Transportation Project Management

10 Controlling the Project

“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.”

– Mike Tyson

The PM’s job is to develop and deliver the project within the established constraints of budget, scope, and schedule. A straightforward objective. And then stuff happens.

There may be days you feel like Colonel George Custer making your own last stand, facing threats to your triple constraint from seemingly every side. Political indecision. Changing priorities. Evolving success criteria. Funding complications. Technical challenges. Extreme weather. Unanticipated stakeholder influence or involvement. Union strikes. Entropy. Inexperienced or unskilled team members. Staff turnover. Boneheaded decisions. Realizing unanticipated or inadequately accounted risks. Bureaucratic inertia. Some of these threats you can predict and control. Most you cannot.

These perhaps mostly external threats can then be further complicated by internal and contractual constraints of quality, resources, and risk that lay atop your triple constraint of budget, scope, and schedule. Effective PMs understand how to be successful amidst ambiguity. They have the innate ability to navigate uncertainty with the assurance of their internal compass guiding them through the unknown. This behavior and the associated results have nothing to do with chance or luck. Effective PMs actively monitor and control their projects.

10.1 Managing Expectations

“Meeting expectations is good. Exceeding expectations is better.”