The 10 most common mistakes in project management
As a project manager, you should know that there is a list of the most common mistakes in project management. In this opportunity, we will talk about what we believe are the 10 most important ones that you have to consider for your daily work.
1. Making a mistake in planning time and/or budget
The main reasons can be two: excess of optimism or underestimation of tasks. You may dismiss certain duties that serve to get you to other more important tasks. In this way, the project takes more time than planned. The best solution is to find a balance between delivery times and the available budget.
2. Not knowing the objective of the project
If you do not know or do not understand what the client wants to achieve with the requested project, you work blindly and do what you think they are looking for, not what they actually need to achieve.
3. Lack of adequate equipment
Here we are talking about human resources as well as physical and material ones. It is always crucial to have professionals committed to the project and its programs, applications and elements adapted to the needs of the clients and projects.
4. Not trusting in the human team and not delegating
Many times, project managers are left with responsibilities and decisions that they should not have, either because these aren’t related to their field of expertise or because they prefer to avoid delegating to other colleagues due to a lack of confidence or their own ego.
5. Not being the leader the team needs
We all know that a poorly led team can have negative consequences for the project: friction and misunderstandings between colleagues, listening and participation problems, etc. As a leader, try to transmit confidence and a collaborative spirit, in addition to motivating them to meet the proposed objectives.
6. Lack of transparency and communication
Create and maintaining good and transparent communication between all the parties involved is an essential condition for being able to register progress and to know in what state the project is at all times. Don’t think about hiding problems, since it will be impossible to analyze what happened and what the real reasons were, and, therefore, make the right decisions for the result of the project.
7. Not managing changes correctly
In every project there will be changes, unless it is a well-defined project with very clear tasks and objectives. While there are changes that you can accept without too much trouble, there are others that can have a great impact on the project. The ideal would be to make it clear what type of change you want to implement in order to analyze whether it is feasible or better to avoid it.
8. Not using an adequate management tool
To control costs, times and assignments, it is important that you have a management tool to carry the project. Depending on the characteristics of the latter, you will need a certain program with particular functionalities, which will help the transparency of communication. Without a tool to manage the project, you will lose control of those responsible for the tasks, the deadlines and the status of the project at every time.
9. Not knowing when to close the project
On many occasions, it may happen that changes and new tasks arise that the client accepts and that, therefore, the project takes longer than it should. A project that is still in development would become a project that lasts many months. Thus the notion of the state would be lost. What you should do is closing the stage and opening a new phase to clarify that it has been on time, but that it has been decided to add new features to the product.
10. Forgetting about drawing up a risk plan
Taking into account an action plan to prevent deviations is a valuable choice to arrive in a timely manner. It is necessary to identify the risks, rate how likely or unlikely it is that they will occur and, if they do occur, recognize what the impact of these risks is. The highest rates are the ones you should mitigate as soon as possible. And if an unforeseen problem appears, add it to the list to analyze.
No matter how much study and experience we have, problems or unforeseen changes that put the successful outcome of the project at risk often appear. We hope that with this list of the most common mistakes in project management you can prevent and manage your projects successfully.