Project management is about getting the right people to do the right things ant the right time. This doesn’t happen magically, orchestrating complex change needs to be planned in advance, factoring in all the things you hope will go right and working out what you would do if they went wrong.

The many variables and dependencies in the project need to be brought together. This is why management needs to be done by a specialist project matter, and not a subject-matter expert.  The earlier a competent project manager is brought on board, the more likely the project will be to succeed.

All too often project management is seen as an administrative activity, limited to the boxes shown in red. Projects ‘managed’ this way will always be suboptimal.

1. Projects are always more complicated than people anticipate
2. Subject-matter experts have ‘solution bias’
3. Someone is required to bring vendor and client together to deal with practical and potential issues
4. Good PMs are not SMEs, they are good at asking seven dumb questions and getting SMEs to do stuff
5. Management of  dependencies is difficult
6. Identify issues & have openness in resolving them

There are three factors that make projects fly or flop: reporting, planning, and management style. These are discussed in the next section.