Freezing the schedule and budget before the project is understood well enough.

For planning purposes, it makes sense to pre-allocate budget dollars and sketch out a timeline based on a rough idea of a project’s expected effort. However, these initial estimates are obsolete shortly after the project launches. If the business forces the project to live within the initial time and cost estimates, the project will likely go off track: IT will scramble to make do with insufficient resources, cutting features or lipping the schedule — or both — to satisfy constraints. One PMO director told us that his organization used to pre-allocate funds for ill-defined projects, but now, it funds a short, upfront investigative project to learn how long the full project will take and what it will cost. Why do IT shops makes this mistake? They erroneously believe that scope can change while time and budget remain fixed. If time and budget must be predetermined, stakeholders should expect to revise scope.