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Thursday, May 28, 2009

Free Project Management Planning Tips

Most projects that fail, were failures before they started

Your project stakeholders are your best allies or your worst enemies – you decide

If your project plan hasn’t changed – be afraid

Ask for help, advice, assistance...from everyone! – early and often

Focus first on delivering the benefits then focus on costs

Don’t own the project, own the process

Document all valid assumptions

Don't allow jerks to work on your project....ever

Make friends not war

4 comments:

Cornelius Fichtner, PMP said...

Stephen,

This reminded me very much of an interview I did last year with Quentin Fleming. Quentin wrote the book "Earned Value for Project Management". He said that most projects fail in step 1 of what earned value preaches: Define your scope.

At the time I didn't give it much though but I am now agreeing with Quentin. Unfortunately, too many projects are started without a clear and precise definition of the scope. So let's add the following tip to your list:

"If you don't have your scope defined you don't have a project."

Until Next Time,
Cornelius Fichtner, PMP
The Project Management Podcast

Steven Romero, IT Governance Evangelist said...

I usually don't like these cute little lists, but this one is awesome!

I especially like "Most projects that fail, were failures before they started." This is SO true given the incredible lack of sound project governance and the associated project and portfolio management processes. This issue results in poor project investment decision-making and spells doom for many efforts.

I also loved "Focus first on delivering the benefits then focus on costs." Many of my recent blog posts have been dedicated to the topic of "value" instead of the dreaded "C-word" (cost).

I hope your list gets printed and posted for as many folks as possible to see.

Steve Romero, IT Governance Evangelist
http://community.ca.com/blogs/theitgovernanceevangelist/

ProjectSteps said...

Thanks for the comments. They are appreciated.

Imran Raza said...

Nice blog, what about ITIL does any knows about it , i have recently completed my pmp exams.

http://razaimran.blogspot.com/
http://www.imranraza.net