In reviewing projects across many sectors and organisations I am becoming more concerned that project managers are following a standard project management process with little consideration of the context of the project or what success means. The implications are quite profound.
- The likelihood of success looks like a bell curve with the luck of having the right conditions being the outcome
- Project management as a discipline gets a bad name when in fact if applied with due consideration can be tremendously valuable
- Project costs increase without improving the risk profile of the project
- People form bad habits with the thought that this is what project management is
- People are overpaid for managing a simple process rather than adding true value and reducing risk
- The project becomes slave to the process instead of the process serving the project
How do you know if your organisation is falling into this trap? Take the following test
| Tested attributes | score |
| yes=1, no=0 | |
| Does one approach fit all your projects despite the fact they are different types of work? | |
| Are the artefacts the project? | |
| Does governance feel burdensome? | |
| Are stakeholders, including project personnel unhappy but not willing to speak up? | |
| Does the process dominate the conversation? | |
| Are all project issues dealt with the same way? | |
| Is reflection considered a waste of scarce time? | |
| Is PM accreditation considered more important than demonstrated understanding of project management principles? | |
| Is delivery responsibility with the PMO and not with the Sponsor/PM combination? | |
| Have people given up and just go with the flow despite it is clear that the iceberg cometh? | |
| Is the answer to the question “why are we doing this?” BECAUSE |
If your organisation scored 5 or more, you have some real work to do. If you scored less than 5 keep an eye on the issues.
I am not advocating a free for all in projects. What I am advocating is understanding the fundamental principles and applying those principles to the context of the situation and the project at hand. This requires a greater sense of learning from past experience and the experience of others, a greater effort to understand under what conditions certain approaches have greater success. This implies a greater burden on post-implementation reviews to tease out those conditions for the benefit of all.
