As project managers we realize that there are several types of risk involved in projects that should be recorded in the Project Risk documentation. There are times however that results or events are predicted without sufficient information and we run down the path of guessing. If anyone on the team tends to assume, presume or assert facts without sufficient information, the project outcome can be less than desirable.
Guessing on projects in most cases may lead to errors that end up having an impact on the project scope, schedule and budget. Without clarity and an accurate course of direction you may end up writing more use cases at the time you thought the project was going to end.
What may cause this problem is the lack of formal Project Management (PM) integration. For some companies, using small portions of PM methodologies may have been successful in the beginning and this is fine if a company is not in a growth pattern that needs additional structure. However, if there is growth and maturity over time, most likely the PM needs will change also. If action is not taken at the right time, the art of process integration becomes more challenging and costly as time goes on.
The solution to resolve this issue may vary from company to company for a variety of reasons too lengthy to list in this article but here are some things to consider …
* Are efforts taken to reduce the guessing factor such as the five “why” questions?
* Are the current PM methods in use by the company effectively managing the scope, schedule and budget of the projects being managed?
* Are there processes in place to govern projects and manage them effectively?
If a company is struggling in any of these areas this may signal the need to identify issues and take corrective action.
By performing the proper analysis, a company can identify the steps and actions necessary to implement in order accelerate development time, reduce costs and improve quality by reducing or eliminating the guess factor. Look around your environment, are there things you can improve? Take some time and think about it.
