Navigating a Stop Work.

A stop work is a project manager’s worse nightmare. A stop work on the other hand never truly means a full stop since your team is continually charging hours to the project whether it be for an investigation, status updates, forecast updates, endless meetings and discussions, etc. This will result in utilizing unplanned budget and schedule complication that acts the same as the interest rate on your credit card; sometimes it’s nearly impossible to ever catch up. There are many reasons for a stop work: supplier shortages, non-conforming materials, staffing shortages or a mass illness, or a product line prioritization within the company, etc. But whatever the reason, a stop work will fully test the project manager in not only their knowledge and experience, but in their project leadership skills on how to communicate the problems to the team.

Keeping employee's moral up during this period can be a result of clear and concise communication. The project manager must facilitate regular forms for communication whether it be an email blast, daily or weekly stand ups, simple gemba walks, or formal meetings. Employees at all levels want to know the status and timeline of getting back to work, and they want to know more frequently than most information is available. The project manager should also work with the team leads to decide if there is any work that can be conducted to keep people active. These activities could include any continuous improvement initiatives (pushing a 5S plan, running a Kaizen, or simply reorganizing your shop floor) that were placed on hold due to project specific activities that took priority.

One extreme that results from a stop work is having to either lose your line workers to another product line within the company or even worse, lay them off. I don’t have a lot of experience in company layoffs, but I can’t even imagine the effect that an issue completely unrelated to that employee would have on their own selves, family, and livelihood. While the line worker may see a transfer as a positive event allowing them to gain experience building another product or getting a break from any monotony they may be currently experiencing, there is a chance that that individual may be lost for an extended period after the stop work resumes, or even for good. This is especially hard when that individual is a stellar employee and is looked up upon by their co-workers and/or supervisors.

For the project manager specifically, non-planned work just increased regardless of the duration of the stop work. Beyond going back to the lessons learned document and describing the situation and what steps you plan to take with the anticipation of future outcomes, the risk management plan is now the most critical project management artifact to regularly update. Typically, a stop work comes from outside factors that were not specially described on your risk tool which now requires you to make new entries, gather your team for updates and opportunities within those entries, and the most difficult step: planned start and end dates.

If your team is lucky enough to have a scheduler, you’ll most likely be working with them on a more frequent basis updating all the existing lines to get an accurate picture of the likely outcome of the situation. New finish dates come from best estimates taken from the PM’s experience, other team leads’ suggestions, or simply constraints within the project timeline. It’s incredibly hard to know when a task gets put on hold and when you “feel” it should be complete, because once you figure out the problem, a whole other problem can arise pushing the timeline out even further.

As a PM, you need to, even if it’s incredibly fuzzy, force yourself to see light at the end of the tunnel. Your team is looking to you to understand if and when the work can resume. This can be a lot of pressure to handle, but getting ahead of the problem and shifting focus so both you and your customer can come to an agreement of a path forward will reduce the time, expenditures, and pain of the stop work. At an organization level, chances are that this issue in a different manner may arise in the future. By documenting all communication, taking detailed meeting minutes, archiving crucial technical documents and lessons learned, future instances of this situation can lesson dramatically.

Be proactive in this situation and take the lead even if you feel it may be better suited on someone else’s shoulders. This will always come back to the PM, and the PM should treat a stop work with their full attention. You are responsible for the success of not only the project, but of the team and future work your company will receive.

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