Do you know enough about project management?

I am reading PMP Preparation book recently. It has one statement:  You do not know enough if you experience two or more of the following problems on projects: .

1. Large cost or schedule overruns ;
2. Unrealistic schedules;
3. Excessive changes to the scope or schedule;
4. Poor communications and increased conflict;
5. Running out of time near the end of the project;
6. Unsatisfactory quality;
7. Low morale;
8. People on the team are unsure of what needs to be done;
9. Excessive rework and overtime;
10. Too many project meetings;

I totally agree that these are problems for project management. However, I do not think the project team can totally eliminate these problems even the project manager and team members have excellent technical and process knowledge of the project.

A project team is not isolated in vacuum environment. The project execution is restricted by many other factors. For example:

1. A giant MNC may have corporate wide pay-cut and promotion freeze, which might cause low morale of the project team, and the project manager can do nothing.
2. Excessive changes to the scope and schedule maybe because sales team boast some excessive functionality, which cannot be handled by Engineering team in time.
3. Too many project meetings maybe because the organization has a complex matrix structure, which is beyond the control of this team.

Actually for each items listed by PMP book above, there could be some reason beyond the project manager’s control. Anyway, I think what a project manager can do is to try his best to mitigate these problems, although it is really hard to eliminate them all.