Is it Always the Project Managers Fault?

In an airport waiting area, a project manager asked me...

"At my company most of our project are late, produce less and cost more than planned. Everyone always blames the project managers. Are we the only ones at fault?

Project managers do screw up. But in working with over 300 organizations, every time I've seen high overall failure rates, there are organizational problems as well.

Specifically, when organizations fail to set project priorities (saying that everything is Priority #1, is not setting priorities) chaos reins. Team members are torn between conflicting assignments, and every project is usually late. On top of that too many pointless projects get started and drain off resources.

In that environment, the absense of priotities is always accompanied by the absense of resource allocation and work load management. Project managers are left to fight it out over team members who have too many assignments plus a rea job.

Add to that ineffective change control processes and scope creep runs rampant. Even the most skilled PMs have no chance of performing consistently well in this kind of environment.

Best regards,

Dick
Dick Billows, PMP, GCA