Project Management Professionals and Microsoft-certified individuals are committed to the quality and continuity of a project’s process and progress. While we must salute their passionate tenacity during the most complex challenges, we must also acknowledge that the health of any project may well be determined by the enthusiasm (or lack thereof) of supervisory or executive echelons.
To help you translate what you’re experiencing, here are my top 10 signs that your project is in deep trouble:
- Senior managers are “rotated” or “reassigned” before project completion.
- Project management offices are directed to and then cease weekly status metrics because they have become “distractions” to the executive staff.
- Departments institute different project management tools because they believe the “tool” is not working “correctly.”
- Project failures are credited to project managers who were never assigned to the failed project.
- Project plans are abandoned “because they take up too much time” during the weekly meetings.
- Senior managers report their own status or claim ownership when they edit the weekly project status rather than allow the status tool to report dynamically.
- Projects expand with the addition of “unplanned phases” that were never part of their planning or requirements while resources report and document work time to “non-project” activities.
- Senior management or immediate subordinates refuse to use standard scheduling metrics on projects because they believe it has “no purpose” and question the “accuracy” of the weekly status due to a “language” issue.
- Project teams no longer use PMPs or Microsoft Certified Technology Specialists since senior executives have decided to rely on nepotism over qualifications.
- Companies invest substantial amounts reinventing the project management methodology and then rename it rather than use the proven industry-standard Project Management Book of Knowledge.
Next time, we look at coping opportunities.
Have your own signs that a PMO is trying to fly alternative facts? Share it with the MPUG community in the comments below.
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