IT Project Mechanic

Every PM I have met along my journey has had at least one, if not a few, projects that could be modestly described as troubled. In fact, I think this is a pretty standard occurrence in the Project Manager ranks – there are projects that despite our best efforts, quality training and experience, spend a majority of their time classed as Red or Yellow on a status report. Why is this happening? Is it the PM? Surely there must be one bad apple spoiling the bunch, right? Someone has done something wrong – that’s why we’re in this situation… Right?

Sadly, I’m afraid our friends in the Quality world have it right – it’s not the people, it’s the process that normally causes things to go awry.

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So you’re managing a project – you’ve got stakeholders, and they’ve got requirements. Rrrright…

This whole notion of getting your stakeholders to give up their requirements ought to be straight forward. You schedule a meeting with the players, setup the stage and they give you their requirements. Then you wake up, stop dreaming and remember one crucial fact;

Stakeholders are not entirely clear on what their requirements ought to be. (more…)