20 cynical project management tips

Ever wonder why so many projects fail? Well, here's your guide to the seamy underbelly of IT project management.

From Tony Collins, who writes a well-researched blog on government-related IT failures in the UK:

1. Projects with realistic budgets and timetables don't get approved
2. The more desperate the situation the more optimistic the progress report
3. A user is somebody who rejects the system because it's what he asked for
4. The difference between project success and failure is a good PR company
5. Nothing is impossible for the person who doesn't have to do it
6. Every failing, overly ambitious project, has at its heart a series of successful small ones trying to escape
7. A freeze on change melts whenever heat is applied
8. You understood what I said, not what I meant
9. If you don't know where you're going, just talk about specifics
10. If at first you don't succeed, rename the project
11. Everyone wants a strong project manager - until they get him
12. Only idiots own up to what they really know (thank you to President Nixon)
13. The worst project managers sleep at night
14. A failing project has benefits which are always spoken of in the future tense
15. Projects don't fail in the end; they fail at conception
16. Visions are usually treatable
17. Overly ambitious projects can never fail if they have a beginning, middle and no end
18. In government we never punish error, only its disclosure
19. The most difficult way is, in the long run, the easiest
20. A realist is one who's presciently disappointed in the future

[Seamy underbelly photo by Michael Krigsman.]