The Top Ten Reasons Projects Fail (Part 11)
Frank Winters has more than 30 years of consulting and Information Technology experience serving as a project/program manager, consultant and IT service industry executive.
It's a fact that a project's purpose is not always clear. Very often the project team has a misunderstanding due to unclear, ambiguous messages from the business managers, or because the team just doesn't understand--or a combination of the two. Misalignment on business purpose always leads to deep disappointment and perceived project failure.
As a project manager, one of your primary duties is to see to it that your team understands the business purpose of the project. You must be a channel of communication from the project sponsors and the customers to the team. You can't afford to be confused about this. If you are, your chances of success are nil.
Misalignment is scary
The scary thing is that misalignment can occur even if what appears to be a complete and accurate requirements document has been written, reviewed and approved. Don't ever rely on the requirements doc to do all of your communicating for you.
It is not uncommon for people to read one thing and think they've read another. If the team is an internal one there will be lots of things that "everybody knows" that are not in the document and may not be raised during reviews because, after all, it's something everybody knows--isn't it? The PM simply can't let this happen.
The assumptions about what everybody knows or doesn't know must be discussed and documented along with the less "obvious" …
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"Life is what happens to us while we're making other plans." - John Lennon |
