This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "Making Things Happen" by Scott Berkun. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.
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What are some avoidable project management issues? What should you do as a manager when a problem occurs?
In Making Things Happen, Scott Berkun explains how good project leaders are able to avoid or mitigate project management issues by following some best practices. He argues that being accountable and making a plan of action are the keys to handling most project issues.
Read on for an overview of Berkun’s advice for avoiding or handling project management issues.
Project Management Issues
According to author and management expert Scott Berkun, during the building phase of a project, a project manager’s main responsibilities are anticipating and finding solutions to project management issues. In this article, we’ll go over some strategies from his book, Making Things Happen, to help keep a project on track and avoid major problems or setbacks. Then, we’ll review what you can do if these strategies fail and you do encounter a major setback.
How to Preempt Major Problems
According to Berkun, a project manager should always try to anticipate any project management issues or challenges that might derail the project. He argues that the best way to do this is to ask yourself questions that, when answered, provide insight into how the project is going. These questions should help make sure you are staying true to the project’s goals and that everyone is working toward those goals.
On a daily basis, you should ask yourself, “Are the tasks we’re working on today contributing to the goals of the project?” and: “Are the tasks being completed in a way that meets the requirements of the project?” If the answer to both of these questions is yes, you can be fairly confident the project is moving forward efficiently.
On a weekly or even monthly basis, a project manager should ask questions that ensure the project is moving forward at an appropriate pace and that nothing has fundamentally changed in the major goals or ambitions of the project. To best avoid any project management issues, here are four questions you can ask:
- Is the project on track to be completed by the deadline?
- What can be done to help the team work more efficiently?
- What are the biggest potential obstacles that might derail the project?
- Has anything changed that might affect the goals or plans of the project?
| Other Methods to Ensure Your Work Is Valuable and Efficient The authors of Rework also recommend asking questions regularly throughout a project, but they frame it as analyzing the value of your efforts. If you frame it this way, you’ll not only prevent project management issues but also ensure you’re working on the most valuable task. Here are a few of these questions: – Is what you’re working on actually valuable, or just what you enjoy? – Are you adding measurable value to the project? – Are you overcomplicating the work? Is there a simpler solution to the problem you’re trying to solve? Another project management method, outlined in Scrum, also recommends reviewing work on a daily and weekly basis to ensure the project stays on task and major problems are avoided. During one- or two-week “Sprints,” the authors of Scrum recommend meeting with the team daily to discuss what they did yesterday, what they’ll do today, and what is slowing them down. At the end of every Sprint, which typically lasts one or two weeks, the team reviews the work they’ve done with the goal of identifying problems, increasing efficiency, and adapting to changes. |
What to Do if a Problem Occurs
Despite a project manager’s best efforts to prevent management issues, a project never goes exactly as planned, and problems will inevitably arise. Because of this, Berkun claims that a good project manager must know how to mitigate the damage when a problem occurs. If a project is completely derailed, a project manager needs to find a way to get it back on track. Let’s look at what a project manager should do when a problem occurs.
First and foremost, a project manager needs to take responsibility when there’s an issue within a project. This doesn’t mean taking the blame for the project: It means being accountable for finding a solution. As a leader, taking responsibility in a difficult situation keeps the team from blaming each other and empowers them to work together to find a solution.
Next, remain calm and keep things in perspective. Evaluate the situation and make sure you have a grasp on what the problem is and how it’s affecting the project. Then, get everyone in a room or on a call together to discuss what went wrong and what can be done to fix it. Figure out your options, make a plan of action that’s as simple as possible, and put the plan into action. Once the problem is fixed, meet with the team to review what went wrong and try to figure out how it can be avoided in the future.
| Determine the Type of Problem In The Practice of Adaptive Leadership, the authors give another helpful tip for dealing with unexpected project management issues: Identify the type of problem. The authors identify two types of problems your organization may face: technical challenges and adaptive challenges. Technical challenges are those which have known solutions, such as a machine in a factory breaking down. When this happens, you’ll know that you need to call a particular mechanic who works on that type of machine. Knowing what type of problem you’re looking at thus makes it easier to take responsibility for fixing it, as Berkun recommends. Adaptive challenges, on the other hand, are those which have no known solution. To solve these challenges, workers and leaders must take a more creative approach. A misstep many organizations make is trying to apply technical solutions to adaptive problems. In other words, they try to use old techniques to solve new problems. A leader must avoid this mistake by recognizing when a problem is technical, adaptive, or a mix of both. A leader must also fight the urge to use technical solutions, which are often much easier to use and take much less effort. Berkun’s advice to remain calm, keep things in perspective, and evaluate your situation can help you deal with these types of circumstances and avoid such impulsive reactions. |
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- Answers to the questions you have about leadership and project management
- What managers can do at each phase of a project to ensure its success
- Why schedules are unreliable yet useful
