Can a project manager be successful by focusing on and managing through lists?
The answer to this question has a couple of aspects depending on the purpose of the list.
Many implementation methodologies contain checklists for the purposes of project planning, project monitoring, technical or functional reviews or test phase preparation as examples. These lists serve a valuable purpose of reminding the technician or project manager to consider an exhaustive list of concepts or ideas when executing a specific task common in many projects. These items for consideration were typically born from best practices and lessons learned over many previous projects. These lists of reminders are valuable as they remind the individual of details that may othewise be overlooked and should have a place within any project.
Many project managers also use action item lists or lists of issues to which I referred in Issue Lists: Are they a good thing? and I defined some of the pitfalls with using lists for technical issues. Clearly, driving issues to closure is part of what a good project manager includes in their day to day activities but this is only a part of the overall tasking.
PMs who focus exclusively or even mostly on working lists of issues do not always place enough emphasis of what I would consider even more important elements to managing the project. These include but are not limited to:
- Physical and mental state of the project team members
- Confidence of the stakeholders in the project progress and documentation thereof
- Stability of the functional and technical baselines
- Risks and progress on the risk mitigation strategies
- Financial baseline and performance
- Adherence to defined development approaches such as configuration or release management
- Education/training of the individuals who will maintain the system and their progress
- Change control and the inherent business decisions
Having a list of actions can be a valuable part of what a PM does each and every day. When this action item list becomes the focal point of the day, the PM begins to loose the larger picture on the project and their capability to manage the project. If a PM has the luxury of an assistant, the action item list is better suited for that individual. As with most of my projects, this task falls to me but I spend a vast majority of my day focusing on elements such as defined in the list above. This ensures I keep a good overall grasp on not only the technical aspects of the project but also the non-technical such as financials, human resources, change control, controling, and monitoring.
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