20 Project Management Proverbs
1. You cannot produce baby in a month by impregnating nine women.
2. The same work under the same conditions will be estimated differently by ten different estimators or by one estimator or by one estimator at ten different times.
3. The most valuable and least used word in a Project Manager’s vocabulary is “No”.
4. You can con a sucker into committing an unreasonable deadline, but you can’t bully him into meeting it.
5. The more ridiculous the deadline, the more it costs to try to meet it.
6. the more desperate the situation, the more optimistic the Project Manager
7. Too few people on a project can’t solve the problems – too many create more problems than they solve.
8. You can freeze the user’s spec, but he won’t stop expecting
9. Frozen specs melt when enough heat is applied.
10. The conditions attached to a promise are forgotten, and the promise is remembered.
11. What you don’t know, hurts you
12. A user will tell you anything you ask about – nothing more.
13. Of several possible interpretations of a communication, the least convenient one is the only correct one.
14. What is not on paper has not been said
15. No major project was ever installed on time, within budget, with the same staff that started it.
16. Projects progresses quickly until they become 90% complete, then they remain at 90% complete forever.
17. If project content is allowed to change freely, the rate of change will exceed the rate of progress
18. No major system is ever completely debugged, attempt to debug a system inevitably introduce new bugs that are even harder to find.
19. Project teams detest progress reporting because it vividly demonstrates their lack progress
20. Parkinson and Murphy are alive and well – in your project
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