Project Priorities

by Jim Highsmith

Many projects are doomed to failure before the project manager is even assigned. I once worked with a state agency that couldn't seem to complete projects: they just stretched on and on and on. Digging into the situation, I found that a development group of 35 people had 45 active projects -- their time was so fragmented that forward progress on any single project was glacial. Managers want project efforts to be predictable, but they often want to change priorities and resources at any time, with no impact on the projects.