Project Proverbs

• The same work under the same conditions will be estimated differently by ten different estimators, or by one estimator at ten different times
• The most valuable and least used word in a project manager's vocabulary is "NO"
• You can con a sucker into committing to an unreasonable deadline, but you can't bully him into meeting it
• The more ridiculous the deadline, the more it costs to meet it
• The more desperate the situation, the more optimistic the situatee
• Too few people on a project can't solve the problem - too many create more problems than they solve
• You can freeze the clients specifications, but he won't stop expecting
• Frozen specifications and the abominable snowman are alike :- they both are myths, and they both melt when sufficient heat is applied
• The conditions attached to a promise are forgotten, and the promise is remembered
• What you don't know hurts you
• A client will tell you anything you ask - but nothing more
• Of several possible interpretations of a communication, the least convenient one is the only correct one
• What is not on paper has not been said
• No major project is ever installed on time, within budget, and with the same staff that started it
• Projects progress quickly until they become 95% complete; then they remain at 95% complete forever
• If project content is allowed to change freely, then the rate of change will soon exceed the rate of progress
• No major system is ever completely debugged; attempts to debug a system inevitably introduce new bugs that are even harder to find
• Project teams detest progress reporting because it vividly demonstrates their lack of progress

• There's never enough time to do it right first time but there's always enough time to go back and do it again.
• If you fail to plan you are planning to fail.
• A little risk management saves a lot of fan cleaning.
• The sooner you get behind schedule, the more time you have to make it up.
• A badly planned project will take three times longer than expected - a well planned project only twice as long as expected.
• When all's said and done a lot more is said than done.
• If at first you don't succeed, remove all evidence you ever tried.
• The more you plan the luckier you get.
• Good project management is not so much knowing what to do and when, as knowing what excuses to give and when.
• Everyone asks for a strong project manager - when they get him they don't want him.
• Overtime is a figment of the naïve project manager's imagination.
• All project managers face problems on Monday mornings - good project managers are working on next Monday's problems.
• Never underestimate the ability of senior management to buy a bad idea and fail to buy a good idea.
• If it wasn't for the 'last minute' nothing would get done.
• Meetings are where minutes are kept and hours are lost.
• Good project managers don't solve problems, they get rid of them.
• If you want to make Murphy laugh: have a definite plan.
• If everything seems to be going well, you obviously don't know what's going on (Edward Murphy).
• The plan is nothing. Planning is everything (President Dwight D. Eisenhower)
• "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
• "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein

Project Management Laws

• If it can go wrong it will - Murphy's law.
• If it can't possibly go wrong, it will - O'Malley's corollary to Murphy's law.
• It will go wrong in the worst possible way - Sod's law.
• Work expands to fill the time available for its completion - Parkinson's law.
• Finely chopped cabbage in mayonnaise - Coleslaw.
• If there is a 50% chance of something going wrong then 9 times out of 10 it will.
• A two year project will take three years, a three year project will never finish - (anyone know who's law this is?)
• Murphy, O'Malley, Sod and Parkinson are alive and well - and working on your project
• Matzen's law. “For every function, there is an equal and opposite malfunction.”

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Projects Management Definitions