Apart from end results and technology used, the main determining factor that makes one project different from another is people. The entire process of software project management is strongly stakeholder-driven. It’s their wishes, fears, dreams — their stakes — that determine the course of the project. You have to handle a project to really grasp the impact of people on your endeavor. You have to lead a team to deliver a project under time pressures to appreciate the constructive power of motivated people or the destructive power of demotivated team members.

In a project, it is the people that are the main cause of problems. Time schedules, financial projections, and software goals may be abstractions, but it is the flesh-and-blood people whose work determines your project’s status. The programmer that misses a deadline, the financial manager that goes berserk if you do not produce some good budgetary indications and the key user that does not give a darn but did not tell you about his dismal lack of motivation; these are the folks who can cause serious trouble.

Download the entire PDF file at the American Society for the Advancement of Project Management.