The world of project management is important for almost every business, and mastering it can be difficult. Even if you are a talented project manager, there is a chance that you may make some mistakes along the way. Here are five of the most common project management mistakes that people make.
1. Not Getting Everyone Behind the Project
As the project manager, it is up to you to get everyone on your team behind the project. If no one is actively engaged in participating in the project, it will be very difficult for you to make any headway. It is your job to get everyone working toward a common goal. At the very beginning of the project, you need to make it clear what the end objective is, and what kind of dedication it’s going to take to pull it off. Without help from everyone on your team, it’s going to be a challenge. Take some time to explain to each team member what they will personally get out of completing the project. If everyone has a stake in the success, your odds of success are much higher.
2. Doing Too Many Projects at Once
One of the big mistakes that project managers make is that they try to take on multiple projects at the same time. They think that if they’ll get started on all of these projects early on, it will give them more time to get everything done. In reality, this often causes problems because it makes it so that team members cannot focus on a single project at a time. When you can focus on one thing, it makes it a lot easier to accomplish what you need to do.
3. No Communication
Another big problem that often comes in the area of project management is a lack of communication. If you don’t take the time to communicate with all of the members of your team, you really will not have any idea what is going on. As the project manager, it is your responsibility to make sure that everything gets done on time and on budget. You may need to have daily or weekly meetings with your team to see where everyone’s at. If you have some kind of online project management software in place, then you could just require everyone to communicate through it instead.
4. Not Assigning Tasks Correctly
The project manager is also in charge of assigning tasks correctly. You have to know the members of your team, and understand what it is that they do well. Knowing your team’s strengths and weaknesses will make it easier on you to assign the tasks to the right person. If you give the tasks to the wrong people, it won’t take you long to figure out that the project is not being done to the best of your team’s ability. When everyone is matched up properly to the right tasks, it makes things a lot easier on you.
5. Micromanaging the Project
One of the biggest mistakes that managers make is micromanaging their projects. If you want to get a quality project, you can’t sit and watch over your employee’s shoulders all of the time. Most employees like to be able to work freely without a lot of oversight. Simply give the employees assignments and deadlines. How they work in between should be up to them for the most part.
If you’ll successfully avoid these common mistakes, you should be able to run some pretty smooth projects and get things done correctly. Your customers and your superiors will be much happier overall once your team starts putting out great work.
