These frameworks commonly set unrealistic expectations for resource-constrained IT departments, and in their clinical approach, fail to address the day-to-day challenges that project managers face on the front lines. While it’s important that best practices be understood, it’s equally true that best practices aren’t always the best fit. Indeed, statistics around project failure-especially IT projects-have remained consistently high since at least the mid-1990s, a time that coincides with the rise of the ‘best practices’ industry itself. However, this proliferation hasn’t changed the fact that most organizations continue to struggle at projects. 'Over the past two decades, the project management industry has become increasingly rife with best practices and formal frameworks for achieving project success. If the process doesn’t fit your projects, change the process. Tailor IT Project Management Processes to Fit Your Projects Right-size PMBOK for all of your IT projects. This will help facilitate better visibility into the big picture of all the organization’s project activity. Consistent and repeatable processes will not only help reduce errors and inefficiencies during project planning and execution, but they will also improve collaboration and communication between project managers and IT decision makers.Rigorous project execution processes will result in more successful projects that deliver greater value to the organization at a lower cost. Investing in formal project execution processes is critical for projects of all sizes.Right-sized initiation and planning rigor will provide more reliable scope statements, more well-rounded requirements definition, and increased executive buy-in and engagement. The right amount of upfront planning is essential to improving project throughput and closure.Develop processes that provide a gateway to the “big picture” and help facilitate effective portfolio management practices. If your project management practices don’t inform effective decision making, then your investments in process discipline will be all for nothing. Project management doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Build an actionable project management toolkit that can accommodate projects of all sizes and that will help facilitate optimized communications with project stakeholders. Your project management processes will succeed or fail based on the quality of your artifacts and how they are applied. Establish different tiers of PM rigor to ensure that you’re not weighing down potential quick wins in too much process and that you’re applying the right amount of rigor to more complex, high-risk initiatives. A lightweight approach to project management process suffices for the vast majority of IT initiatives. Take what you need from those formal frameworks, and then tailor a process that’s going to work for your organization and for the variety of projects that come your way A right-sized approach to your project management processes works best.These frameworks commonly set unrealistic expectations for resource-constrained IT departments, and in their clinical approach, fail to address the day-to-day challenges that project managers face on the frontlines. While it’s important that best practices be understood, it’s equally true that best practices aren’t always the best fit.

This results in an excessive overhead that time-strapped project managers and teams typically can’t sustain for very long. While getting better at project management is the key, it’s common for organizations to overshoot and adopt best practices that far exceed their current levels of process maturity.Lack of upfront project planning can result in IT projects going over budget and time, resulting in poor stakeholder satisfaction and a widespread perception that IT is not delivering value.

It project management template