5 things every project manager should remember

Michael Bender is the CEO and Founder of Ally Business Developers. In his new book “A Manager's Guide to Project Management” he teaches the best practices for project management success starting with value creation, alignment and structure. teach project management in seminars.

We recently profiled Michael and his book in our post Getting Projects Right. With 5 things every project manager should know we are revisiting some of Michael's wisdom.

The five items project managers should remember:

1) Ensure the project aligns with the organization. This will help you generate buy-in and support from executives and your team.

2) Don’t be lazy, be rigorous and thorough when planning your project. We spend some 40% of the class’ time going over requirements and work breakdown structures because these work. If you apply the technology, you’ll get the results.

3) Encourage and provide truthful estimates. If your team pads task estimates, then you pad project estimates, then you add risk contingency on top of all that, don’t be surprised when senior managers cut your budgets and schedules. Get truthful estimates from you team, provide truthful estimates to your management, then defend them. It’s easier to make good decisions when you have accurate facts, than if you have mistruths.

4) Plan your execution, and execute your plan. It worked for General Norman Schwarzkopf, it will work for you. Don’t take your rigorously-developed and truthfully-estimated plan and ignore it once the project starts. Work the plan.

5) Use your change management system. It’s easy and keeps your plan intact. When you have legitimate changes, update the plan and follow the new plan.

To learn more about Michael Benders new book, Click Here

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com