7 Project Managers Weigh in on Project Management Challenges

Project management challenges

Project management is a sphere with lots of challenges to cope with. These challenges may be connected to people, cost, resource, and task management, and many other aspects and issues.

There are dozens of resources that help become a successful project manager in a variety of industries. However, project management is a complicated field where you can find so many differences. Just look at this huge list of project management conferences and note that they are devoted to and cover various professional aspects.

In addition, different spheres imply different project management methodologies: Agile, Waterfall, Hybrid, etc. What works well in construction, will not work in marketing, and vice versa.

Project management challenges

You will encounter dozens of roadblocks. They don’t necessarily have to be from a universal “Top X project management challenges” list because projects differ and situations vary. Every unique situation can become a great example to rely on but it may happen that it won’t work for you. The thing is that it’s better to be aware of them in advance.

Professionals do realize that most scripts, instructions, pieces of advice, etc. described in books and manuals, can’t be properly applied in practice.

With that in mind, it is important to share experiences, best practices, opinions, and thoughts between those who deal with project management on a daily basis in order to avoid project management pitfalls.

In other words, experts’ experience can become a game changer.

We conducted a survey and asked seven project management experts to share their thoughts on the most challenging issues they face at work and the ways to solve them.

Experts on most challenging aspects of project management

Lack of proper communication or poor communication

It goes without saying that everything, even the smallest detail should be discussed clearly during project implementation. According to the research conducted by Deloitte, approximately one-third of all respondents stated ineffective communication as one of the common challenges and biggest barriers to successfully complete technological projects.

Weak resource management and allocation

Virtual resources and real team members are crucial to complete projects on time. Remember that proper allocation helps avoid situations when someone is overloaded or, vice versa, has time to perform more tasks.

Difficult stakeholder management/vendor management

Stakeholder management is all about effective balancing between management and stakeholders to make them feel satisfied with the way the project is developing and achieving the defined goals.

Project scope creep

Managers should be thoroughly prepared for project scope creep, as unfortunately, there are too few examples of perfect projects that develop according to the predefined plan.

Micromanagement, lack of delegation and flexibility

Remember that there is no need to control everything as well as be afraid to delegate tasks. At the end of the day, you are not the only one who works on a project.

Inefficient project management tools

Project management apps are designed to help managers deal with various scenarios from task planning and resource allocation to communication and file storing. Take this point seriously – a robust tool can solve a lot of problematic issues and challenges.

Final thoughts

Let’s summarize what experts noted as the most challenging parts from their project management practice:

  • Poor communication.
  • Weak resource management.
  • Difficult stakeholder management.
  • Project scope creep.
  • Micromanagement, lack of delegation and flexibility.
  • Inefficient project management tools.

Of course, this list can be much longer. Anyway, now you know that you are not alone in dealing with project management challenges.

What challenges have you experienced in your practice? Please share your expertise with us in the comments below!

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Andrew Stepanov

Andrew Stepanov

Andrew fell in love with the Gantt chart from the moment he discovered this great project management tool. Implementing his experience in marketing, he does his best to promote it to professionals from different spheres.

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