Product/Project Management Challenges

We, the product and project management professionals often face several challenges. In this article I am going to share some of the common challenges and how to come up with a solution in these cases.  

Are Product Management and Project Management Same?

Do not get me wrong, like you, I also know the difference between product manager and project manager. But regardless the difference and Wikipedia definition, in real life, many of the project managers and product managers need to play the dual role, knowingly or unknowingly. So whether you are a project or product manager by definition, you better make sure you have a solid concept about both of these roles. As by "PM" I can represent both of the terms, I will do that throughout this article. 

Anyway, I am not going to describe the difference or definition of these roles now. As from the title of my article you already know, I am going discuss some common challenges that a PM needs to face.

What Actually is a "Challenging" Project?

In seminars and interview sessions, I often ask people a very common question- please describe a challenging project you have worked on. People often try to describe such project where the number of team members is high or there are lots of billable hours and so on. But actually, number of billable hours or team members can not be a measurement of degree of challenge for a project. A so-called very simple project can be complex and so called very big project can be a really simple project. Unclear requirements, unexpected major changes, shortage of human resource personnel, lack of similar experience of team, tight deadline etc parameters can turn any simple project into a very complex one. On the other hand, if you have adequate time, resource and budget and requirements are very much clear, team is experienced with similar tasks and etc, then an apparently big project can be a really simple task. Below I describe some criteria of complexity associated with projects. If you find these characteristics in any project, whether or not apparently this is big or small, then this is a complex project.

Another important thing is, a project does not necessarily be overall easy or difficult. A project is a summation of different phases of the project. Some phase of a project may be very challenging while some other phase may be extremely easy. For some projects, requirement analysis is very difficult but technical implementation is really easy and vice-versa and so on. So when we talk about a complex project, we actually talk about the complex phase of that project. 

Identify and Resolve Communication Barriers

If you want me to tell the greatest virtue of a successful PM, I will say it's communication without any hesitation. A PM must be sound in both receiving and delivering ability. A PM must identify the barriers to the communication and resolve it as much as s/he can. In most cases, there are many barriers that hamper communication in organizations, products or projects. The barriers may be organizational culture, lack of consciousness, location of the members of members of the team, not using right project management software in the right manner when required, interpersonal relationships etc. Many a time either client or team or both may lack communication skills. In that case, it becomes more challenging for the PM to ensure smooth communication. So as a PM, you need to identify the barriers properly and take necessary steps to solve these.

Requirement Identification and Prioritization from Unclarity 

Sometimes you are lucky enough to get smart clients who know what they really want and they can properly communicate their requirements.  And also your team is smart enough to understand it and execute properly. In such cases, you do not need to worry that much to identify the requirements. But in most of the cases, you are not such blessed. Often clients give some vague requirements like they need a video sharing platform but they are not sure what the features should be. And also your team may be not very much clear about that too if they do not have experience of developing similar type of product. So here comes the challenge for you to identify the requirements. You need to work hard and efficiently with the clients and the team to determine the "necessary" and "feasible" requirements. How to classify some requirements as "necessary" and "feasible"- that is another discussion. And after you have identified the requirements properly, now you need to prioritize the tasks. Prioritizing the requirements may be another challenging task in such cases where requirements are not clear. Again, sit with clients and your team and prioritize your requirements. Requirements and their prioritization may change over time but you need to have a primarily identified and prioritized  requirement list. "How to prioritize" - is another long discussion but basic rule is that give priority to those requirements that will add much business value and your team will require less time and effort to develop.

Estimation for Unfamiliar Tasks

Estimation is always tough. When we estimate something, that is based on our previous experience and future expectation. If you are in industry for a while, then you already know that in most of the cases, precious estimation can not be made. Good estimations are those that are not very far from preciseness. But yes, estimation can be close to precise if and only if your team has long term experience of doing similar projects. I said the word "similar", not "same". No two projects are same but they can be similar up to many degrees. This similarity is even more rare in software projects. Now say, you are going to start a project of such type that your team has never done before. In this case, estimation will be often more difficult. Sometimes, there are some technologies that are new to your team i.e. they have not used this technology in any previous project. In such cases, this is really almost impossible to estimate correctly. Now you need to be open to your client and team and express the situation. If your client is not a crying baby, they will understand the situation as this is a very common scenario in the real world. Then you need to find an accepted course of action in conjunction with your client and team. 

Shortage of Human Resource Personnel

This is one of the most common challenges PMs need to face almost daily basis. There is almost always shortage of required human resource. I need 3 senior developers but I get only one senior developer and 1 junior developer - this is probably the most common challenge we, the PM professionals are facing every day. And we are supposed to wield some magic to produce a banyan tree from a mango seed. So what is supposed to do in such scenario?

First, let us discuss the prevention strategy rather than cure strategy. As a prevention strategy, you need to notify the HR department and top management of your organization about your required human resource personnel at least 6 (six) months earlier. But of course, this is almost a fairy tale because this is almost impossible to determine how many and what type of human resources you are going to need, especially in startups, in big corporations you may be able to do this up to some degrees. So whenever applicable, do this.

Now cure strategy. First, you have to be realistic. With mango seed, you may produce a big mango tree but not a banyan tree, right? So accept it. Be fully honest with your top management and team. Do not promise to deliver something that is not realistic. Whenever possible, discuss your limitations with clients. I have seen a lot of PM professionals, who suffer themselves and make suffer all the personnel associated with their projects as well as company for just not having the guts to express limitations and strengths clearly. You need to be honest not because this is a noble virtue but to save your face, the face of your team and face of your company. And also if your company and client (your company may be your client in many projects too) are made aware properly early on, then they can make various contingency plans through which the damage can be controlled.

Again, be realistic, if you see you are not going to be able to deliver required requirements with the limited human resource at hand, then cut off tasks, remove some requirements from "To do in this phase" list. Be open with client, consult with them, be honest. I always advocate honesty in such scenerio as this can save a lot of money, in next parra I am going to discuss a little more about it. 

Ethical Dilemma and Honesty 

Being honest and communicating limitations are often big challenges for PM professionals. 

Yes, I know, sometimes you need to hide some facts from your clients, you may even have to present some faulty data. This is never recommended as it eventually leads to breakng promises and destroy the relationship which is really costly, but still if you have to do this, do not ever do this with your team and your top management. Be hundred percent honest with your team and your reporting boss. If your project is going to be screwed, then let them know early on so that all of you can come up with a game plan to manage the damage. If you surprise your top management at the eleventh hour, then this will be super duper blockbuster screwing up. I have seen lots of PM professionals (myself too at the early stage of my career) trying to cover the holes in a project and as a result whole team as well as whole company suffered in many cases. 

Be clear, I am not recommending honesty and avoiding cover ups not because this is not an honorable task but because this can save a lot of money of your company. Do not ever cover up anything from your team. You do not have required resource, you can not deliver the expected result, let your boss know it very clearly, let him take preparation for the failure or let him come up with a solution. You are hoping your 6 member team can deliver the result of a 10 member team, that's kool- you can hope this and it may even be possible, but let your boss know this too. 

I have seen many companies losing their clients just because of not being honest. Yes, in all cases, you can not be honest, but try as much as you can be.

Tight Deadline & Strict Quality

This is another common challenge. Many a time, we do not get enough time and also we need to ensure quality standard. In such cases, achieving both is not possible unless you drop off some of the tasks. Let the clients choose what they want. They can either extend their release date or they can be relaxed in term of quality or they can allow to you cut off some features for this release. Most of all, I am telling you again, do not promise something that you can not deliver.

Shortage of Budget 

The way of dealing this is almost as the previous challenge. Shortage of budget may be on the surface from the beginning of the project or it may appear later as work emerges. In either case, you need to trade off some other thing. Actually, whenever you lack something, you need to compensate that by sacrificing something of less importance. And do not cover up your limitations, not because you are an honest person, but because by being honest about your limitation, you can preserve profitable relationships. Let the client choose, what things they like to sacrifice to compensate the shortage of budget. They may allow you to compromise the quality or cut off some features. You may help clients to make decisions.

New Technology 

Suppose, in a project your team needs to work on some technology that is new to them. Here comes various challenges like how to estimate time and resource, learning curve etc. In this case, what should you do? You need to be patient and you need to believe in your team. Great leaders do not afraid to trust their teams. You ask your team about the time required for learning this new technology. If they need coaching, you need to manage it for them. And based on their opinions, you need to do a rough estimate. Like the other cases, here also you need to properly communicate with your top management and clients, you do not want to surprise them at the eleventh hour.

Identify Critical Paths

Identifying critical path is often a gray matter. You can never be sure that you have identified all the critical paths. In this regard, you should work with your team and clients in a collaborative manner. You need to keep in your mind that you may find other critical path during the project that has not been identified at the beginning. In such case, you need to collaborate with your team to handle the situation. But make sure, first, you need to handle all the usual paths and then the critical paths.

Interpersonal Relationships Challenge

Interpersonal relationships between team members, between you and clients etc can be a severe untold factor behind the success or failure of any project. You need to be very cautious about it. You need to find common grounds among different persons and hold & present the common goal to keep all as a single body. You should have the ability of being a peace maker.

Team Motivation in Adverse Situations 

Many a time, you may find it difficult to keep your team members motivated. This demotivation may be occurred due to several causes like project difficulties, tight deadline, work stress, not getting expected benefits from the company, struggling with interpersonal relationships etc. In this case, first, you need to identify the issues that block the motivation. Then you need to eradicate these barriers if possible. The best policy is as I mentioned in the previous parra, find a common goal, hold & present the common goal so that the team can work as a body. You should always present the big picture in front of them to keep their motivation elevated.  

Conclusion

No matter how hard you try and how much skilled you are, be realistic, you can not handle all the challenges of a project. One of the greatest virtue of a PM is the ability to adapt. You need to adapt yourself and inspire your team to adapt as necessary to make the job successful. Best of luck. Cheers! Let me know your thought :) 

***All the images have been collected from internet. No image is my proprietary.