8 Project Management Blunders That Can Cost You Your Neck

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It's that point in the meeting that all project managers dread. The moment when all eyes turn to you, and the Big Kahuna (aka the CEO, the Chairman of the Board, the VP of Marketing) basically says, "This cluster is falling on your head." Maybe it's not a literal beheading that you receive, but it's definitely nothing good for your career. As a project manager, you'll be shouldering much of the blame if things go wrong. That's not easy or necessarily fair, especially when you put so much into your work. Which is why we spoke with Solution Architect (and Project Management savant) Carl Manello of Slalom Consulting to identify these 8 common project management blunders. Addressing these will not only keep your head on, but will keep it on straight.

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You're Not Clear From the Get-Go

Any project manager has probably heard this time and time again: You must clearly define the scope of your project. Be it in the form of a definition document, a program charter, or whatever you want to call it, you need to document the who, what, why and how of your project. Yet time and time and again, people don't. They fall victim to scope creep, and the project veers wildly off track. Consider Manello's analogy: Imagine you are project managing the construction of a house. Have you agreed with the buyer how big the house should be? Will it require gas heat or electric? One story or two? These questions must be answered upfront, or the schedule and budget may be a disaster. Your project is no different.

2 You Accept a Change Request Without

a Second Thought
This happens all the time. Remember that scope document we so diligently crafted? Most forget about it once the project is underway, and that's when the change requests come flying in. Manello says you should stop and ask a critical question, "Do we line the requests up against the original scope, or do we just blindly accept them?" In other words, is there a legitimate justification for the change? If not, you're headed down a slippery slope.

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3 Your Status Report Has No Context

A status report is due, and a member of a team documents everything and anything they've done for the last two weeks. Manello notes this is an easy way for the team member to justify his or her existence. The problem is this that this information dump doesn't provide context to the project as a whole. Are all those tasks the team-member completed helping to move the project forward? If so, how? The ideal is to start with a document that shows how completed tasks will move the project forward.

4 Your Status Report is Only About

Money and Time
It's great if your project is on time and on-budget but what if the status report doesn't indicate that you've only produced 10% of the widgets you were supposed to create? Make sure your metrics reflect the overall progress of the project and include relevant business metrics.

5 Your Status Report is Cumulative

A one-page progress report can become a five-page report after five reporting periods, unless you take out the information about what's already been completed. "There's no need to report continuously on the past," Manello said. "A report should be focused on current efforts."

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6 Your Corporate Culture Can't Handle

the Truth
Imagine snarling at your CEO like Jack Nicholson. Can your company handle the truth? Do they react in knee-jerk fashion and initiate beheadings? Or are they willing to adapt to issues on the fly and make the dynamic changes required in business? Management needs to be understanding and supportive, otherwise they won't receive accurate information. "Project managers should be able to thrive in an environment where reporting a red flag in a status report is a call for support from management," Manello said. "Red is not a reflection on the PM doing a poor job."

7 You Build Too Many Frameworks That

Don't Work
Manello recalled a company in which the Project Management Office had lost its focus on value and was consumed with PM processes. Whenever a project was to be completed, the PM had to complete 140 project management deliverables. And these were in addition to whatever product was to be produced. This kind of bureaucratic brow-beating, disconnected from a focus on value-add, is simply not a good thing for project managers. Processes and compliance are appropriate, but they shouldn't go overboard. "There is a point of diminishing returns, " Manello remarked. "You need to know how much is enough, and how much is too much."

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8 Your Management is Only About People

Project management is about more than just managers and people. It also requires governance over the methods, process templates and tools that will result in an initiative's success. "Processes should streamline delivery, templates should ease and enable, and tools should only automate what has been proven to work effectively in a manual fashion," Manello wrote in his article, The art of project management: the four horsemen, a sentiment which should make a project manager stand up and cheer. Carl admits to being a tool bigot in this regard. "Get a good process in place first," he said. "A tool can be very encumbering to try and force-fit into an organization that has yet to master the process or which lacks the capabilities to perform."

Now that you're up to speed on the 8 worst blunders, it's up to you to avoid them as best you can. Naturally, some of these blunders will be out of your control it may someone higher up the food chain who is running the train off the tracks. If that's the case, feel free to share this article with them. Put your heads together. It's better than the alternative, right?

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