When PMI is TMI (Part 1)

  Communications Management   Knowledge Management   Lessons Learned   Risk Management   Schedule Management   Scheduling  

You’re a newly minted PMP, or perhaps you’ve just finished an engaging class, book or cereal box covering project management techniques. Having completed your studies, your thoughts naturally turn to how you can improve project management in your organization. You have visions of crashed schedules, network diagrams and earned value management. Your heart swells with the possibilities of banishing the demons of projects past. You vow to become the expert your organization always needed--you will own the cause, show your colleagues how it is done, and make your workplace projects more successful. All you need is an opportunity.

A new project comes along, presenting your chance to finally do things the right way. You start out strong, developing a formal charter. You document constraints and assumptions, and then nail down the project scope. All stakeholders, from secretaries to the CEO, have agreed to what you’ll be delivering--in writing. Your work packages are artistically broken down and dependency-linked. You know the forward and backward passes in your network diagram like a Sherpa. Resources are allocated, locked and loaded. Budgets are set, and risks recorded. You have plans for everything, and your plans come with plans for how to change the plans. You even have plans for changing the plan-changing plans. You unflinchingly place the second “…

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