Assumptions are dangerous to Projects

Wouldn’t it be great if a sign, like shown here above, popped up in your Project every time an assumption is presented or made?! It would warn you, the Project Manager in time.

Assumptions are dangerous to your Project…

You’ve got the assignment, you’re PM for a challenging project. Your contact used phrases like “most important project this year for our company” and “all are excited”, during your intake meeting. You assume “I am needed, I am wanted, the whole organization is anxious to work with and for this project.”

When working with suppliers and the key person states “we deliver all working tomorrow”. With no prior experience with this key person. You assume “Delivery is okay”

You leave the Steering after presenting your weekly progress and no remarks of questions were posted from the attendees. You assume “Everything is fine!”

Let us stop with these 3 examples.

Some readers will argue that the given examples of assumptions were conclusions based on the given input or info. True! You can look at it that way. And, checking is better, really the best.

Start your stakeholder management directly and ask your contact during the intake-meeting more in-depth questions like “Can you tell me more about the support this project already has?”, “Who is the biggest supporter?”, “Which department is the least supportive?”, etc.

In the case of the supplier: Check with other colleagues that have previous experience with the supplier what their experiences were, so you know the risks upfront for this delivery.

And, mannn… leaving a Steering Committee without having to answer questions or replying to remarks is a big red flag. Your project is not fine at all. It misses support of the stakeholders at least or the communication is not fine-tuned towards the attendees and they had no clue what you were telling them. Or, in the worst case, this was the last meeting with this group. On another level, the decision is already made to shut your project down. In all cases it is all hands on deck Project Manager: time to meet your stakeholders one-to-one.