Do not think that project management is easy

I find that some companies thinks that project management is a given, and would assign anyone to handle the project management. When the project fails, they blame the person who's assigned it. However, the fact is that project management is not easy if you really want to do a good job.

What is project management? In essence, you're managing scope, schedule and resource. However, is that all you're managing? You have to read between the lines.

What is scope? The requirements of the project constitutes the scope and I think all project managers know how often do stakeholders know what they truly want. The fact is that most stakeholders do not know, or do not want to be responsible to decide what the project should be. Many of them end up coming up with very vague or generic statements that does nothing to help the project succeed. How is the project manager supposed to manage that? Well, the project manager is supposed to. Easy?

What is schedule? Simply, management thinks that it's just a list of tasks with deadlines. However, schedule is always intricately linked with the scope. Anytime the scope changes, the schedule could potentially change. That's the part where management usually do not quite comprehend. For example, if the scope of the requirements suddenly increased due to the vagueness of the requirements, not only the time to confirm the requirements increase, the time to develop the requirements also increase. It's an exponential effect and guess what? The project manager is supposed to manage that aspect.

Resource... The problematic component of the equation. Is it easy to manage the morale of the team or the budget allocated to that project? Well, if you do not know what I'm talking about, you have never managed a project as a project manager.

All the 3 points linked to one critical aspect of the project. Quality, which I would say is the most important component of the project.

And guess what? In Singapore, most project managers are "part-timing" and yet senior management blame them when the project is not going well. Guess we can't please everyone.