Excerpt from the Book

Chapter 1: Introduction to Project Management: What You Need to Know

Project management is both an art and a science. The art of project management involves dealing effectively with the variety of project stakeholders you may encounter. By definition, a stakeholder is anyone who is interested in or impacted by a project. Project management is also a science. It is important to define and follow a standard framework or process that will meet the needs of your project and allow for standardized-great-results.

Projects fail for many reasons. As we stated before, statistics and a variety of studies cite a 40% to 80% failure rate. Chapter 1 will provide an overview of why projects fail. This chapter will also provide an introduction of what the follow-on chapters in this book will share. During my time in the Air Force, I learned an important lesson from my leaders: “Never share a problem unless you have a solution.” This chapter will discuss the problems, along with a few solutions. By the time the book is complete, however, we will provide easy and understandable solution recommendations to many of the problems that are shared.

We have researched the many reasons why projects fail and condensed the listing into our top ten. We also designed our book around these ten problems to provide guidance, best practices, and easy-to-use tools and techniques you can use to overcome them. Here is our list, along with how we can help.

1. Lack of Planning and Ineffective Project Management
2. Deficiencies in Project Selection and Prioritization
3. Inadequate Stakeholder Management
4. Poor Scope Definition and Management
5. Ineffective Estimates and Unrealistic Schedules
6. Poor Budget Planning
7. Ineffective Change Management and Control
8. Lack of Resource Planning
9. Poor Communications Management and Team Dynamics
10. Failure to Manage Risk and Poor Execution

Problem 1: Lack of Planning and Ineffective Project Management

Many organizations use a project management methodology that echoes the Nike Corporation’s slogan, “Just Do It.” This slogan works well for Nike. Unfortunately, it does not work well in managing projects. Just Do It will normally result in your project being part of the 40% to 80% that fail.

Figure 1.1 shows a planning approach that every project manager needs to embrace. This planning approach, sometimes referred to as the Deming Cycle, is PDCA. Plan, Do, Check, and Act, that’s PDCA. Successful project managers always “plan” first. They “do” or execute only what is in the plan. They “check” during the project execution to ensure the plan is being followed, and if there are variances, they “act” to fix them. Every successful project management framework follows the PDCA methodology. This is true for both traditional project management models, such as Waterfall, and Agile project management models, such as Scrum. It should be noted that Agile models include a “PDEL” segment within the PDCA process. Plan, Do, Evaluate, and Learn, that’s PDEL.

Note: Look for this checkmark icon throughout the book. It provides important clarifying notes to support what we’ve shared with you. The intent of this book is to provide a proven planning methodology you can use to plan and implement a project from start to finish. Chapter 10 will summarize everything we share and show you how and when to use each tool and technique we provide. In addition, we will provide an overview of how to effectively present a Project Charter and/or Project Plan to management.