5 common project management mistakes and how to avoid them

Why do projects fail? A project can fail for a number of reasons. Every project, large or small, has moving parts that can make or break an initiative. In general, it's not a single major catastrophe that derails a viable project. In many cases, it's small deviations and naive mistakes that can leave teams scrambling to bring a once-promising initiative to fruition.

So what are the main mistakes made by project managers? From resource planning, to project scope and risk management, project managers have to take many things into account when planning and executing tasks.

In this article, we reveal five common project management mistakes. And we explain how to avoid them from the outset.

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1. Poor resource planning is detrimental to project results

Your resources are vital and, for the most part, limited. Strategic resource management is not only crucial to the health of a project, but also to the health of an organisation. What's more, companies are often competing for resources (people, money, equipment, etc.), so project managers need to be strategic in their resource allocation efforts.

Poor resource planning occurs when project managers fail to see the bigger picture. Here are some examples of the difficulties that teams can encounter as a result of an ineffective resource planning process.

• Unbalanced work loads (for example, one team member is at 95% capacity while another is at 30%, due to excessive work being allocated to one of the two team members. This can also lead to burnout and staff turnover).
• Unavailable resources (deadlines are affected if the availability of resources is not properly taken into account).
• Inflated budgets (the cost of overtime, external contractors and other unforeseen expenses can accumulate with a poor resource management process).

How to improve resource planning:

Find a tool that allows you to plan resources with features such as Gantt charts, team calendars, dashboards, etc. Most of the time, poor resource management is a symptom of poor visibility of workloads, availability, etc. You can't plan for what you need to do.

You can't plan what you can't see, so highlight team workloads and bandwidth with a resource-based project management tool.

2. Not having a risk management plan can have serious consequences

As the PMI points out, only 27% of companies claim to have a risk management plan "always" in place. That's not very many. Especially when you think of all the events that often go wrong in everyday life.

For example, you might leave home earlier than usual if you have a job interview or an important presentation. You know there's a good chance you'll arrive late if there are traffic jams or delays with public transport.

Similarly, many people have an emergency fund in case of job loss or illness. They don't expect this type of situation to arise, or they don't anticipate it. But they do have a plan for moving forward in case it does. This is also an example of risk management.

It should be the same for project management. Consider Murphy's Law and assume that everything that can go wrong will go wrong - so plan for it.

How to create a risk management plan:

Assess project risks at the outset. Identify project risks and develop a risk management plan. This way you can minimise last-minute confusion and costly changes. If something goes wrong, there's a documented protocol for how the team will pivot and chart a new course.

A project management tool with robust, cloud-based document management can host such documentation, creating a centralised "single source of truth" and a reference point to return to.

3. Limited project visibility creates chaos

Poor visibility is a project killer. It impacts almost every aspect of an initiative.

Poor project visibility...

• leads to poor resource planning
• creates confusion around tasks and responsibilities
• prevents project managers from understanding staff performance
• can lead to misalignment with customers

In project management, visibility refers to the accessibility of information. Do your team members know where to go to obtain key project resources? As project manager, do you have a tool that allows you to see who's working on what and what the deadlines are?

These considerations may seem insignificant, but low visibility on a project will impact on the flow of information, the accountability of team members and can mean that customers are left in the dark about the status of the project.

How to increase project visibility:

Increase visibility and improve the way you manage all your projects, from the resource and task planning phase to the customer feedback phase.

Wrike gives teams an overview of workloads, task status and real-time updates, so you're always in the know. Customised colour-coded task updates allow your team members to adapt their status to their workflow. What's more, external clients can be added to projects in Wrike, shortening review cycles (i.e. putting an end to endless feedback loops).

4. Goal drift can cause your project deadlines to skyrocket

Goal drift. This term can scare the life out of any project manager. Scope creep is the phenomenon of slowly changing the scope of a project in response to customer demands, feedback processes or other factors.

It can occur when the project scope is poorly defined, or when project managers are eager to accommodate and accept changes that were not originally part of the specification. According to PMI, nearly 50% of projects are affected by scope creep.

How to avoid goal drift:

First of all, determine the causes of this phenomenon in your projects. Are you skipping steps early in the project lifecycle when it comes to establishing scope boundaries (such as drawing up an effective specification)? Does your customer management process consist of simply saying "yes" to everything, even if it goes beyond the scope of the project?

Combat scope creep by specifying project parameters at the outset. Let your customer know what is (and isn't) part of the project and discuss it with them from the outset and on a very regular basis to avoid objectives drift.

5. Inefficient processes and workflows are the enemy of productivity

Take into account your workload and all the resources you need to complete the project. Now think about the inefficient processes that are making your work take twice as long. Maybe your project team has a confusing process for receiving requests. Maybe they're spread across so many different applications that effective communication is almost impossible. Maybe you bill for your time, but can't integrate your preferred time tracking system with your other project management tools.

Inefficient workflows can slow project progress, divert attention from key tasks and draw team members into unbilled tasks.Inefficient workflows can slow down project progress, divert attention from key tasks and drag team members into non-billable tasks that could be automated or carried out using pre-configured templates.

How to increase workflow efficiency:

Eliminate inefficient workflows with Wrike. Everything from time management to receiving requests is reduced, allowing you to focus more on project execution. Prioritise important work instead of logging administrative tasks and chasing requests.

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Avoid failure with a flexible, intuitive project management tool

Studies have shown a link between high-performing projects and the use of digital project management tools - and it's hardly surprising. Wrike is a cloud-based task management tool that allows project managers to execute their tasks from start to finish.

Project failure is common, but it's not inevitable. By using flexible and intuitive tools, your project team can stay on budget and on time every time.

Sponsored article. Expert contributors are authors who are independent of the appvizer editorial team. Their comments and positions are their own.