5 Practices Project Managers Need To Stop Right Now!
Simpler, better, repeatable, and effective. Isn’t that what we’re striving for? As understood when preparing for the project management certification — leaner project management entails solid best practises that are simple to adopt and repeat, which should result in more effective project outputs. You want your company to be the exception to the rule that over half of all initiatives fail in some way.
How are you going to get there? Trimming the fat, in my perspective, is what it entails. Many processes are typically introduced into our project management approaches and procedures that are unnecessary. While I try not to overwhelm you with too many details, it boils down to five fundamental habits for me… behaviours that can be analysed and changed to make projects leaner and easier to manage. Let’s have a look.
1. Too many meetings.
Do some project managers appear to like convening meetings just to arrange for another meeting? At practically every meeting, the same project managers prefer to call side meetings. Stakeholders leave one of the PM’s meetings with their calendars full with new appointments. Then these PMs wonder why attendance at their meetings continues decreasing. When attendance is low, productivity and effectiveness suffer.
2. Customized status reports for all.
There’s no need to keep everyone pleased and involved on your project by writing various progress reports. It’s not practicable, you’re too busy, and your stakeholders should be held to a higher standard than you. To tell critical project health indicators at a glance, use a one-size-fits-all status report and a decent dashboard. Believe me when I say that once they get over the shock of the shift, they will all enjoy it.
3. Over complicate things.
Take a look around and see how much of an overcomplicator you are. Do you have more than one stack of documents on your desk that haven’t been filed? Are there items in your reach or clothes in your closet that you haven’t used or worn in the last year? If that’s the case, you’ll need to get go of a few things and simplify your life. That was me, and it was influencing how I completed projects and consulting assignments. As understood when preparing for the project management certification — remove overlapping and unnecessary operations via decluttering. You’ll be less frustrated while being more or equally productive… more productive and confident, most certainly.
4. Handing projects over to whoever is available.
This level of simplicity is obviously going too far. If you’re the PMO director, you’ll require project management expertise and potentially certification. Don’t make this too easy by simply taking the next warm person. Also, be certain that the project leader is the greatest match for the project. It’s difficult to adjust things once they’ve been begun without significantly influencing cost, timing, or consumer confidence.
5. Running projects with little structure regardless of size.
When it comes to extremely small initiatives, companies of all shapes and sizes have a propensity to manage them with little structure wrapped around them. Or where a tiny business or start-up makes the justification that it is small, new, or Agile, and hence immune to the methods of organised project management.
Summary / call for input
When we can, I believe in simplifying things. As I previously indicated, I am a firm believer in structure. However, I am a firm believer in setting limits. Rigidity isn’t the solution, and a little subjectivity is OK. Projects, companies, and consumers are not all created equal. Many firms, I realise, need a stiff PM structure or the usage of inflexible PM, issue management, or other tools. I worked for a company that developed its own proprietary software, which we customised for clients — more of an ERP system. The programme had a change control and project management component, but project managers didn’t have to use it to manage projects. It was excruciating to use. Allow things to work if they are working.
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