(^88) 97 Things Every Project Manager Should Know
Don’t Worship a Methodology.
Fabio Teixeira de Melo, PMP
Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, Mexico
MAny PRojECT MAnAgERS gET ovERly InvESTED in following a meth-
odology, which hinders their ability to manage the project to a useful, praise-
worthy completion. If you used a certain format in your last job, studied it in
school, or obtained a certification in it, you may feel tempted to rigorously
establish all the processes and documents your textbook mentions, exactly as
they are described. This is a dangerous pitfall and raises the following issues:
• Required level of effort. Working thoroughly through all the processes
contained in reference materials may require a lot of administrative effort
from every team member. Are you sure you have considered all those
hours in your time and budget estimates? You certainly don’t want to put
in place a fantastic set of procedures that document the fact that your
project is failing because of the time you took to prepare them.
• Executing company’s culture. How familiar is your team with those spe-
cialized processes? Will you have to train team members? Is that train-
ing budgeted? Are they interested? What about functional managers and
other company departments with which you will have to deal? Do your
processes conflict with formally or informally established company pro-
cesses and habits? Such conflicts could be a risk to the project.
• Project focus. The focus of the project manager must be the successful
completion of the project, which in a software project is primarily linked
to delivering the software. All the project management knowledge you have
at your disposal is a means, not an end. Besides, your team will naturally