Duck, Here Comes Your First Project

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Duck, Here Comes Your First Project

Donna Boyette

January 29, 2001





If you want to keep your job, you can’t “just say no” to a project, even if it spells disaster. As I trained for my entrance into project management, I was advised not to accept projects with problems. Perhaps that advice was intended for independently wealthy consultants who can pick and choose their assignments. As an employee with the new title of "project manager," I could only smile and say, “Okay” to a project that had already had two project managers and was overdue by months.

If I had to do it over again, I would start out by listing the problems with the project. Although I may not have been able to avoid the trouble, at least it would be good to know from what direction it would come at me, and how hard it would hit. 

Heads Up
Dont' get blindsided by problems in your next project. Let gantthead help:

Identifying Sponsors
Assessing Risk
Identifying Critical Success Factors
Setting Milestones
Training the Team
Setting Expectations
Managing Change
Managing Scope
The two biggest problems were:

  1. The project was undervalued
    Our group was designing a backup system for a critical application.



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