Tips to avoid 12 typical project management mistakes

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Managing and leading projects to success in challenging environments require exceptional skills. You can fine-tune your skillsets and achieve perfection with practice. Or pursue a project management bachelor’s degree program to gain the necessary expertise and knowledge of using various tools and strategies to manage people and resources effectively. It gives you an in-depth understanding of the five phases of project management – project conception, planning, execution, performance monitoring, and closure.

Five Phases of Project Management

Project Conception: 

You identify the stakeholders and prepare the project initiation document (PID) that outlines the project goals and requirements.

Project Planning:

Project planning is vital to accomplish tasks within the timeframe and ensure the project’s success. It involves developing guidelines, setting clear goals and milestones, organizing teams and resources, defining project scope, budgeting, and risk management.

Project Execution:

The team executes tasks and works toward meeting the specified goals. It involves regular meetings, preparing status reports, status updates, and performance monitoring. Based on the project’s progress and review discussions, make necessary adjustments.

Performance Monitoring:

Monitor and review key performance indicators like project objectives, quality deliverables, costing, and performance at each stage to ensure the project meets the defined goals and timeline. Utilizing various tools helps in tracking the progress, and the individual progress of each member associated with the project also needs to be monitored.

Project Closure:

Conduct project closure meetings to assess and review performance, identify strengths and weaknesses, and improvements needed for future projects. Analyze budget expenses and prepare project reports.  

Project management is about staying clear from committing mistakes, minimizing risks, and ensuring adherence to the plan. Mistakes happen with even the most well-planned projects and significantly impact their success. Here are the most common mistakes that project managers make:

1) Working without prior experience:

Many managers find themselves in new job roles without prior experience or training. For some, learning on the job works well, but it can be challenging for others to schedule and manage resources. 

Technological advancements have helped develop advanced project management tools and techniques. Complex projects need project managers with the right skill sets, experience, and knowledge of various tools and techniques. Pursuing a bs in project management certification helps you gain expertise in the various tools, strategies, and best practices in managing projects.

2) Not preparing necessary documentation:

The progress of smoothly running projects gets hindered unexpectedly, surprising everyone. Managers sometimes fail to prepare appropriate project reports or charts as they consider the process of preparing reports with all the necessary information to be redundant. Discussing with your team, boss, or stakeholders can be challenging without appropriate reports or charts. It keeps everyone concerned in the dark. As the concerned stakeholders do not receive the required alerts on time, it delays project schedules. 

Preparing the necessary documentation that shows the timeline, costing, KPIs, etc., enables you to monitor the project’s progress effectively, conduct meetings with the concerned people and provide alerts in case of any issues.

3) Poor project scheduling:

Being vague or estimating a short timeline for the project will project your inefficiency in managing projects. 

Excellent planning keeps your project on track and ensures success. Prepare the estimated timeline backed up with a practical plan for each phase with appropriate justifications. Update the concerned team on the timeline and any changes that occur during the course of the project.

4) Inadequate Communication:

The inability to communicate efficiently and failure to get ideas and suggestions from concerned people leads to poor execution and project failure. 

The entire team should be aware of their roles, project status, and relevant changes. Each team member should maintain a document with an update on their progress. Regular meetings to clearly communicate to the team about project goals, scope, and expectations and review progress is essential to ensure that the project doesn’t get derailed. Getting insights from the team helps in nurturing positive and empowered teams.

5) Undefined project scope:

When the project scope is not clearly defined, it eventually shifts focus from the actual project goals. 

The project scope should be carefully defined, with insights from the team, and should contain the objectives, the range it covers, its constraints, the type of resources to be utilized, etc. It’s crucial for the success of the project and allows the team to focus on the necessary aspects and ignore unnecessary elements. 

6) Not planning for conflicts in scheduling:

When a team member is working on several projects, he will start working on your project only after he completes his work on the project he is currently working on. Which inadvertently leads to project delays and not meeting deadlines. 

Project managers should consider these possibilities and include additional time while working on the project timeline. Analyzing risk and time constraints enables you to predict and plan for potential obstacles.

7) Setting unpragmatic deadlines:

Project managers sometimes set tight deadlines without considering the amount of work required. As the deadlines draw closer, it increases the pressure on the employees. 

To tackle this problem, managers must set realistic deadlines considering the workload, potential hurdles, risks, scheduling conflicts, etc. 

8) Failing to prioritize tasks:

While team members work on several projects, a few might have similar due dates. Deadlines indicate when the tasks need to be completed and do not highlight the priority level. 

Setting up the task list without prioritizing can get complicated. Prioritizing tasks enables team members to work on tasks based on their priority level.

9) Working on demanding projects:

Project managers tend to work on a few projects at the same time. It might reduce the number of resources working on projects, lead to exhaustion and overlook certain aspects. 

Keeping a check on the number of projects will help you to overcome this problem. Also, while working on large projects, breaking them down into smaller sections avoids confusion, overlooking certain aspects, missed deadlines, etc., which are the main aspects that make many projects fail.

10) Ignoring team mistakes:

Any team member can make mistakes, but ignoring mistakes made by team members can make project managers lose their job and lead to project failure. 

You should identify mistakes committed by team members and handle them with professionalism. Taking preventive measures will ensure that they work as per defined standards.

11) Selecting the wrong team for the project:

With the scarcity of qualified resources, recruiting unskilled resources will eventually lead to project failure and destroy your trustworthiness. 

Even with tight schedules, lack of resources, and work pressure, recruit people with the right skill sets and knowledge for your team to ensure the project’s success.

12) Late rescheduling:

When the project is not progressing as per the timeline and thinking that somehow you might work on meeting deadlines and not informing the concerned stakeholders and management of the delays, it projects your inefficiency. 

Inform the concerned stakeholders and management about delays, and reworking the timeline and budget in the early stages helps you avoid last-minute surprises.

If you are keen on pursuing a course, look for institutes that offer project management courses. Several institutes provide on-campus, part-time, or online programs. Choose the one that best suits your needs. 

Demand for skilled project managers is increasing as companies strive to deliver complex projects in competitive environments. Project Management Institute states that by 2027 project management roles will increase by 33 percent creating 22 million jobs for qualified professionals.

One of the best ways to fine-tune your skillsets is to pursue Project Management Bachelor’s Degree Program with TAU – ZM. It provides you with the practical training and technical expertise needed to lead complex projects to completion. Also, connect with industry experts for career advancement.

Key Takeaways:

Learning and practice are vital and increase your success rate in project management. Pursuing tailored project management courses provides you with the necessary skill sets to succeed in your roles. Whether you are looking for foundational programs or training in advanced practices in management, we have you covered with our various project management courses. Enhance your skills in efficient time management, and gain knowledge of project management methodologies and strategies to improve team collaboration.

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