamorous, but very effective.

2. Project Schedules Do Not a Project Plan Make

Too often, the new project manager believes that as long as he or she has a project schedule, they can raise that schedule like a shield to battle all forces against them in their project warfare. In reality, that schedule is but one tool that a PM needs. It states when something should be done and in what order. Project plans have more dimensions than just one. They need to have charters (to help make decisions and grant authority to the PM), management approaches, processes, issue logs, etc. Failing to have all of the tools necessary to manage a project is like having a tape measure, but no hammer or nails. And after all keep those tools together.

3. Projects Are Not Managed From Behind a Spreadsheet

Some project managers secretly want to be statisticians. They love to calculate all of the various metrics pertaining to their project such as the percentages of deliverables completed, tasks currently on schedule, tasks that should have started, of variance from budget, etc. These are all good to know. The problem is that they spend so much time summarizing and restating data in their spreadsheets, they never talk to the team members about how the project is going and what problems they are having. Without that connection with the team, they are not managing so much as they are reporting.

4. No Task Longer Than 80 Hours and Not Shorter Than 40

Avoid the temptation to place every single minute task into a plan. It will make assigning resources a nightmare and schedule changes even tougher. By sticking to a reasonable granularity of work, you will be better suited to “guide” what is going to happen in your project rather than trying to “control” what is happening.

5. No More Than One Person Responsible For a Task

It has been said that the true end-game of management is to delegate, thus delegation becomes the essence of management. To delegate means simply that I want you to do what I was doing. For me as a manager, to properly transfer that ownership and responsibility to someone else it needs to be a single person that I transfer to. If I delegate a task to a group of people, human nature dictates that in most cases each person will think the other person is taking point. If I delegate that same work to a single individual and empower him/her to coordinate with others as they see fit but the successful outcome is on his/her shoulders then I have stayed true to the tenets of delegation.

6. Every Task Generates a Deliverable. No Work for Work’s Sake.    

I have reviewed a lot of project plans that managers have created over the years. The one pet peeve that I have is tasks being inserted into a plan that contain too much “air”: tasks that seem to be loosely defined and even less explainable. I have a simple rule for any task that goes into a work plan: every task generates a deliverable. There is no work inserted into the schedule that doesn’t produce a tangible output. If there are “make work” tasks that don’t have an output, then that time should be consolidated into the work that produces a deliverable (e.g. meetings). There is an old adage, “don’t mistake activity for achievement.” Keep it simple--all work produces something, period.

7. Large projects should be broken down into sub-projects (if they have long timeframes)

As a project manager, you can’t properly control a large IT project ($5+ million) over multiple years as one large project. You have to break work down to manageable chunks. From the client point of view, you need to compartmentalize the work to the point where you can equate value delivered for the cost spent. Interim accomplishments also feed the projects team’s sense of success.

8. Plan for the Worst

The old saying is “the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry”, and they do. Always think through your risk plans. Even if things are going well, a good PM has to ask “what if?” Remember that for each risk you can think of, come up with a way to reduce the likelihood of it happening (mitigation) and have a Plan B if it does (contingency).

9. Make it Fun

IT projects can be daunting events. Have you ever noticed that there are some project managers that people just don’t want to work for? The Project Tyrant that is always changing things, asking for things at the last minute and making demands of people is someone that is hard to support over the long haul of a project. There will be tense times on any project, but the lead comes from the top. When things are at their worst, if the PM can laugh at himself it will relieve the tension of the entire team.

10. In the End it is People

In the end, the key point to be mindful of is that all of the previous techniques exist for one purpose: to produce results with a team of people. All of the techniques in the world will not produce anything if they are not constantly tuned, adjusted and calibrated for the individuals on your team. People are different and they all respond differently in various situations. The most successful senior managers I have run across in my experience were the ones with a unique respect, passion, appreciation and understanding for people.

Project managers that care for their team, can articulate a clear objective, are enthusiastic about what they are doing and can motivate others to be enthusiastic too will usually have far more success than they will have losses. Following these principles during your career on the project battlefield will leave you with a record to be proud of.

Artigo enviado por Igor Moraes - Project Manager at ALLIANZ - Itil Certified