back to list Wed, 24 Nov 2021

Project Management is a ‘Boolean’

First just to make clear if you don’t know what ‘boolean’ is… ‘Boolean’ is a binary variable, having two possible values called “true” and “false”. Just to confirm – only two possible values “true” and “false”.

I listen very often that some teams made “almost all” by the project management methodology. They usually say, “I used maybe even 99% by methodology”. But their projects are still failing. And that is not related to the methodology type they use. You can use waterfall, agile, Kanban, or some mixed type, but you must really USE it in practice. First, you have to know methodology you have chosen and then you can choose tools for your project leading.

If you want successful project, you must first provide the support of top managers, well known methodology for using, and project leadership by someone who has successfully implemented a similar project(s). But, if you think about these, you will see that all of that is actually Project Management. If you correctly lead a project, this project will be successful. On the other side, you can find a lot of reasons, why projects are unsuccessful, but they are mostly unsuccessful because of poor project management (either on the side on implementer or on the client side). Of course, sometimes project can fail because of inexperienced or bad developers or consultants. But such a situation is very rare, because Project Management is the main reason for both, SUCCESSFUL and UNSUCCESSFUL projects.

You cannot use ‘almost all’ from the Project Management methodology. You can USE Project Management methodology, or you can NOT - USE Project Management Methodology. That’s why I like to say that Project Management is ‘Boolean’, you can use (‘true’) or not-use (‘false’). You cannot use 87% or 96% of methodology; you cannot measure usage of Project Management methodology by percentage.

Imagine for a moment you were driving a car. You passed the driving test, you never drink alcohol while driving, you always drive slower than the limit, you never go through a red light, etc. You just closed your eyes while driving for a minute, but everything other is OK. You are free to say that you follow 99.9% of the rules. What do you think, would anyone want to be in the car with you while you are driving? Maybe you could drive a few feet like that, but you certainly cannot drive that miles. Everything is the same with projects. You may have to break a rule in some specific situations, but you have to know how and where to get back on track. If you don’t know that, you will never (successful) get to the end of the project.

On this simplified chart, we can imagine an ideal project flow, from the beginning to the end. This is an ideal situation and I think usually it is not possible entirely:

Now this is, for example a project flow in a situation that is not ideal, but in a situation where we know where we want to get. We can see that sometimes we do something we shouldn’t, but if we know where and why we have to go back, we can still complete the project successfully. It’s not that easy, but project management is a complex job and not very easy.

But if you don't know the tools, the roles, you don't manage the risks, the deliveries... you won't even know where to go and for sure, you won't know how to complete the project successfully. You may succeed, but only by accident. And this version of success is not repeatable… and you certainly won’t find a client who would bet on such success.

And you can use any type of project management methodology. OK, for some types of projects the Agile is better, for some other types of projects Waterfall is better, and so on. But if you know project management really well, you will always choose the right methodology. But even if you make the wrong choice, you must follow all the rules of the methodology and you will succeed. If you choose what tools to use and what not, YOU ARE NOT MANAGING THE PROJECT.

Now we know that project must be ruled by methodology 100%, we have to know where we are going, we need to know how to choose the most fit methodology, project management is not that easy, etc., you probably worry about your future project. But that is why we exist. We are experienced in business software projects, we have experienced project managers available to you at no cost, plus we have our AI - based project management tools. We do not allow failure.

When it’s done right, good project management helps every part of the business run more smoothly. It allows your team to focus on the work that matters, free from the distractions caused by tasks going off track or budgets spinning out of control. It empowers team members to deliver successfully project and give results that actually impact the business bottom line.

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