70% of all projects in organisations fail. Shocking isn't it? But it's the reality. And most often than not, projects fail because of competing priorities. 

We move too fast and work on too many things at the same time. Many leaders want everything done now. Program and project get assigned to multiple projects at the same time alongside other stakeholders from the companies. And because there's so much to do and little prioritization to everything that needs to be done, project teams have to choose shortcuts and many times jump right into doing without planning. But by skipping planning, project teams are bound to see surprises later for their initiative.   

That's why I see the job of the project or program manager to push back to leadership and ask for prioritisation, to really look at where do we get the most impact among all the projects and to work with leadership to identify what to 'kill'. Organisations have the habit of just adding things but we never look back at what's actually not working and just stop it so we reuse the resources and talent for the initiatives that will bring an impact. 

In fact, the ROI from quitting the wrong thing is far greater than the ROI from doing the right thing.

Two big concepts in project management are waterfall and agile. 

Both are methodologies for executing projects with waterfall being the traditional one and agile the newer, more modern one. 

This is another post in my project management fundamental series and we'll look at the two  approaches, their differences, advantages and disadvantages.  

Let's describe briefly the two concepts first. 

Waterfall project management is about chunking the project into linear sequential phases, with each new phase beginning only when the prior phase has been completed. It's often used in construction. 

Agile, on the other hand, is an iterative approach with less initial planning focusing on continuous releases and incorporating customer feedback with every iteration. It's often used in software development.

What Waterfall and Agile Look Like

This is a guest post by Eric Weisbrot from JW Surety Bonds.

Scope creep is a silent killer for projects. Even the most seasoned professionals can easily miss rising costs and scope since they tend to slowly grow over the life of the project. Luckily, there are many simple ways to manage scope creep before it gets out of control.

An effective project kick-off meeting is a major way you can tackle sources of scope creep. This meeting is the time to establish a realistic schedule for your project along with reasonable deliverables and outcomes. Getting this in writing in your project charter can hold both you, your client and stakeholders on both sides accountable to the scope you first agreed on.

Your first meeting is also the time to manage expectations and misunderstandings your client might have with your team’s work process. Answering questions in the beginning and ensuring mutual understanding can cut down on questions, feedback and project changes down the line.

Even so, the best project charters and most efficient kick-off meetings can only do so much. You’ll inevitably run into times where your client or other stakeholders request a change to a project that’ll change your original scope. All changes aren’t bad. Sometimes they’re necessary when legitimate unforeseen circumstances occur. They become an issue when they stack up over time or don’t bring value to the project.

If you start learning to get yourself certified by the Project Management Institute, you'll encounter a very organised approach to the practice.

You'll also have to make use of the PMBOK book. One of the first things you'll learn from it is that there are five project management process groups, 10 knowledge areas and 47 processes, each with inputs, outputs, and tools & techniques. 

In this post, we'll look at the five project management process groups which I believe are key to be able to plan any project.  

This article is a continuation of my series on project management fundamentals - if you missed the previous topics, here's what we've covered before: the differences between projects and operations, projects, programmes and portfolios, the DARCI model for stakeholder engagement, how to run an effective project kick-off meeting, how to create a project charter, how to create a work breakdown structure and the top soft skills of a project manager.

The 5 Project Management Process Groups

A good project manager needs to develop both hard skills and soft skills. 

While hard skills are all about knowledge and execution according to project management standards (e.g. knowing how to create a project charter, how to do agile etc.) and are easier to learn, soft skills need years practising and mastering. 

Some people are born with a natural ability to be great project managers, others need to cultivate their soft skills more. 

Regardless, to be a great project manager, today we will cover the top soft skills that you need. 

This is a continuation of my series on project management fundamentals - if you missed the previous topics, here's what we've covered before: the differences between projects and operations, projects, programmes and portfolios, the DARCI model for stakeholder engagement, how to run an effective project kick-off meeting, how to create a project charter and how to create a work breakdown structure.

Now to the top soft skills of a project manager.  

The Top Soft Skills of a Project Manager [Project Management Fundamentals]