Blog: Fixing Problem and High-Risk Projects
The other day while preparing for an interview with Fortune Magazine, a junior colleague asked, "When recovering a failing project, what are the role differences for various people in the organization?" Great question! I had never sat down and captured that aspect of project recovery. After all, failed projects are a hodgepodge of lost leaders, perplexed project managers, and trampled team members. Without defining everyone's roles early and continually refining those roles, you will struggle establishing calm in what is otherwise a very stressful situation.
Walking onto any troubled project, guess what I hear? We are spending too much money, we cannot miss the due date, we need everything we are asking for, and it is "their" fault. My job is telling them the bad news—we need more money, we are cutting scope, and the project is still going to be late. Those are the unavoidable facts and the stakeholders need to accept them. Worse than that, I am not going to blame anyone. Blame is counterproductive. So, how does this compare to the situation with the United States Congress? In short, they do not get it. They need an apolitical, outside entity to build the recovery plan—just like we do anytime we are recovering any project.
The project was out of control. Within a two-week span, the project manager reported a slide of at least six months. To put the postponement in perspective, the original project plan was a total of nine months. Accusations came from everywhere. The customer complained about the project manager, requirements analysts were frustrated with the customer, the project manager was pushing on his leads to close requirements gathering, there was infighting within the team, and management did fnot know whom to believe. The organization was in mayhem and the only solution was to hire an external auditor to sort out the facts.
The costs of failing projects are huge. Roger Sessions estimates the cost in the US alone to be $1 trillion annually. The impact, though, goes beyond monetary; it includes reputation, the organization's morale, consumption of resources, and missed opportunity by postponing other projects. Fortunately, there are also many unrealized benefits to glean from troubled projects. To reap those rewards, companies must adopt a culture to exploit failure and learn from it. More often than not, people just want to get the project behind them.
The first ingredient in recovering any project is trust. The team must trust the recovery manager, the customer must trust the supplier, team members must trust each other, and so on, until all permutations are exhausted. Without trust, all is for naught. Therefore, to have a successful recovery, or project for that matter, it is a requirement to thoroughly understand trust and how to foster it.
Filling Execution Gaps
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Rescue The Problem Project
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Other's References
- New PM Articles for the Week of November 9 – 15, The Practicing IT Project Manager, November 9, 2015
- The Argument for Disbanding Your PMO, Accellerated IT Success, Nov 13, 2015
- New PM Articles for the Week of September 28 – October 4, The Practicing IT Project Manager, October 4, 2015
- Episode 332: Project Sponsor Challenges and Solutions, PM Podcast, Cornelius Fichtner, September, 2015
- New PM Articles for the Week of December 1 – 7, The Practicing IT Project Manager, December 7, 2014
- How to buy Project Management Consulting Services: Service as a Product (SaaP), Guerrilla Project Management, Samad Aidane, December 2, 2014
- Episode 275: Your Project Statement of Work is Missing a Comma!, PM Podcast, Cornelius Fichtner, June 14, 2014
- State Invites 10 Firms To Shift Cover Oregon To The Federal Health Insurance Exchange, Oregonian, Portland, Nick Budnick, May 28, 2014
- Decision To Scrap Or Salvage Cover Oregon Health Insurance Exchange Poses Risks Either Way, Oregonian, Nick Budnick, Portland, April 9, 2014
- Cover Oregon Consultant: Fix For Health Insurance Exchange Could Take $40 Million, 21 Months, Oregonian, Nick Budnick, Portland, April 4, 2014
- Episode 205: Rescue The Problem Project, PM Podcast, Cornelius Fichtner, June, 2013
- Episode 206: How to Keep your Project out of Trouble, PM Podcast, Cornelius Fichtner, May, 2013
- How to identify, prevent, and recover from project failure, Accellerated IT Success,April 2, 2013
- Episode 260: The Seven Steps to Rescuing the Problem Project, PM Podcast, Cornelius Fichtner, January. 2014
- New PM Articles for the Week of August 6 – 12, The Practicing IT Project Manager, August 12, 2012
- New PM Articles for the Week of June 11 – 17, The Practicing IT Project Manager, June 17, 2012