Project Decisions: Process & Pitfalls

Vincent is a Senior Project Management Consultant and e-Learning Developer.

  Decision Making   Estimating   Leadership   ProjectsAtWork  

A good project decision can produce a bad result, and dumb luck can save a bad decision. But in the long run, more good decisions will result from a process that avoids four common pitfalls and takes into account the triple constraint, stakeholders and the unavoidable fact of uncertainty.

The five-step decision-making process we looked at in “Project Decision Making” is only part of the story. In a project environment there are specific considerations that influence alternatives, objectives and consequences. And there are common pitfalls that can plague all decisions. We need to understand all of these factors that impact the process — we don’t want to apply a good process to come up with a bad decision.

What’s unique about project decisions?You make decisions as part of managing your project and there are project management considerations that must be factored in to those decisions. First and foremost, a project is bound by the triple constraint of scope, schedule and cost. Project managers are responsible for making sure that these are properly balanced. In addition, there are the project stakeholders who are impacted by the decisions and who frequently want to control them. And then there is uncertainty that clouds much of what a project manager must do. Let’s look at each:

Triple Constraint — Scope, schedule and cost …

Please log in or sign up below to read the rest of the article.