What Keeps Project Managers from Managing Their Projects

Michael B. Bender

As a seminar leader and management consultant, I frequently find that clients have skilled project managers, yet the organizations still struggle to get projects done on time and on budget. Their problems do not lie within the discipline of project management. Their problems might be the organizational culture, the way project management is viewed within the organization, political strife, structural flaws, departmental silos—a variety of issues can plague even the best project managers. In the following sections, I pursue these issues and attempt to address them from the executive manager’s perspective.

Starting with the assumption that our project management is sound, ...