Project Management is important for business professionals, teams, and organizations. Included in the quotes below are deep insights about how to apply project management and planning in business.
A good plan can help with risk analysis, but it will never guarantee the smooth running of the project. –Bentley and Borman
Management must manage! –Harold Geneen
Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work. –Peter Drucker
Expect the best, plan for the worst, and prepare to be surprised. –Denis Waitley
Get the right people. Then no matter what all else you might do wrong after that, the people will save you. That’s what management is all about. –Tom DeMarco
Being a Project Manager is like being an artist, you have the different colored process streams combining into a work of art. –Greg Cimmarrusti
Project managers function as bandleaders who pull together their players each a specialist with individual score and internal rhythm. Under the leader’s direction, they all respond to the same beat. –L.R. Sayles
A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow. –Proverb
If you don’t know where you are going. How can you expect to get there? –Basil S. Walsh
Mix a little foolishness with your serious plans: it’s lovely to be silly at the right moment. –Horace Mann
The “P” in PM is as much about ‘people’ management as it is about ‘project’ management. –Cornelius Fichtner
Project management is like juggling three balls: time, cost and quality. Program management is like a troupe of circus performers standing in a circle, each juggling three balls and swapping balls from time to time. –G. Reiss
Businesses often forget about the culture, and ultimately, they suffer for it because you can’t deliver good service from unhappy employees. –Tony Hsieh
Collaboration is the best way to work. It’s the only way to work, really. Everyone’s there because they have a set of skills to offer across the board. –Antony Starr
Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently. –Henry Ford
Of all the things I’ve done, the most vital is coordinating the talents of those who work for us and pointing them toward a certain goal. –Walt Disney
Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there. –Will Rogers
Project management can be defined as a way of developing structure in a complex project, where the independent variables of time, cost, resources and human behavior come together. –Rory Burke
The only way to do great work is to love what you do. –Steve Jobs
If everything seems under control, you’re not going fast enough. –Mario Andretti
All things are created twice; first mentally then physically. The key to creativity is to begin with the end in mind, with a vision and a blueprint of the desired result. –Stephen Covey
Unity is strength…when there is teamwork and collaboration, wonderful things can be achieved. –Mattie Stepanek
Nothing is less productive than to make more efficient what should not be done at all. –Peter Drucker
Those who plan do better than those who do not plan, even though they rarely stick to their plan. –Winston Churchill
You don’t have to see the whole staircase. Just take the first step. –Martin Luther King Jr.
Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships. –Michael Jordan
Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus. –Alexander Graham Bell
You want to be extra rigorous about making the best possible thing you can. Find everything that’s wrong with it and fix it. Seek negative feedback, particularly from friends. –Elon Musk
You may delay, but time will not. –Benjamin Franklin
You can get a great deal done from almost any position in an organization if you focus on small wins and you don’t mind others getting the credit. –Roger Saillant
No one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra. –H.E. Luccock
Trying to manage a project without project management is like trying to play a football game without a game plan. –K. Tate
Management is, above all, a practice where art, science and craft meet. –Henry Mintzberg
With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed. –Abraham Lincoln
No matter how good the team or how efficient the methodology, if we’re not solving the right problem, the project fails. –Woody Williams
When I dare to be powerful – to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid. –Audre Lorde
An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory. –Friedrich Engels
We will either find a way, or make one. –Hannibal
Being a Project Manager is like being an artist, you have the different colored process streams combining into a work of art. –Greg Cimmarrust
Event management is the same as for any project – the project plan needs to include an appropriate change control process. –Brenda Treasure
He has half the deed done who has made a beginning. –Horace
Project managers rarely lack organizational visibility, enjoy considerable variety in their day- to-day duties, and often have the prestige associated with work on the enterprise’s high- priority objectives. –Meredith and Mantel
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man. –George Bernard Shaw
To get a project off the ground, tell a colleague it was their idea. They will put their heart and soul into making it successful. –T. Wouhra
Project management is the art of creating the illusion that any outcome is the result of a series of predetermined, deliberate acts when, in fact, it was dumb luck. –Harold Kerzner
Why do so many professionals say they are project managing, when what they are actually doing is fire fighting? –Colin Bentley
Collaboration is important not just because it’s a better way to learn. The spirit of collaboration is penetrating every institution and all of our lives. So learning to collaborate is part of equipping yourself for effectiveness, problem solving, innovation and life-long learning in an ever-changing networked economy. –Don Tapscott
Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning. –Winston Churchill
It’s a bad plan that admits of no modification. –Publilius Syrus
Plans are worthless. Planning is essential. –Dwight D. Eisenhower
First, have a definite, clear practical ideal; a goal, an objective. Second, have the necessary means to achieve your ends; wisdom, money, materials, and methods. Third, adjust all your means to that end. –Aristotle
If you don’t know where you are going. How can you expect to get there? –Basil S. Walsh
Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things. –Peter F. Drucker
One of the true tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency. –Arnold Glasow
The only real training for leadership is leadership. –Antony Jay
The key to successful leadership today is influence not authority. –Kenneth Blanchard
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader. –John Quincy Adams
Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it. –Dwight D. Eisenhower
Inventories can be managed but people must be lead. –Ross Perot
Effective leaders help others to understand the necessity of change and to accept a common vision of the desired outcome. –John Kotter
People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision. –John C. Maxwell
Management is, above all, a practice where art, science, and craft meet. –Henry Mintzberg
It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be. –Isaac Asimov
Change is not made without inconvenience, even from worse to better. –Samuel Johnson
It is always easier to talk about change than to make it. –Alvin Toffler
It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out nor more doubtful of success nor more dangerous to handle than to initiate a new order of things. –Machiavelli
There is nothing permanent except change. –Heraclitus
The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place. –George Bernard Shaw
The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t said. –Peter Drucker
Brevity is the soul of wit. –William Shakespeare
Communication is a skill that you can learn. It’s like riding a bicycle or typing. If you’re willing to work at it, you can rapidly improve the quality of every part of your life. –Brian Tracy
To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others. –Tony Robbins
My belief is that communication is the best way to create strong relationships. –Jada Pinkett Smith
The major reason for setting a goal is for what it makes of you to accomplish it. What it makes of you will always be the far greater value than what you get. –Jim Rohn
Goals are dreams with deadlines. –Diana Scharf
Vision without action is a dream. Action without vision is simply passing the time. Action with Vision is making a positive difference. –Joel Barker
He who has a ‘why’ to live for can bear with almost any ‘how’. –Friedrich Nietzsche
I feel that the most important requirement in success is learning to overcome failure. You must learn to tolerate it, but never accept it. –Reggie Jackson
Remember the two benefits of failure. First, if you do fail, you learn what doesn’t work; and second, the failure gives you the opportunity to try a new approach. –Roger Von Oech
The greatest barrier to success is the fear of failure. –Sven Goran Eriksson
There are no failures – just experiences and your reactions to them. –Tom Krause
Just because something doesn’t do what you planned it to do doesn’t mean it’s useless. –Thomas Edison
It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure. –Bill Gates
Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure… than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat. –Theodore Roosevelt
I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work. –Thomas A. Edison
It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default. –J. K. Rowling
Perseverance is failing 19 times and succeeding the 20th. –Julie Andrews
Better three hours too soon than a minute too late. –William Shakespeare
Lost time is never found again. –Benjamin Franklin
Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend. –Theophrastus
Time is what we want most, but what we use worst. –William Penn
Most people spend more time and energy going around problems than in trying to solve them. –Henry Ford
Much may be done in those little shreds and patches of time which every day produces, and which most men throw away. –Charles Caleb Colton
Unity is strength…when there is teamwork and collaboration, wonderful things can be achieved. –Mattie Stepanek
As you navigate through the rest of your life, be open to collaboration. Other people and other people’s ideas are often better than your own. Find a group of people who challenge and inspire you, spend a lot of time with them, and it will change your life. –Amy Poehler
Collaboration is important not just because it’s a better way to learn. The spirit of collaboration is penetrating every institution and all of our lives. So learning to collaborate is part of equipping yourself for effectiveness, problem solving, innovation and life-long learning in an ever-changing networked economy. –Don Tapscott
Management is, above all, a practice where art, science, and craft meet. –Henry Mintzberg
Project management is like juggling three balls – time, cost and quality. Program management is like a troupe of circus performers standing in a circle, each juggling three balls and swapping balls from time to time. –G. Reiss
Project management can be defined as a way of developing structure in a complex project, where the independent variables of time, cost, resources, and human behavior come together. –Rory Burke
Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. –Mike Tyson
No major project is ever installed on time, within budget, with the same staff that started it. –Edwards, Butler, Hill, and Russell
Operations keep the lights on, strategy provides the light at the end of the tunnel, but project management is the train engine that moves the organization forward. –Joy Gumz
A project is complete when it starts working for you, rather than you working for it. –Scott Allen
There are no unrealistic goals, only unrealistic deadlines. –Brian Tracy
Beware the time-driven project with an artificial deadline. –Michael S. Dobson
How does a project get to be a year late? One day at a time. –Frederick Brooks
If everything seems to be going well, you obviously don’t know what’s going on. –Edward Murphy
We build systems like the Wright brothers built the airplanes; build the whole thing, push it off a cliff, let it crash and start all over again. –R.M. Graham
Fit no stereotypes. Don’t chase the latest management fads. The situation dictates which approach best accomplishes the team’s mission. –Colin Powell
We cannot drive people; we must direct their development. Teach and lead. –Woody Williams
Good management consists in showing average people how to do the work of superior people. –John D. Rockefeller
If you have never recommended canceling a project, you haven’t been an effective project manager. –Woody Williams
Failure is nature’s plan to prepare you for great responsibilities. –Napoleon Hill
Managing to have a sense of humor makes it a lot easier to manage people. –Steve Wilson
By prevailing over all obstacles and distraction, one may unfailingly arrive at his chosen goal or destination. –Christopher Columbus
Every person takes the limits of their own field of vision for the limits of the world. –Arthur Schopenhauer
To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe. –Anatole France
Time is the scarcest resource and unless it is managed nothing else can be managed. –Peter Drucker
Project management is … The art of creating the illusion that any outcome is the result of a series of predetermined, deliberate acts when, in fact, it was dumb luck. –Harold Kerzner
Project control tools are an absolute necessity for the control of large projects. –Louis Fried
The P in PM is as much about ‘people management’ as it is about ‘project management’. –Cornelius Fichtner
Projects progress quickly until they become 90% complete; then remain at 90% complete forever. –Edwards, Butler, Hill & Russell
It’s not the plan that’s important, it’s the planning. –Dr.Gramme Edwards
PMs are the most creative pros in the world; we have to figure out everything that could go wrong, before it does. —Fredrik Haren
Good leaders do not take on all the work themselves; neither do they take all the credit. –Woody Williams
Make an extensive table of project ‘deliverables’. Label one column ‘as requested’. Create another column labelled ‘could be’. Make each ‘could be’ wild and woolly! –Tom Peters
When a risk occurs, with some ingenuity, this may open up an opportunity, and conversely when pursuing an opportunity there will be associated risks. Risks are generally deemed acceptable if the possible gains exceed the possible losses. –Rory Burke
What we are looking for is managers who are awake enough to alter the world as they find it, to make it harmonize with what they and their people are trying to accomplish. –Tom DeMarco
Project managers rarely lack organisational visibility, enjoy considerable variety in their day-to-day duties, and often have the prestige associated with work on the enterprise’s high-priority objectives. –Meredith & Mantel
The project manager must be able to develop a fully integrated information and control system to plan, instruct, monitor and control large amounts of data, quickly and accurately to facilitate the problem-solving and decision-making process. –Rory Burke
If it is not documented, it doesn’t exist … As long information is retained in someone’s head, it is vulnerable to loss. –Louis Fried
For a project plan to be effective it must equally address the parameters of ‘activity time’ and ‘activity logic’. This logical relationship is required to model the effect schedule variance will have downstream in the project. –Rory Burke
No major project is ever installed on time, within budget, with the same staff that started it. –Edwards, Butler, Hill & Russell
You can’t keep it all in your head. Project control tools are an absolute necessity for the control of large projects. –Louis Fried
Don’t use a sledgehammer to crack a walnut, but equally don’t agree important things informally where there is a chance of a disagreement later over what was agreed. –Colin Bentley
The project manager is expected to integrate all aspects of the project, ensure that the proper knowledge and resources are available when and where needed, and above all, ensure that the expected results are produced in a timely, cost-effective manner. –Meredith & Mantel
Project management can … be defined as a way of developing structure in a complex project, where the independent variables of time, cost, resources and human behaviour come together. –Rory Burke
Momentum is a fragile force. Its worst enemy: p-r-o-c-r-a-s-t-i-n-a-t-i-o-n. Its best friend: a deadline (think Election Day). Implication no. 1 (and there is no no. 2): Get to work! NOW! –Tom Peters
The functional groups should not be allowed to stretch out the project for the sake of improvement, refinement, or the investigation of the most remote potential risk. –Meredith & Mantel
Why do so many professionals say they are project managing, when what they are actually doing is fire fighting? –Colin Bentley
Some of the most flowery praise you hear on the subject of teams is only hypocrisy. Managers learn to talk a good game about teams even when they’re secretly threatened by the whole concept. –Tom DeMarco
Like organic entities, projects have life cycles. From a slow beginning they progress to a buildup of size, then peak, begin a decline, and finally must be terminated. –Meredith & Mantel
First comes thought; then organization of that thought, into ideas and plans; then transformation of those plans into reality. The beginning, as you will observe, is in your imagination. –Napoleon Hill
So you’re not a “sales guy” (or gal). B-a-l-o-n-e-y. We’re all “sales guys” … if – if ! – we care enough about our project. –Tom Peters
You may con a person into committing to an unreasonable deadline, but you cannot bully them into meeting it. –Edwards, Butler, Hill & Russell
Project management is like juggling three balls – time, cost and quality. Programme management is like a troupe of circus performers standing in a circle, each juggling three balls and swapping balls from time to time. –Geoff Reiss
I am not interested in…making sure that you (the employee) are here, that you are giving us so many hours a day. We need people who will deliver a final result. –Ricardo Semler
Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes… but no plans. –Peter Drucker
The conditions attached to a promise are forgotten and the promise is remembered. –Edwards, Butler, Hill & Russell
Ensure your documentation is short and sharp and make much more use of people-to-people communication. –Bentley & Borman
A well-constructed project management workshop should give people a solid foundation to build on. –Bentley & Borman
A task is not done until it is done. –Louis Fried
If everyone is thinking alike, someone isn’t thinking. –General George Patton Jr
Project proposals, business cases or cost benefit analyses are probably being massaged (either by underestimating costs or timeframes or by being very optimistic about the benefits) so projects will be approved. –Bentley & Borman
Reconnaissance memoranda should always be written in the simplest style and be purely descriptive. They should never stray from their objective by introducing extraneous ideas. –Napoleon Bonaparte
Know when to cut your losses if necessary. Don’t let your desire to succeed be the enemy of good judgment. If Napoleon had left Moscow immediately, he may have returned with a salvageable army. –Jerry Manas
At the end of the project. Lavish credit on anyone and everyone who helped you the least bit. –Tom Peters
As has been taught to teachers of the Harvard Business School, the art of asking good questions is often the most important element of managerial tasks. –Parte Bose
Each completed task establishes certain parameters and imposes constraints on the next task. –Louis Fried
The bearing of a child takes nine months, no matter how many women are assigned. –Frederick P. Brooks Jr.
In most companies, the best project management skills are found in the IT department, because they work on a project basis all the time. –Dave McNab
What is the difference between project management and project leadership? Although there is an elusive line between them, the core difference is that management deals with complexity, whereas leadership deals with change. –Jim Highsmith
That’s not to say that all software project management books are crap. Just most of them. One of the few that I’ve found compelling enough to finish is Johanna Rothman’s “Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Management.” She co-wrote it with Esther Derby. –Jeff Atwood
A project is like love; it has clear intentions at the beginning, but it can get complicated. –Gerry Geek
If one wishes to be a great project manager, one needs to talk less and write more. –GE Paulus
Agile Project Management is an execution-biased model, not a planning-and-control-biased model. –Jim Highsmith
Strategic planning for project management using a project management maturity model. –Harold Kerzner
We should not prioritize on the basis of project profitability, but rather on how this profitability is affected by delay. –Donald G. Reinertsen
At the end of the day, though, there are a huge number of considerations that our management team go through before accepting any project – checking out the license is just one of them. –Andrew Oliver
His management philosophy, tempered in his rain-dancing days, was always to give the project to whoever had the most to gain from success or the most to lose from failure. –Michael Crichton
A project goal like a joke. If you have to explain it, it is not good / fun. –Gerry Geek
The conclusion is simple: if a 200-man project has 25 managers who are the most competent and experienced programmers, fire the 175 troops and put the managers back to programming. –Frederick P. Brooks Jr.
Our goal is to leverage what is already out in the field in terms of partners, but then hire in project management capability and a bit of technical capability. –Kevin Rollins
In short, they’re a bit like a referee at a sporting event: Do a good job and nobody notices; make a mistake and the finger pointing begins. –Andrew Longman
Commissioning a study of a thousand pages may jeopardize a certain project efficiently. –Eraldo Banovac
One of the quirkier cognitive disorders to which software project management is prone. –Charles Stross
I always have my own opinion before my boss says his. –Gerry Geek
The greatest barrier to success is the fear of failure. –Sven-Goran Eriksson
Manager! Have brain – use it! –Gerry Geek
Here, take my advise … I’m not using it.” (John Jolliffe). –Dana J Goulston
For every hour of brains, you will be charged three hours. The other two hours go to management and project management, which is to say they are wasted. –Robert X. Cringely
Traditional project management focuses on task-level details and loses sight of the benefits projects aim to deliver. –Terry Schmidt
Kanban is not a software development lifecycle methodology or an approach to project management. It requires that some process is already in place so that Kanban can be applied to incrementally change the underlying process. –David J. Anderson
Agile Project Management – like its lean development counterparts – streamlines the development process, concentrating on value-adding activities and eliminating overhead and compliance activities. –Jim Highsmith
Delivering a project isn’t difficult. What’s difficult is delivering a project without first taking the time to plan properly. –James Leal
Stakeholders have varying levels of responsibility and authority when participating on a project. This level can change over the course of the project’s life cycle. Their involvement may. –Project Management Institute
The deployment of geolocating tags attached to ordinary garbage could paint a surprising picture of the waste management system, as trash is shipped throughout the country in a maze-like disposal process – as we saw in Seattle with our own Trash Track project. –Carlo Ratti
Agile Project Management focuses on selecting the right skills for project team members and molding them into productive teams. –Jim Highsmith
If at first you don’t succeed, remove all evidence that you even tried. –Anonymous
Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more. –Mark Twain
Project management is like dating – you smile a lot, you pretend to enjoy yourself, and you wait for some jerk to call you back. –Anonymous
By Failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail. –Benjamin Franklin
Trying to manage a project without project management is like trying to play a football game without a game plan. –Karen Tate
It’s not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is, what are we busy about? –Henry David Thoreau
Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. –Abraham Lincoln
Managing projects, people, conversations, and resources is all part of a puzzle that you cannot solve without the leadership mindset. –Sandeep Kashyap
If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing. —W. Edwards Deming
If you do not know where you are going, every road will get you nowhere. –Henry A. Kissinger
No one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra to play it. —Halford Luccock
