Ignoring Problems All projects have problems. Inexperienced project managers believe that sufficient time exists to solve these problems only to discover that the costs of correcting these problems later on in the project life cycle was significantly more expensive...
Over-reliance on Repeatable Processes Companies may spend years creating an enterprise project management (EPM) methodology. The intent is that the methodology will be used on all projects for all customers and from cradle to grave. While the intent has merit, EPM...
Preparing an Overly Ambitious Schedule The more inexperienced the project manager, the more optimistic he or she becomes when preparing the schedule baseline. While ambitious schedules are nice to have, they are often unrealistic and can make matters worse. Customers...
Pretending to Know More than You Actually Do For the most part, project managers today possess an understanding of technology rather than a command of technology yet persist in trying to make technical decisions on the project. This usually infuriates line managers to...
Too Much Detail Inexperienced project managers tend to become enamored with work breakdown structures (WBS). One newly appointed project manager asked me to review his WBS for an IT project. The thirty-day project had 340 work packages and some of the work packages...
