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By: Kathy Kent Toney, CEO & Founder of Kent Business Solutions  Image by rawpixel.com on Freepik As a business leader, you may have experienced the failure of at least one project. In those instances, many executives have considered what techniques would help ensure future project success. One way to view these failures is to hone in on what didn’t work in those situations. Flipping the switch on these scenarios can provide valuable insight into what could’ve worked. Along those lines, what common mistakes can project managers avoid to help ensure success? 1. Failing to Think Outside the Box to Avoid Potential Problems Unfortunately, many Project Management (PMs) often focus on putting out fires instead of thinking outside the box to help prevent the occurrence of possible challenges. Great PMs tune into what could go wrong. They are forward-looking, ask questions, and are on the lookout for problems before they ever occur. 2. Prioritizing the Unimportant over the Important Too often, PMs will focus on minutia instead of the most essential things: ensuring the client is happy, tracking the budget, and keeping the project on time (to name a few). For instance, it doesn’t matter nearly as much if someone hasn’t updated a chart or properly marked a task as 40% instead of 50% complete. A good PM constantly weighs what’s essential and tackles those items first. 3. Under-utilizing the Best Aspects of the Team When PMs don't take the time to understand their individual team members' strengths and weaknesses, the team cannot function at optimum levels. For example, Bob may excel at performing a particular task, but instead, the PM assigns the task to Suzy, who isn’t as skilled at that specific job. Also, some team members may require more oversight than others. Finding these abilities and assigning team members to perform tasks that match those skills can tremendously boost team productivity. 4. Neglecting to Regularly Test Early-On Assumptions PMs often have to make assumptions based on scarce available information at the beginning of projects. Testing and revising assumptions against this information is essential when more data becomes available. Failure to do so can result in serious errors affecting project success. # # # Speaking of avoiding failure, Scrum is a fantastic project management approach that helps identify problems before they become issues. As a certified Professional Scrum Master, I’ve experienced this reality repeatedly in my line of work. I’ve also seen how using Scrum typically decreases the time to finish projects, and it doesn’t matter what type of project it is. I'd love to talk with you if you have any projects you would like to undertake but have limited internal resources to complete them! You can click the button below to schedule a chat.
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