At times, to bring a plan on schedule or at budget, a PM will reduce budget or schedule contingency to "make it fit."
Projects are no place for "Hail Mary" acts. Include an agreed-upon budget and schedule contingency. See all 100 lessons at 6WordLessons.com.
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PMs rarely track consumption of budget and schedule contingency. It's either there or gone.
In each status report show how much of a project's budget and schedule contingency has been consumed. See all 100 lessons at 6WordLessons.com.
Inexperienced PMs tend to subtract actual budget spent from total budget to derive ETC which likely isn't true.
Make sure estimate to complete is an aggregate of remaining work on project, not just what is left in the budget. See all 100 lessons at 6WordLessons.com.
A project schedule which hasn't been resource loaded means some team members will work 500-hour weeks.
Assign singular owners to each task, review assignments, and adjust assignments to evenly distribute work. See all 100 lessons at 6WordLessons.com.
Risks and issues commonly get lumped together and managed only when the poop is about to hit the fan.
Risks need to be mitigated to avoid their becoming issues. Issues are problems which need to be dealt with. See all 100 lessons at 6WordLessons.com.
Risks grow out of project assumptions. Many PMs use assumptions as an, "I told you so" if the project goes south.
Risks need to be actively managed in regular status reporting and assessed as to whether the risk is coming true. See all 100 lessons at 6WordLessons.com.
Simply identifying that a risk exists is not doing nearly enough to ensure the risk doesn't impact the project.
Good risk mitigation articulates what the mitigation is, who owns doing it, and when the risk is no longer a risk. See all 100 lessons at 6WordLessons.com.
Projects will have many risks; some which can blow it from the water and others that can have little impact.
Articulate and manage the big risks. Don't let the little risks which are unlikely to derail you chew up cycles. See all 100 lessons at 6WordLessons.com.
Scope additions without budget or schedule impact mean less contingency or overworked teams.
Know how scope additions will be funded and how they impact project schedule before saying yes. See all 100 lessons at 6WordLessons.com |
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