Project management is the processes of using knowledge, skills and years experience to achieve project objectives.
It looks like an easy task but it requires planning, executing and controlling which needs a lot of discipline and may result in some common problems.
So here is a list of mistakes that most managers experience and how to avoid them:
1- Shortage of resources and skills:
Lack of resources needed for a specific project can lead to failure and frustration among the team members.
Even if you have a huge number of “skilled” member in your team but none of them has the required skill to complete a particular task or assigning the wrong person to manage the project, it will be difficult for the project to succeed. Make sure that you have all you necessary resources before starting your project.
2- Doing everything yourself:
Managers should listen to their team members suggestions. Ignoring the team and discouraging it to share their ideas and suggestions pushes the members to keep quiet and lead to project failure.
A good project manager must be open to suggestions and learn how to delegate tasks and show how he/she can trust the abilities of his/her team.
3- Failure to communicate accurately:
Among the most project management traps that a project manager may face is the inability to communicate with/to members.
Encourage your team members to ask questions and to share with each others and to you when something is not clear enough.
A kick-off meeting is also required before starting any project so that everyone in the team will have a clear idea of the project goals as well as their own roles and responsibilities.
4- No clear objective and wrong time and budget estimation:
Poor planning and badly identified objectives or even the failure to produce an easily understood objective with a lack of estimating the budget and time can affect any project success.
Always apply success measures and ensure that your team members understand the requirements prior the start. And get expert advice for budgeting if you haven’t done a similar project in the past.
5- Babysitting style in managing a project:
inexperienced managers tend to act like a police officer investigating and enforcing the team members for small project details and updates.
Rather than babysitting your team, try to benefit from scheduled meetings time to discuss with them, get updates and progress line of the work.
Also, setup a procedure to handle requests for any needed changes.
