All project managers potentially face the risk of making project management mistakes while carrying out projects. There might also be times when you might be handling several projects at a time. This could create a lot of hustle.
To avoid project management mistakes you need to very careful while making decisions. There are a lot of things that could go wrong or common mistakes that might happen during the project.
The issues that might arise could be of small or large significance. It is best to take measures to overcome and correct them so as to avoid further risks and issues.
What Are Some Common Project Management Mistakes?
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Setting goal upfront
The goal of the project should be defined at the initial level. If you don’t have a set goal, the team members would not be working towards something but rather perform their own smaller tasks and be done with them. This could result in obstacles to achieve the goal.
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Wrong estimation of budget and time
There are times when it’s hard to define the time and budget of a project. At this point in time take help from more experienced members of the team. Also while making the estimate it’s better to keep a broader margin.
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Initiation of the project is poor
You should avoid initiating projects without making a risk management plan beforehand. This step, although might seem tedious, could save both time and resources later during the project.
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Micromanaging projects
Project managers usually delegate the tasks to their team members and don’t supervise how well the task has been done. You need to be careful as to not over-supervise your team or not trust your team’s competencies, but keeping an eye at their work is important. This could help in identifying mistakes at initial stages and in just generally improving the quality of the work. This will ultimately lead to better quality of work and would save time in correcting mistakes at later stages by preventing them from happening or growing in scale at the beginning.
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Not breaking a big project into smaller pieces
Sometimes a big project can seem hard to accomplish to the team members. In such cases, to motivate the team and to make the tasks seem simpler, you should break the projects into smaller parts and then break those parts into tasks that can be performed by the different members of the team.
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Giving or assigning a project to the wrong person
If the company assigns the project to an inexperienced project manager the chances are that the project might fail. Also, as a project manager, you should make sure that the tasks you are delegating are done so to the right person for the job, keeping in mind the skills of each team member.
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Not communicating with the team
Lack of communication or the lack of proper communication can cause harm to the project. It should be made perfectly clear that who is responsible for what and who has authority over what. This will lead to clear distribution of power over tasks within the team minimizing the blaming when something goes wrong. Proper communication would also tackle the issues that arise out of miscommunication.
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Not prioritizing the projects
There are times when multiple projects are running at the same time for internal and external customers. Not prioritizing the more important tasks from the less important ones could lead to inefficiency in work as well as project failure.
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Lack of skills and resources
Just having sufficient amount of team members is not enough to guarantee a successful project. It is also important that the members of your team are skilled to fulfill the requirements needed for the project. Any project is a team effort and hence the team also needs to be trained enough to handle the tasks assigned to them.
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Not following a process
While doing any project it is very important to keep track of where you are headed to. It’s easy to lose track when the workload is high. Create a proper workflow and procedure of all the tasks and everything related to the project. This will assist you in keeping track of the progress of the work.
How to avoid project management related problems?
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Assigning the project to the right person
Before assigning the project to someone, cross-check all their skills and experience and make sure they match with the requirements of the project. Assigning the project to the correct person will eradicate a lot of future troubles and issues that might have otherwise arisen.
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Proper communication
Communication and holding regular meetings with the team would initiate better workflow and would help you bypass many problems that could have taken place in the future. Proper communication is required like setting up meetings and constant conversations within the team to make things to flow smoothly.
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Budget and time
Defining a budget and time will help everyone to manage their time and budget accordingly to complete the project.
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Proper initiating project
At the starting of the project conduct a meeting with everyone and give a clear picture of the aim of the project and all other necessary details required so that everyone is in the loop.
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Project in smaller parts
Divide large scale projects into smaller, more simpler tasks. This will motivate the team members to achieve smaller tasks and the ultimate goal will seem to be more achievable.
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Set priorities
Different projects running together may cause disturbances among them if the priorities aren’t well defined. So always prioritize tasks and the projects and inform the team regularly. Let the team know when the priorities change as the projects move forward.
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Proper resources
Always check that you should have proper, and moreover, enough resources that are required for the project.
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Proper process defined
Make a workflow or procedure of how to conduct the whole project mentioning each and every detail of the project. Cross-check that you are going according to the procedure defined, this will help you to track the growth of the project.
