Project Failure Source 7 - Resource Assumptions

Note: This posting is a continuation to the topic posted on June 24th and relates to my project management workshop titled "10 Ways to Increase Your Project's Success". In this post I discuss one of the sources of project failure and how we may mitigate this risk to our projects.

Source 7 - Resource Assumptions
Believe it or not I have been faced with this issue many times (fortunately, I knew better). This source of project failure is based on the concept articulated by Brooks (1975) of the Mythical Man Month. This is the assumption that adding additional people to the project will directly result in a shorter schedule. For instance, if a project of 10 team members is scheduled to take 6 months to complete, adding another 10 people should reduce the schedule to 3 months. This of course is false. In fact, sometimes adding project members may actually result in longer schedules.

Effect on Project
If a project team is under the assumption that adding additional team members directly results in an equal decrease in schedule, the project will inevitably not meet the target schedule. The additional team members may reduce the project schedule but not to the same extent as anticipated. The new project members may require further training, project orientation, and the work may not be able to be divided sufficiently to take advantage of the additional team members.

Actions Taken by the Project Manager

Anytime the project manager is faced with a situation where a schedule reduction is proposed with the solution of adding additional resources, the project manager must assume this is not an equivalent relationship. A careful analysis of the project plan must be made to determine the actual impact adding additional resources will have on the schedule. We cannot assume this is a 1:1 ratio.


Next Source: People Management