I’ve been on a good deal of projects in the past. There are some issues that I keep seeing recur that really sour me to the whole concept:
- Referring to people as “resources” – This to me is a return to the Henry Ford style of management. Treat people as you would steel or rubber or oil. They are interchangeable with little differentiation in quality. When you run out of resources, get more. A developer is a developer, BA a BA…it doesn’t matter, just slot them and tell them what to do. Meanwhile your real talent is walking out the door…because that’s what people do when they don’t feel valued. Even worse, your real talent stays, but don’t contribute their brilliance because they are treated as just another resource. (Eventually they’ll either be or be with your biggest competitor).
- Ignore Over-Allocation – MS Project has great tools to help you plan and schedule tasks, allocate people to work on tasks, reporting, etc. What’s the point in building a great list of tasks and laboring over dependencies if you don’t address over-allocations. I can’t think of a project I’ve been on where the PM gave two shits about over-allocation. They worry about it for sure, but figure employees will step and be supermen and women and get it done so why hire enough staff to truly get it done. Project is there to help you figure out how many people you’ll need to get the job done, not at as a glorified task list.
- Take Care of Dependencies – Listen to your subject matter experts when creating dependencies. Most of them aren’t making stuff up. They know what is needed to get the job done…and they aren’t necessarily your IT “buddies”. Most IT people don’t know squat about marketing, training, technical writing, sales, etc. so don’t count on them to create those dependencies correctly. Contact SMEs in that field and ask for their help…even if they are not on the project.
- Use PM to Drive the Delivery Date – Ask yourself: What exactly is the point of going through a big project management exercise if you are driving toward a pre-determined delivery date pulled out of the air? This is a tough one because so many business leaders think it is a “leadership skill” to pick some arbitrary delivery date based on…something often completely unrelated to what they are trying to accomplish. You really want to work with someone who thinks this way? You think he doesn’t have something else up his sleeve in the future (withholding payment, change requests galore, etc.)?
Using Project is a great way to get things done, just use it the way it is intended to and you’ll be fine. If you don’t, it is just a sad joke.
