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A Few Issues Every Project Manager Should Prepare For

October 28, 2008 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Risk Management

A Few Issues Every Project Manager Should Prepare For
By Julian Stone

Below is a list of few issues that every Project Manager should always be prepared for:

Delayed Project Launching

The date on which a project must start should happen on that date otherwise timelines and deadlines will be affected. If it cannot be met the deadline should be moved or additional resources are to be added in order to compensate for the crunched timeframe.

Failing to Report Critical Problems at First Notice

Some members who noticed some discrepancy on the data they are working on may fail to report it to the project manager. They will just wait for the other to notice it and at that time it may already be irreparable. Another reason why a member may fail to report critical problems is they may think that they can resolve it on their own and asking help may seem the person is weak.

There are many ways to address this problem, first is to inform the team that they shouldn’t be resolving issues all by themselves. Inform them that it is a team effort and failures and successes of a project is the result of teamwork. Two heads are better than one as the old saying goes, so it is best to inform every one of any problems encountered on its onset.

Critical Members Leaving the Team

Members of the project who have significant share on project load leaving the team is a disaster. The project will have delays while searching for a replacement. Sometimes these critical members of the team have skills that are rare that is why they are important.

If instances like these are not included in projects plans it is important to have a list of contractual specialist who can give their expertise while you are searching for a replacement. It is also advisable to assign an assistant to one of your experts so the assistant can at least take over when the critical member went on AWOL. The assistant has more knowledge than the rest of the team to take over what’s left to do. It is also advisable to know all the details of the task of your critical member to lessen the learning curve needed on taking over.

These issues are much better included in contingency plans on the project management plan.

About the editor:

Julian Stone, CEO – Project, Management Software specialist for: www.ProWorkflow.com & http://www.Julian101.com

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 28th, 2008 and is filed under Risk Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 people have left comments

Julian,

Great post! After experiencing “Critical Members Leaving the Team” myself on a couple of projects, (and it doesn’t feel good BTW), I think it should be assessed as a risk at the start of every project.

I think that a general mitigation strategy up front can save a lot of guess work down the road.

-chris

LouisvillePM wrote on October 28, 2008 - 6:27 am | Visit Link

> Failing to Report Critical Problems at First Notice

I think another reallly important reason why this happens is that team members just don’t see the problem as critical. This can either be because they are not up-to-date on project progress, critical paths, priorities etc, or because they don’t interpret the problem correct.

So it’s key to keep your team informed (with information they need) and to have correct people for the job.

Tom van Lamoen wrote on October 28, 2008 - 7:50 am | Visit Link

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