Common Project Management Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Despite abundant technical competence and managerial prowess that you possess, do you often find your project going off the track, missing KPI targets and deadlines? The chances are high that you might be committing one or more of the following common project management mistakes: –

Lack of Clearly Defined Project Goals

Lack of in-depth planning and precisely defined project goals can spell disaster for your project. First and the most important responsibility that you have as a project manager is to schedule a kickoff meeting with your team, to clearly define and make your team members understand the project by its key components – Long-term and Short-term goals, milestones, timelines, challenges, roles and responsibilities of the team members, desirable results etc.

Lack of Skilled Resources or Mismatched Resources with Skills

If you are selecting your team members purely on the basis of their availability, you are creating a recipe for failure. For the successful execution and delivery of a project, as a manager, it is as crucial to select an appropriate number of adequately experienced resources for your project, as it is to match the selected resources correctly with their skill-set to leverage their true strengths. There are myriad of Ways to Accelerate Career with PMP but you need to know which PMP course is ideal for you. Do some online research before making the final decision.

Inadequate Requirements Analysis and Lack of a Detailed Project Plan

To steer clear of this problem, make sure you have a comprehensive “Statement of Requirements” document approved by the client and other stakeholders. In addition, it is important to have a detailed project plan that includes all the tasks, resource responsible against each task, estimated time, milestones and quality metrics. Do not hesitate to use management tools to create a “To-Do List” if you are feeling overwhelmed by a humongous task list.

Lack of Proper Communication

Lack of communication is a key factor that could result in the derailment of a project. For you (as a PM) and the client to get the correct picture of the project’s progress, you should work towards building a culture of open communication in the form of regular peer reviews, frequent check-ins, recognition, and appreciation of team’s or individual’s achievements – keeping the client in loop all this while.

Micro-management of the Team

As a manager, you should be able to effectively delegate the tasks and be open to inputs from your team. Instead of hovering over the team, it is imperative to trust their abilities and take a regular update on their headway in the form of weekly meetings and guide them if required.

Scope Creep

Scope Creep is a common scenario in projects with a fickle client sporadically giving vague requirements. To compel the client to be clear-cut in their requirements upfront, it becomes imperative for a project manager to clearly map out all project milestones from its outset to closure, specify leeway for any revision in requirements and apt compensation for substantial changes.

Setting Unrealistic Deadlines

It’s easy to set up unrealistic deadlines to delight the client but living up to them is no walk in the park. It can not only jeopardize the quality of project deliverables but also cause a lot of stress to the team and throw the project out of gear.

Lack of Proper Project Structure

The project structure that worked wonders for a previous project might not be good enough for the new project you have been assigned. As a project manager, you could also feel overwhelmed with too many resources you being accountable for. You could best leverage your team’s competencies, optimize the project plan and retain cohesiveness through the proper structuring of your project.

With the help of the aforementioned ingenious tricks of the trade, you can evade common project management mistakes and come through a complex project with flying colors.