Skip to content

Common Misconceptions

What this page is

  • A revision aid. The misconceptions that recur across the course, in one place, so you can check yourself quickly before a quiz, a lab, or the capstone.
  • Not a substitute for the lessons. Each row links to the lesson that explains the correction properly, and every lesson has its own "Common misconceptions" section with the reasoning behind it.
  • Useful to instructors too. These are the misunderstandings that show up most often in marking — see the Assessment Guide for how to read them in a submission.

How to use it

Read a section, then close the page and try to state the correction in your own words. A misconception you can only recognise, not explain, is one you have not yet unlearned — which is why the links matter more than the one-line corrections.

Foundations and life cycles

Misconception The correction Where
"A project is any piece of work" A project is temporary, has a defined outcome, and ends. Ongoing work is operations, and it is managed differently Module 01 Lesson 1
"Success means delivered on time and budget" Those are two constraints of several. Whether the intended benefit was realised, and whether anyone uses it, matter more Module 01 Lesson 1
"Agile means no planning" Agile changes what is planned and when, not whether. It replaces one large plan with continuous planning at a shorter horizon Module 04 Lesson 1
"Waterfall is the old approach nobody uses" Sequential delivery remains appropriate where requirements are stable or regulated. The flaw is using it where requirements are not known Module 01 Lesson 3
"One approach is best" The choice depends on requirement stability, regulatory exposure, and how recoverable a wrong decision is Module 04 Lesson 1

Stakeholders and governance

Misconception The correction Where
"Stakeholders are the people who approve the budget" Anyone who can affect or be affected by the project is one — including a supporting team that can refuse to run the service Module 02 Lesson 1
"Influence equals seniority" Influence is what someone can do: withhold data, refuse sign-off, escalate publicly. That is often not a senior person Advanced Lesson 3
"More communication resolves stakeholder disagreement" Communication resolves misunderstanding. Genuine conflict of objectives needs a decision from someone with authority over both parties Advanced Lesson 3
"A stakeholder register is written once" Attitudes change when people see the product. A register from month one describes a project that no longer exists Lab 05
"Governance means more meetings and documents" Governance is about decision speed and authority. A faster delegated limit controls more than a monthly committee Advanced Lesson 1

Scope and requirements

Misconception The correction Where
"Scope is what we will build" Scope is defined as much by what is excluded. A scope statement with no exclusions has no boundary Module 05 Lesson 1
"Requirements gathering is finished at the start" Requirements emerge as users see something. The skill is managing their arrival, not pretending it will not happen Module 05 Lesson 1
"A WBS is a to-do list" It decomposes deliverables to work packages one person can own and estimate. Activities belong in the schedule Module 05 Lesson 2
"Non-functional requirements can wait" They are usually where acceptance actually fails — performance, accessibility, security, retention Module 09 Lesson 1
"Small changes do not need the change process" A series of unrecorded small changes is how a baseline becomes fiction. Log first; the assessment can be a sentence Module 11 Lesson 3

Scheduling

Misconception The correction Where
"Float is spare time I can spend" Float belongs to the project. Spending it on one path can move the critical path Module 06 Lesson 2
"The busiest activity is critical" The critical path is the longest chain, which is often an external queue with little visible work in it Module 06 Lesson 2
"Adding people makes work sooner" Only for decomposable work on the critical path, once onboarding is counted. Otherwise communication overhead dominates Advanced Lesson 5
"The critical path stays fixed" Change a duration or a dependency and it can move. A stale critical path is worse than none Lab 10
"Compression is free if nobody is paid overtime" Fast-tracking buys time with rework risk. Quantify the probability and the effort, and the option usually stops looking free Advanced Lesson 5

Estimation and cost

Misconception The correction Where
"A single number is an estimate" An estimate without a range and a stated basis cannot be challenged, compared, or reused Module 07 Lesson 1
"Contingency is padding" Contingency covers identified uncertainty. Unexplained padding should be removed and the estimate itself questioned Module 07 Lesson 1
"Function points measure how hard the code is" They measure functional size from the user's view. Productivity rates must come from your own data, not a published average Module 07 Lesson 2
"An estimate is a commitment" The team forecasts; the sponsor commits. Confusing the two makes honest re-estimation politically impossible Module 07 Lesson 2
"Effort and duration are the same" Effort is person-days; duration is elapsed time and depends on how many people work in parallel Calculators and Worksheets

Agile and adaptive delivery

Misconception The correction Where
"Velocity can be compared between teams" Points are relative to a team's own scale. Comparison produces point inflation and destroys the measure Module 04 Lesson 2
"Stand-ups exist to report to the manager" They exist to surface blockers and re-plan the day. A status round-robin is a different meeting Module 04 Lesson 2
"Kanban means no planning or estimates" It changes the control mechanism from timebox to flow, with explicit work-in-progress limits and service-level expectations Module 04 Lesson 3
"A definition of done is bureaucracy" Without one, "done" means written, and unverified work accumulates until the end date becomes unknowable Definition of Done
"Scaling a framework fixes delivery" Frameworks add coordination. Where a team cannot deliver predictably, scaling multiplies the problem Advanced Lesson 7

Risk

Misconception The correction Where
"Risks and issues are the same list" A risk has not happened; an issue has. They need different processes, and an occurred risk belongs in both Issue Log
"Probability × impact gives a cost" On the 1–3 ordinal scale it gives a ranking, which cannot be summed. Use real units for reserve sizing Risk Assessment Matrix
"A response removes the risk" Every response leaves residual risk, and most create secondary risk. Ask what has to go right for it to work Advanced Lesson 4
"Transferring risk removes it" It moves the consequence, usually at a price, and leaves interface and integration risk with the project Module 08 Lesson 1
"A register proves risk is managed" Risks are managed when the response is funded, owned, and visible in the schedule. Otherwise the risk is accepted in practice Risk Response Plan

Quality

Misconception The correction Where
"Quality means testing" Testing detects defects. Reviews, standards, and clear requirements prevent them, which is far cheaper Module 09 Lesson 1
"Quality costs money, so cut it first" Prevention and appraisal usually cost less than the rework they avoid, and external failure costs most of all Lab 20
"A defect count measures quality" Without the work volume and severity mix it measures nothing comparable, and under punitive use it measures reporting honesty Defect Log
"Verification and validation are the same" Verification checks the build against the specification; validation checks whether the specification was what anyone needed Module 09 Lesson 1

Teams, communication, and people

Misconception The correction Where
"Adding a person to a late project helps" Onboarding, and the extra communication, often cost more than the added capacity — the effect Brooks documented Module 10 Lesson 1
"Conflict is always bad" Suppressed disagreement returns as silent non-compliance. Managed task conflict improves decisions Module 10 Lesson 1
"Everyone should be 100% available" Leave, support, and meetings are real. An availability factor of 1.0 is a planning error that appears later as slippage Resource Plan
"Remote work is the same, on a screen" It needs written artefacts, explicit response times, and a working agreement, because ambient information is gone Advanced Lesson 8
"Communication is the project manager's job alone" It is a shared discipline with named owners per audience. Unowned updates do not get sent Communications Plan

Monitoring, metrics, and control

Misconception The correction Where
"Percent complete is a measurement" It is an estimate, and the least reliable input to earned value. Use objective completion criteria Module 11 Lesson 1
"Earned value tells you whether the product is good" It measures cost and schedule performance. Work can be 100% complete and defective Calculators and Worksheets
"A front-loaded baseline is fine" It flatters schedule performance early and punishes it later. Read any index beside a plain count of days slipped Lab 18
"A green report is a good report" A report with no variance teaches nothing and removes the option to act. Report the variance you have Status Report
"Measure everything, and people will improve" A measure attached to individual consequences stops measuring the thing it described — Goodhart's law in practice Advanced Lesson 7
"Corrective action means working harder" It means changing the plan: resequence, reduce scope, fix a bottleneck, or re-baseline honestly Module 11 Lesson 2

Advanced practice, closure, and study habits

Misconception The correction Where
"We cannot stop now, we have spent too much" That is the sunk-cost error. Compare remaining cost with remaining benefit; the spend is gone either way Advanced Lesson 6
"Re-baselining hides failure" Re-baselining without a record does. Retaining the original baseline, the cause, and the approval is what makes honest measurement possible again Project Closure Report
"Technical debt is just bad code" It is any shortcut whose correction later costs more than doing it now. Deliberate debt with an owner and a trigger is legitimate Advanced Lesson 5
"A fixed-price contract transfers the risk" It transfers cost risk, and creates an incentive to interpret scope narrowly. Delivery and integration risk stay with the buyer Advanced Lesson 8
"Lessons learned means writing lessons down" A lesson changes something only when it lands in an artefact the next project will use, with an owner Lessons Learned Register
"Reading an answer and thinking 'I knew that' is learning" Recognition is not recall. Write your answer first, then reveal — this is why every quiz answer is hidden How to Self-Assess
"A bigger capstone scores better" Assessment weights coherence and completeness of the management record. An abandoned ambitious project has neither Capstone Rubric

If you are teaching this course

These misconceptions are the ones that appear most often in marked work, and they usually present as a pattern in the artefacts rather than as a wrong answer:

What you see Which misconception is behind it Where to send the student
Success criteria like "users are happy" Success equals delivery Module 01 Lesson 1
An empty "out of scope" section Scope is what we build Module 05 Lesson 1
A single-point estimate An estimate is a number Module 07 Lesson 1
Risks with no owner or trigger A register proves risk is managed Risk Register
Reports that are green throughout A green report is a good report Status Report
A rationale that explains the domain but not the choice "The capstone is about the product, not the management" Capstone Options

The last row is a misconception of a different kind: the student has understood the product and not yet the assignment. A two-minute conversation about what the capstone assesses resolves it far faster than written feedback, which is why it is listed here as something to say rather than something to correct.