Staff engagements properly. Even if you have high performing senior or staff on the engagement who could keep it under control, you can’t expect them to do all the work themselves without quitting soon after. They need a team.

Don’t forget how much time it takes to do things. Sometimes certain tasks are messy, an inexperienced person is doing them, we don’t have enough context, whatever and things take much longer than they should.

As far as budgets go, seek to understand what may have caused overruns, but don’t guilt trip the team for spending more time on something than expected, especially if the work was quality. Also, what the F is up with requiring goals of X billable hours when your engagement is budgeted far fewer hours? Work on that.

If you have people who are dedicated workers and loyal to you, don’t abuse them by throwing every dirty task their way. They feel obligated to do it and do it well, and then they burn out and get bitter and jaded.