[Music Intro]
>>Hello, I'm Jennifer Whitt, director of ProjectManager.com.
[Transition]
>>Welcome to our whiteboard session today on how not to manage your project.
That's a little tricky, right?
That can be deduced several different ways; it sounds like a double negative.
So what are we really saying?
If we provide information on how to manage your project, say, in a good way, we're saying
these are things not to do.
So I'm going to provide the top ten 'How Not To's' on your project and look at some excuses,
and ultimately, look at the end result.
If some of these phrases sound familiar to maybe some of the things you might be doing,
or even some of your colleagues, these are some of the things not to do.
Number one: Wing it.
In essence, there's no planning.
You don't take the time to plan.
So what is the excuse for that?
We might often hear 'Well, I just don't have enough time.
There's no time to do planning, we've just got to get it done.'
The second one is: False starts.
Starting before the project actually starts.
So in essence, there's no approval.
There's no really defined scope or agreed upon scope, and so you just get the team going.
What's the excuse for that?
'We've just got to get things done.
We might not have enough time and we've just got to get going.'
Number three: Agree to favors.
By maybe some of the clients or stakeholders or some of your friends or favorites, by taking
favors from them you're actually adding additional scope.
So what's the excuse for that?
'Well, we've got plenty of time.
While we have this open or while we're doing that, we'll just go ahead and incorporate
this in too.
There'll be enough time.'
Number four: Ignore input.
In essence, you're discounting collaboration where people can give you additional feedback
or input that may change a result of something, you just discount it.
So what's the excuse for that?
'I know' or 'This is just good enough.
We'll go with what we have.'
Number five: Padding estimates.
In essence, what's happening here is you're jeopardizing the timeline or budget.
And what's the excuse?
'Well, this gives us leeway just in case.'
Number six: Representing status.
The result of that is it really build mistrust, but what's the excuse?
'I think we'll be OK.'
I don't think people sometimes mean to build mistrust or mean to misrepresent, but just
saying 'I think we'll be OK,' maybe not checking, maybe not getting the right information or
going to the extra steps to get the detailed accurate status.
Again, by thinking everything is OK, you're actually building mistrust.
Number seven: Overprotecting your team.
In essence, customer dissatisfaction because you're discounting what a customer may be
saying.
What's the excuse for that?
'Well, they just don't know.
The customer just doesn't have all the facts.'
Or on the flip side: Never supporting your team.
That leads to a dysfunctional team and the excuse is 'the customer is always right'.
Well, no, my friend, the customer is not always right.
The customer may have a viewpoint, they may have additional requests, they may have additional
information, but the customer is not always right.
We want to incorporate their input into the project and evaluate and assess and go to
the proper steps for the customer's company, our client, our customer goes through the
process to get it approved.
The next one is: The bottleneck.
You become the bottleneck, or missed milestones.
The excuse is 'Well, I need to make sure everything's OK.'
If you need to make sure everything's OK, everyone has to come for you to get your OK,
your approval, or have your hands in everything, you can't help but become the bottleneck.
Number ten: Omit testing or user acceptance.
In essence, what happens is going to result in poor quality, and the excuse is 'We can
borrow time here'. because we need it in the earlier phases.
So what happens here as the result is you end up with a failed project, in your name,
on the hall of shame.
If you need a tool so you can manage a project effectively, and you don't end up on the statistics
of failed projects and worse yet the Hall of Shame, then sign up form our software now
at projectmanager.com.