Project Management Services, Jit Goel, XCEL Corp Jit Goel

5 Most Common Mistakes in Project Management You Should Avoid

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There are no projects without mistakes. All of us who are involved in project management have to waddle through mistakes that happen during the course of the project at every level to ensure successful completion. But it is the duty of the project manager to ensure that projects do not fail because of the mistakes.

A project manager shouldn’t let mistakes bog down the project but learn from them and prevent mistakes made are not repeated. While it is difficult to eliminate all mistakes from a project, knowledge about the common mistakes could help you in preventing these mistakes from happening in your future projects.

There is never a one fits all solution to avoid mistakes in project management as the needs, requirements, and personnel in each project are different and so are their challenges. While projects are dependent on so many external factors, a project manager should be fully equipped to handle all kinds of mistakes that could be made during the course of the project to minimize the risks and ensure successful project completion.

Here are 5 of the most common mistakes made in project management and ways to prevent them.

1. Inexperienced Project Manager

Being at the head of the project, the project manager should be extensively experienced in handling a variety of roles from running project meetings, managing risks and issues, and project plan development, to dealing with stakeholders and providing training and maintenance. Employing a project manager without proper experience would make the project go haywire without coordination or cohesiveness. A project manager who is not able to take complete control of the team and project would not be able to deliver the expectations. In other cases, an inexperienced project manager could be the sole reason for project failure even if every other aspect is covered.

2. Improper Kick-Off

In many projects we observed, they are started without a proper kick-off meeting. Many also think it is quite natural and there is no need for a project kick-off meeting. They argue, when everyone know what their role is and what they have to do, what is the need for a kick off meeting. This is a very bad misconception and could be lead to serious delays and glitches. It is important for everyone in the team to understand what exactly their role is and how they contribute to the project. They should also be aware of what the objectives, goals, and intentions are.

All team members should also be given an opportunity before the project is started to clarify their doubts and questions if they have. The team members should also be clearly informed about individual contributions, deadlines, key project milestones, and responsibilities.

3. Alignment with organizational objectives

However well defined your project’s objectives may be, if it doesn’t align with the organization’s primary objectives, then the project will be a failure. Statistics show the not aligning with the organizational goals is one of the primary reasons why projects fail. It is important for the team to stay to connected with the stakeholders in the organization and get their directions and ensure the project’s objectives are aligned with the objectives they have for their organization. In fact, that is why they are spending on the project.

4. Understanding and Trust of Stakeholders

Like we have mentioned in the previous paragraph, stakeholders play an important role in project management. There may be many different stakeholders in an organization and each has their own objectives for the organization. While it is practically impossible to satisfy every one of their expectations, the project manager should find a balance between the stakeholders to adequately try to meet their expectations.

It is also equally important that the project is supported by stakeholders at all times. The support of the higher command in the organization could boost the project in several ways. Hence, it is important that leaders believe in the project and are also regularly updated about the status of the project.

5. Not using appropriate project management tools

At first, we would like to emphasize that project management tools do not replace project manager or their skills and expertise. Project management tools are meant to enhance and support the project manager and facilitate communication and knowledge sharing between all team members. A tool helps in keeping everything in track. Purchasing the tool is not alone is not enough; the project manager should put effort to keep it updated and working. Only if the project management tool is used by everyone in the team, it becomes effective.

While these are some of the most common mistakes that occur during project management, there are several others which also need to be prevented. XCEL Corp provides project management services for all kinds of business. We have worked with businesses across 20 different industrial vertical and intended to be your comprehensive and dependable IT partner.

Experts at XCEL Corp have several years of project management experience with several successful projects completed all across the planet. We have also developed custom project management tools that are viable for businesses of all sizes. For project management services and highly efficient project management tools, contact XCEL Corp today.

Bhavani Suri ( Content Writer)

Our in-house content writer, who develops and creates content marketing strategies. She writes about the latest trends and advances related to IT in particular, and Technology in general.



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