Every mistake is a lesson learned, and the lesson is to ensure that same mistake won’t ever happen again. Just like in the case of organizations that have been through many mistakes since its inception. Plus, another set of common project management mistakes team members commit.
No one likes making mistakes twice, especially if the organization or project is at stake. That’s why before anything else, always ask yourself the possible outcomes and risks of a certain action. Project management mistakes can often be unavoidable—but sometimes the people involved are the guilty ones doing it.
If you haven’t experienced or committed the project management mistakes below, ensure it won’t come that situation. Here are six common project management mistakes you need to avoid.
- Insufficient Funds
One of the most deadly project management mistakes. When you don’t have enough financial resources to back up your project, chances are it will have a hard time rising above the debris of the damage. Even if the sponsors or stakeholders provided you a budget that exceeds from the plan, don’t go around spending all of them. You still need to conserve that fund for unforeseen risks.
- Your Team is Understaffed
When you lack human resource, the progress will likely delay and more pending tasks will pile up because no one is around to deal with them. Projects need to have the larger manpower to be able to function and progress fully. It doesn’t matter if this project is smaller or bigger, the issue at hand is you don’t have enough people to even monitor the process. If you think you have insufficient members on the team, ask your sponsor to provide you with one.
- Pressed for Time
Not managing your time properly is another project management mistake that is waiting to balloon into a more disastrous cocktail of failure and disrupted project progress. The absence of time management can cause panic in the team as well as unfinished tasks. This project management mistake is going to cost you a lot of problems on the project and doesn’t expect your stakeholders to be happy about that. Ensure your tasks are organized in your calendar and always think that every second count—this includes time constraints and other factors that can negatively affect your schedule.
- Lack of information
Managers don’t properly distribute the necessary information and updates in the project, and the higher-ups in the organization are also guilty of making this project management mistake. No one should be deprived of the information as long they work in the organization—how can you expect an overall change if you only announce it to a limited amount of people? Every employee in the hierarchy must know what they’re getting into and knowledgeable enough of what they’re supposed to do in the first place.
- Micromanaging
When a team lacks the people in it, managers tend to cram the tasks on the available members. This is just lazy and forcing the task to someone who doesn’t have the skills and expertise to fulfill spells project management mistake. You might point out that doing this will make the employees become an experience in the task, but it just actually delays the progress of the project.
- Impulsive Changes
Have you heard the saying, “Don’t make decisions when you’re angry?” People usually change their decisions on a whim when they’re in a moment or in a fit of rage. If you do the same when it comes to changing the project’s reach or objective, you are going to destroy the overall project completely. It’s one of the project management mistakes that can be a permanent blow to your team and the organization.
These common project management mistakes will have serious ramifications for the organization if not detected immediately. Made one or two of these mistakes? It’s not really too late to contain them, provided you are not in deep with them. Monitor your staff, resources, and communication channel if you don’t want to end up making these blunders.
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