3 Project Management Taboos You Should Break

3 Project Management Taboos You Should Break

Project managers are doers and helpers.

They want to get things done on target, on time, and on budget, with no excuses.

And part of that project manager personality is to provide advice at all

times

But sometimes, project managers give each other bad advice—and

that advice enters the project management world as an

absolute, leaving no room for nuance.

Originally Published by Rachel Burger on Capterra’s Project Management Blog

In other words, there are definitely project management

taboos.

And you should be breaking them.

Taboo #1Your stakeholders have the final say on delegation and project direction.

Project managers make mistakes with their stakeholders all the time. But to

thus conclude that stakeholders should always have the final say on how a

project is directed is nothing but false.

You are the manager. You have full control over your process.

The temptation here is that you should be consistently in communication with

your stakeholders about how they would like their project completed. The reality

is that they only determine the what and you, as the project manager, have better

experience and training on how to complete a project on time.

Challenge the status quo. And don’t be afraid to ask your stakeholders to

let you do your job.

Taboo #2Shift all of your focus to teamwork, collaboration, and communication.

“Collaboration” seems to be the buzzword du jour in project

management. For example, when shopping for project management software, most people look for file

sharing (51%), time tracking (50%), and email integration (48%) above all

else.

In fact, our project management research shows that software buyers notice the biggest improvement in

team communication above all other benefits the software provides.

In other words, collaboration and communication are certainly

essential to a successful project team.

But that’s not all there is to reaching a final deliverable. There is

such a thing as a manager that is too sensitive to the needs of their

team members.

Project management does require constant communication and

teamwork—but it also requires being the enforcer, even if it makes you the

bad guy.

Sometimes you have to be firm. Sometimes you have to enforce the deadline, even if

that means ignoring a team member’s extenuating circumstances.

And yes, doing so has the potential of affecting team collaboration. But sometimes that has to go on the

backburner to get things done, now and in the future.

Taboo #3You should always play by the rules.

I’m not recommending that you should run around burning things in your office and beating the life out of your office printer.

I’m talking much more about processes that project managers fall into. I’m looking at project management methodologies like

Waterfall or Agile or relying on templates.

Yes, methods are important to learning how to manage people.

And templates tend to provide good guidelines on how to handle

certain situations.

But it’s the lazy project manager who exclusively relies on these tools.

Project management requires dynamic thinking, creativity, and

flexibility.

If you’re over-relying on a process made by other people, you lose the opportunity to create and execute a system that is best

for your workplace and your projects.

Being strict about methodology can not only be irritating to stakeholders and your team, but also damaging to the final deliverable

itself.

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