When I tell people I am an IT Project Manager and I explain what I do, they imagine my days are full of creating plans and managing people, making sure everything happens right on schedule, within budget, and  within scope as it should. And that’s true. I have plenty of robust software programs and specific project management tools to help me do my job. I also follow the PMI methodology in most of my projects and have the “soft skills” to be a good project manager and pull together a team to manage and motivate.  But I’m going to tell you a little secret that might surprise most people and change the vision of IT project managers. And here it is.

Sometimes the best tool to manage a project is WITHOUT A TYPICAL TOOL.

Now that doesn’t mean I run a project chaotically. What I mean is that the typical tools available to project managers are sometimes too rigid and structured for certain projects. In other words, some projects don’t need what we typically think of as “a plan.”

When I manage complex projects, such as a consolidation of a data center, there are many moving pieces, often among many locations. These projects are what I call “plan-based.” They take into account the interdependence of the resources that need managing, including equipment, labor, and vendors. They require events to happen in a relatively sequential order, on time, to complete the project as desired. Each department or group within the team has their own specific deadlines to meet. For these types of projects, a typical project management software and plan is called for to avoid IT project management failure.

However, I have been involved in projects about remediation. So what is remediation? It’s making sure that all systems are not vulnerable to security threats. Typically, auditors will come once a year or every other year to ensure the organization is compliant on all aspects of security.  These projects are more “task-based,” and most likely because a project was not completed as part of the day-to-day operations as it should have been. In a Remediation Project, the entire cybersecurity and infrastructure teams work towards the same deadline. Each department is responsible for tasks to be completed in their specific area to eliminate vulnerabilities with patches, upgrades, and configurations.

As an IT Project Manager, it’s my job to know which type of plan I should follow.  Often, managing an IT project is like reading a very thick book. You can start at the beginning and read it through sequentially, or you can skip to the parts of the book you absolutely need and concentrate only on those. Imagine if you thought the best way to find the information you need was to read the book,cover to cover, but all you really needed to do was check out Chapter 7. You would end up wasting a lot of time, and in the IT Project Manager’s world, that translates to wasting lots of other people’s time as well!

In summary, go with the flow, be flexible and adapt to your client’s environment. Things do not always have to be done in a sequence for things to get completed. The most important thing to remember about managing projects like remediation, or others like it, is to have daily follow up with the team to ensure that tasks are being checked off. Waiting a week to see how things are going could be catastrophic.

Besides taking into consideration the type and urgency of a project as a project manager you must always take into consideration the team that is doing the work.  Although project management has been used for many years in Corporate America, from time to time you will run into a group of people that truly do not understand the benefits of project management or perhaps their line of work is so fast paced, that they do not feel they can truly follow every part of a methodology to address the issues that they need to address including projects. So how do you go around that? The tip I have just shared is what I typically use in order to ensure things get done. Using a project plan in this case would probably not help me address the real problem.

So now that the cat is out of the bag, I guess my big secret is ok to share. If you know anyone who is unsure of which tool to use for an upcoming IT project management program, let them know I’m here to help. And I’m very discreet.