Not surprisingly, project management for IT projects can be incredibly stressful. IT leaders are responsible for delivery on time and on budget but often have to deal with limited or poorly equipped resources, unrealistic client expectations and a to-do list that’s miles long (talk about an “uphill” battle). 

Whether you’ve been a project manager for 15 years or 15 minutes, you likely know that being a project manager is one of the most crucial (and difficult) business functions.

Having to deal with ongoing project constraints, such as time, budget, quality and scope, all while under constant pressure from team members and stakeholders, leaves no room to question why many IT leaders are short a few strands of hair. Thankfully, there are ways to make project management for IT projects easier and it begins with first recognizing the challenges so you can start putting measures in place to overcome them.

Top Challenges of Project Management for IT Projects

Here are three major headaches almost every project manager faces in their role:

1. Lack of Communication

Project managers need to ensure that lines of communication between different departments stay open so that teams coordinate with each other and any potential risks that can sideline the project don’t go unnoticed. Poor or ineffective communication is one of the biggest risks to any project. If project managers are unable to properly delegate tasks, provide or translate instructions, communicate key project milestones and objectives or clarify roles there will be a giant cloud of confusion among all stakeholders. 

2. Unrealistic Deadlines

Unless you have a working crystal ball handy, (in which case, can we borrow it?) you simply cannot know how much time it will take to complete a particular task. One of the biggest mistakes that project managers make is setting unrealistic deadlines. This could be due to several factors:

• Improper estimation techniques.
• Lack of estimation.
• Optimism bias.
• Pressure from leadership to “make the project go faster.”

There are several different methods you can use to estimate how much time it will take your team to complete a project, but even if you assign proposed durations for each task, you may still come up short with your estimate. Which means your team will have to pick up the slack and make up for lost time. Aside from the stress, this can mean sacrificing quality, going over budget or potentially missing deadlines.

3. Poor Budgeting

Today’s businesses are often challenged with having to do more with less. This challenge trickles down to project managers. Budget and resource constraints are overwhelming. Many executives or stakeholders often push project managers to do the impossible: execute a perfectly planned project quickly with little resources and budget.

If not budgeted properly, IT projects will require specific trade-offs, such as limiting the use of particular resources and implementing a strict cost management structure in the hopes to prevent added expenses. This may go without saying, but without the necessary resources and funds *cough* you’re going to get what you pay for. 

Get Your Time (and Your Hair) Back by Outsourcing IT

You’re already up to your ears with work: How can you devote time to major IT projects? Even if you had the time, you might be short on in-house talent, and hiring staff for just a single project doesn’t make sense. Still, your long-term success could be suffering due to short-term issues. You need qualified and collaborative reinforcements to break out of this rut. 

You need to outsource your project management so you can get back on time and on budget. At Afidence, we will give you:

• Faster results with our devops approach.
  
• The ability to make the most of limited resources.
  
• Extensive experience across diverse projects.
  
• Project portfolio management.
  
• Recovery services to realign projects that are off-track.
  
• And much, much more.

Don’t relegate the impactful work to leftovers and scraps of time and focus. Share the burden and increase your abilities exponentially with help from the Afidence team. Contact us today for a stress-free tomorrow.