97 Things Every Project Manager Should Know

Chapter 44. Don't Worship a Methodology

PMP. Fabio Teixeira de Melo

MANY PROJECT MANAGERS GET OVERLY INVESTED in following a methodology, which hinders their ability to manage the project to a useful, praise-worthy completion. If you used a certain format in your last job, studied it in school, or obtained a certification in it, you may feel tempted to rigorously establish all the processes and documents your textbook mentions, exactly as they are described. This is a dangerous pitfall and raises the following issues:

• Required level of effort. Working thoroughly through all the processes contained in reference materials may require a lot of administrative effort from every team member. Are you sure you have considered all those hours in your time and budget estimates? You certainly don't want to put in place a fantastic set of procedures that document the fact that your project is failing because of the time you took to prepare them.

• Executing company's culture. How familiar is your team with those specialized processes? Will you have to train team members? Is that training budgeted? Are they interested? What about functional managers and other company departments with which you will have to deal? Do your processes conflict with formally or informally established company processes and habits? Such conflicts could be a risk to the project.

• Project focus. The focus of the project manager ...