This is my first post on management, a topic close to my heart.
Project management is not magic.
I believe the key things that make a successful project are (from the buyers point of view):
- Know what you want
- Respect other parties, expect the same from others
- Be open, share your vision
- Listen, be open to suggestions
- Realign your reality based on feedback
I have delivered few software projects on my career, some of them were more successful than the others. The projects were executed in different methodologies, some were more agile than others. The level of agility didn’t really mattered, it was more dependent on the client and the people.
From the client side the list would be:
- Know what they want to achieve with the project
- Respect them, they are the experts in their own business
- Listen them, don’t just try to silence them with your own sales pitch
- Share your suggestions and experience
- Build long-term relationships, don’t just rob them
In my opinion these are all acknowledged points in most of the companies but they are often neglected in real life situations. The pressure to optimize the profits often leads to aggressive selling of suboptimal solutions to customers needs and getting the maximum license and support costs.
On the other side the buyers are likely often looking for the most cost-optimized solution which would barely work for them. Again the pressure to optimize the short-term costs leads to half-assed projects which will cause hindered performance in the future.
I would like to believe we have now reached the bottom of this and eventually the company executives would start to drive their business by looking further than their next pay check. Their attitude is now on “I just work here” level together with a sense of grandiosity. To really do something valuable they need to change their attitude.
I don’t want to work for stuck-up people.
So to make your projects successful the company must first check its own priorities. If it’s only concerned in optimizing their owners cash flow the game is already lost and the projects will be painful. If the company does have other priorities their project success depends on the people who are in charge or the projects and their personal agendas. Use the bullet points in this post to check if your project management methods have the basics covered.
This post was written in software projects in mind but it probably correlates with other industries as well.
If you have any thoughts, please comment.
Fun Programming 