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13 Ways to Guarantee Project Failure - Part VI
September 9, 2008 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Project Management Musings
13 Ways to Guarantee Project Failure - Part VI (#6 in the series 13 Ways to Guarantee Project Failure)
By Ben Menoza
It’s hard to believe that, after a number of years working with project-based teams, the greatest lessons learned are hardly ever remembered from project to project. Most of the mistakes made are avoided simply by treating your project team right, trusting a proven process to run its course, setting and managing expectations accordingly, and learning to admit when you’re wrong. And yet for a myriad of reasons — fear of delivering bad news, ineptitude of the people involved, among them — a project can swiftly become doomed.
That said, if you want the project to fail, I’ve compiled a list of some pointers, guaranteed to ruin any project to some degree. This is, by no means, an exhaustive list. If you have more, please feel free to leave a comment.
#11: To remove distractions and focus the team on their tasks, limit the amount you communicate.
Why pull the team away from their important tasks to have them read emails or attend meetings about project status? It’s not like any of this information is going to help them at all. Tell the team only the information they need to know, and nothing else.
Over-communication is a burden that eats up valuable time, which is best spent working.
#12: Keep working in silos. Eventually, all pieces of your project will fit together nicely.
Along the same lines at #11, over-communicating to the team and letting others know what everyone else is up to is simply a waste of time. The design you have ensures that everything you’re developing is all going to work when it’s time to integrate. Besides, if there was something important that needed to be shared, wouldn’t it have been identified as an issue?
#13: Your project is special and unlike ones in the past. You should treat it as such, which means you shouldn’t rely on best practices and past performance.
Every project is different, whether you’re talking about the technologies you’re using, the people involved, or the design you’ve come up with. While you have a process in place, you shouldn’t be afraid to try new things on the project, such as writing code first and deriving requirements from there, or scrapping the project plan altogether in favor of a more organic approach to project execution. Who cares about what’s worked in the past? You’re all about the future, and your project does not fit the mold of your past endeavors. The team and the client will appreciate your fresh ideas and maverick approaches to project management, even if your peers and the industry may criticize you for not using “best practices.”
Ben Menoza is a senior member of the User Experience team at Optaros, an international consulting and systems integration firm that provides enterprises with online business solutions that leverage the next generation of internet technologies and approaches. He has over eight years of experience managing, designing and developing web applications for organizations in the financial, e-commerce, and entertainment industries, among others.
You can reach Ben through his blog.
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