THE CATALYST: 5 Common Pitfalls New Project Managers Make

By Felix Concepcion Veroya

Did you know that know that only 21% of companies have standardized project management systems like waterfall and agile in place? This is based on a recent study published by a leading global project management organization last 2020.

As per my experience, project management is one of the most critical skills that any professional or organization must develop. Having a poor project management in place, organizations are more exposed to risks of not achieving strategic objectives and worse to those who have no system in place.

In 2018, Project Management Institute (PMI) recorded a 9.9% wasted for every dollar invested due to poor project performance.

With all the reasons cited, these are five (5) common mistakes new project managers make and how to avoid them. By applying these tips, we can expect about 28 times more resources saved, about 61% project completion on time and about 90% improvement in team collaboration.

1. Failing to communicate. Keep talking to your team about the work. Prepare a communication plan that will guide you on to whom you will communicate (e.g., leadership, project team) what you will communicate (e.g., status report on project), when you will communicate, when you will communicate (e.g., weekly, monthly), how will you communicate (e.g., meeting, email) and the format you will use. Over communication is something you want to start practicing so you can everyone on boarded.
2. Overlooking stakeholders. A stakeholder is any individua or group that can be affected by the project. At the very start of the project, ask yourself as a leader and seek for your project team’s insights if you have identified the right and complete stakeholders for your project. You can use a tool called Stakeholder Analysis to assess the power and interest level of your stakeholders and to strategize how you will manage them as the project progress. This is one tool helped me for the last 10 years that I manage projects.
3. Not managing expectations. Make sure everyone knows what is coming. Make everyone on boarded and be transparent of what is happening to the project, either good or bad. This will improve team collaboration and cohesion that will flow up to the project’s success.
4. Not updating the schedule. Keep your plans up to date so everyone knows what is happening. Gantt chart is a basic tool that can help you manage your schedule. Update the schedule real time as the project progress. Identify risks in having overruns in the schedule that will affect the over project including quality and cost.
5. Not managing change. A project is a temporary endeavor that has a specified time frame and produce a unique result. As you try to use or implement this result, there will be changes. Change is something that we must deal in a project. A popular framework called ADKAR Model (Awareness – Desire – Knowledge – Ability – Reinforcement) that can be used to address the resistance to change that your stakeholders might demonstrate as you apply the changes.

As a new project manager, it will be helpful if we learn from the mistakes that most of the practitioners experienced before us. Hope this can help you to become a #significantlybetter project managers and leaders.

For questions, concerns, advice and speaking engagements, please send an email to fcveroya@asklexph.com or visit asklexph.com/courses for free e-learning courses for professional development.