Lessons Learnt From Rescuing Projects

Saw this wonderful rant from a dear friend and an authority in project management. She raises a very valid point - we cannot dumb down the project management profession to catchy phrases like "The most important thing for success in projects". Project management is complex and mutli-layered - cannot be reduced to just one thing.

Her post reminded me of an article I wrote a few years ago, but for some reason did not publish. Produced here in it's original form:

When I see job ads calling for PM’s with specific domain knowledge, my heart sinks. My mind refuses to comprehend why a PM needs to have domain knowledge. A PM is an SME in one thing only – Delivery. Getting a domain expert to plan and deliver a project is like asking a doctor to run a hospital. Just because a doctor is good at treating patients does not mean they will be good at running a hospital. To run a hospital you need someone who understands business and marketing more than medicine.

PM’s are like a conductor is to an orchestra. Violinists are experts in violin; keyboard players are experts in keyboard etc. Conductor are experts in music – they may not know how to play any of the individual instruments. Yet without the conductor it will all fall apart! Because conductor is the only one who has the full picture. They know when and how to start. They know which component to stretch and which to cut short. They know how to bring it to a spectacular close …. They are in charge of the ultimate music (delivery) … by bringing individual musicians together, only they can create a symphony. Yet they are not domain experts in any of the instruments.

5 Lessons learnt from “rescuing” Projects

Over my over 20 years of delivering projects and programs, I have had many opportunities to “rescue” projects. Picking up broken projects and turning them around has given me some valuable lessons that I use when starting projects from scratch. Often it is one of the below that is not done right which can turn a project upside down … even though the PM’s followed every theoretical rule taught in PM courses!

1.?????It is about people!

• Have you identified your stakeholders? EACH and EVERY one of them – small or big!
• Do you understand the influencing map of your stakeholders? Don’t be fooled by designations – find out who the decision maker is and more importantly – who is the influencer.
• Have you set up a team to meet the requirements of your project? How are you set up for efficiency? Are your team resources optimally utilised? I could dedicate a whole blog on just this one topic! In short for now, I’d say, ensure you understand the deliverables for your project and match it up with people with the right capability. Again – don’t be fooled by people’s designations – hire them for their capability.

2.?????It is about collaboration!

• Have you set up good governance structure to ensure collaboration between the Business area (recipients of the change) and the Delivery team?
• Ensure you cut out middlemen (Even more so if you mistakenly took on that role yourself!). Ensure direct communication between Business and Delivery teams – take on the role of a facilitator
• Ensure your Business colleagues are engaged in the project from Day 1. If they are going to be the recipients of the delivery, they are the best SME’s to consult when designing a solution. This will remove a whole heap of change management overhead when rolling out the change.
• To enable collaboration as discussed above, I have extensively used Working Groups and Steering Committees to drive solution and planning. I have structured my working groups to ensure each impacted group is represented in the working group – siloed working groups add overheads and introduce the risk of miscommunication resulting in missed or misunderstood requirements.

3.?????It is about processes!

• Ensure you have clearly defined your project flow and assigned adequate and capable leads for each component.
• Ensure you minimise superfluous processes – just because others have done it is not reason enough for you to continue doing it. Generally a lot of PM’s find they have to do things to satisfy the requirements of the PMO. In my experience, PMO’s always come around if you have a conversation with them. Their role is to ensure your project does not fail. If you as a PM can give them the confidence that you know what you are doing, they will give you a little more room.
• Ensure you follow up. Close loops – communication and actions have to be followed up till they are closed!
• Keep reviewing and adjusting as required!

4.?????It is about information!

• Agree with your key stakeholders up front how much information they need and how they would like to receive this information.
• Keep everyone up to date with progress. Ensure you pass messages (specially decisions) from one forum to another.
• Do not hold back on “bad” news. Everyone is in this together. Your stakeholders will support you if they have confidence in you. When you present bad news, ensure you can demonstrate that you understand the problem on hand. Present options on how you will navigate your way out of it. This helps build trust and gets you the support you need.

5.?????It is about RISK!

• While initial risk workshops are great, risk management is ongoing and risk has to be reviewed and identified continually – at least once a week!
• Logging a risk is not enough. Identify a risk and understand what it means – how likely is it? And if it does occur, what is the impact? The amount of effort spent on managing this risk should be directly proportional to the likelihood and impact. No point in spending two days planning for the sky to fall down!
• Ensure you have adequate mitigation plans in place and ensure this is reflected in your schedule and budget.

Do this right and hopefully you will have very few issues?

Footnote 1/3/2022: After years of active project/program delivery, I now advise organisations on creating efficient and effective project delivery frameworks and environments. It is centered around project leadership rather than just project management. If I can be of any help in simplifying your environment so your chances of project success are increased - please feel free to get in touch. It can be done.