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Project management - is it a help or hinderance?

by BlossMart
4 replies
I'm working on a project right now which involves a team.

The structure is like this.

- Everyone is based all over the place
- There is heaps of things going on at the same time and not a lot of collaboration
- A weekly (Monday) WIP meeting is held where is it basically a session of slandering and not a lot of progress
- There are tons of alerts from project management tools, that are just getting shoved back

I am feeling like the project management side of things is actually making the process even more complicated. Has anyone ever felt like this?

Whereas without the meetings, alerts and slandering we might actually get some progress, instead we are wasting a lot of time on processes and in this case it actually seems like it is detracting from what we are achieving.

I am usually a massive advocate for project management programs, but in this case I think it's a hinderance and it's making the whole project a massive pain in the butt.

Any suggestions for stripping this back a little, and having a process but not one that is wasting so much time. It's too late to find new service providers, we just need to find a better system.
#hinderance #management #project
  • Profile picture of the author Kay King
    - Everyone is based all over the place

    That shouldn't be a problem if everyone has their own "things" to do.


    - There is heaps of things going on at the same time and not a lot of collaboration

    Is collaboration needed If the project is divided among team members with each person knowing what his responsibilities are - not a problem. If the team must fit their pieces of the project together - regular meetings are needed ....with effective communication.

    - A weekly (Monday) WIP meeting is held where is it basically a session of slandering and not a lot of progress

    Who is in charge of the Monday meeting? Sounds like no one. "Slandering?" is a waste of time as is fussing and finger pointing....if no progress in the meetings, you need to structure them in a more businesslike - and productive - way.

    - There are tons of alerts from project management tools, that are just getting shoved back

    Shouldn't one or more team members be responsible for alerts?
    Sounds like a lack of "management" rather than too much. Needs some organization, timelines, team members submitting reports on progress and problems.

    It may not be a "management system" you needs as much as ONE manager in charge of the big picture.

    But I could be wrong....
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    • Profile picture of the author BlossMart
      Originally Posted by Kay King View Post

      Sounds like a lack of "management" rather than too much. Needs some organization, timelines, team members submitting reports on progress and problems.

      It may not be a "management system" you needs as much as ONE manager in charge of the big picture.

      But I could be wrong....
      Yeah, I agree.

      It's just so many different people it's like a swam of bees.

      I've recommended to the client to have a central decision maker and remove all the collaboration as it honestly is doubling the amount of time on every task.

      We're not talking about anything too technical, just so many ideas and no direction is honestly sending the group scattering in all directions.

      I think project management tools are usually really effective but in this case it's driving me batty.
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      • Profile picture of the author Sid Hale
        Originally Posted by BlossMart View Post

        I've recommended to the client to have a central decision maker and remove all the collaboration as it honestly is doubling the amount of time on every task.

        We're not talking about anything too technical, just so many ideas and no direction is honestly sending the group scattering in all directions.

        I think project management tools are usually really effective but in this case it's driving me batty.
        Kay has made excellent points. I would just add that it sounds like you're not yet at the stage of actually having a project defined.

        If you are still throwing around ideas, you're still in the design stage and a project management system/tool shouldn't even be employed this early in the game. You haven't adequately defined the direction or the tasks for any project management tool to be able to help. It needs defined tasks with task assignment and estimated timelines for each task, to be of any use.

        Weekly meetings at this stage should only include those people tasked with defining the project and the other team members shouldn't come into play until they can be given specific (written) task definitions.with expected/estimated deliverable dates.

        Once the project has finally launched, weekly meetings aren't for "collaboration" they are for progress reporting/tracking so that management can adjust expectations and/or reassign resources as needed.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kay King
    The biggest problem with multiple people making the decisions from my own experience is....decisions never get finalized. There is re-thinking and questioning of the decision and changing the decision and it gets ridiculous.

    I like to have people in CHARGE of each section of a project - and one person who coordinates those sections. Things seem to move smoother that way.
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