Overcome project handling challenges

The times were tough. We were reeling through a recession. In projects, despite the touch, challenges of a recessionary period we still have to perform. Particularly, if you are not in a cash rich company we have to work under difficult conditions without expectations on the salary, like when it would be paid (it could be paid anytime in the month and in any number of instalments – if we are lucky we may get the full salary); or just be satisfied with part salary.?Any possibility cannot be ruled out.

Besides, one cannot expect smooth deployment of resources both manpower and materials. The customer pressures to deliver without expectations of payments; deliberate delays in bill certifications by customers. In these circumstances the Project managers and site staff will always be under tremendous stress since the management on one side expects no customer escalations on one side the unreasonable expectations by the customer resulting in mild to severe skirmishes with the customer amid the fight to keep ones job. The stress of the Project managers will be tremendous.

In one such situation, I sensed that the situation is already reaching a difficult phase for me in the home location where I was working for several years and volleyed on a journey to take an assignment in another major city known as the commercial capital of the country. We had specifically three projects. All the three customers were industrial conglomerates. They were cash rich companies. They could pay for the work done in their projects. We had over 300 projects across India. But my company finances were deep down in trouble and cash flow was the worst with little hopes of redemption from majority of the other customers. The funds would often not be invested from the customers from whom they were received and therefore my projects ran into trouble. What is worse than customer losing faith in my organisation (aka me as I am the face of the organisation for them)? It was an unenviable situation that I was in but had to wade through the difficulty as finding another job in the middle of a recession was next to impossible. So the magic word was, “just hang on” and do your best.

There are many situations drawn out of my experience in project handling through-out my career. Here let me cite two instances of the “never-say-die” or the fighting spirit arising out of this (recessionary) situation,

1.?They were a prestigious customer. When I went to the project site the first time, they had sensed a senior person from our organisation has been posted to handle their project and had organised a meeting. An important work that had dependency of several other work completions was to be completed or rather to be started. The customer strongly insisted that the work be started the very next day. It was impossible as an outsourced contractor had to be appointed for this work.

I asked the customer a week’s time to start.

The customer would not budge. I finally dropped to have it started in 3 days and deploy more resources to complete early.

“No” said the customer. “Either you start the work tomorrow or vacate the site forever and never come back”

“Please trust me, for my position. I don’t give empty assurances and I mean to and am known to honour my commitments”, I looked up to them to value my words. “I would not like to give commitments that I cannot honour”.

“No” said the customer. “Your organisation has three senior people before you to this project and all of them have failed in keeping up their commitments”. They shot bluntly at me, “How do you expect us to trust you?”

I came out of the meeting without much of an assurance of any co-operation from the customer side.

I worked a lot and did start that particular work that was in question after 2 days. We even completed the work and the customer was gaining the confidence in me.

After having proved certain things about my abilities and norms, within a few days after this incident, I shot out a letter to the customer stating our Plan of action for the rest of the project completion and stating certain dependencies that we need clearances from the customer end for smooth flow of our work. What came back as a reply was a pleasant surprise to me.

They had acknowledged my efforts personally and had stated in their reply that, they are charged up to see such a detailed analysis of the project by a senior person of our organisation and for the first time in their project. They extended all their support to me. They also stated that with the approach I had started with, they are confident their project will be completed in time.

It was rather a moment of pride for a project manager.

2.?In the second instance, another project was a 40 floor high rise building. During the times, there were not many 40 floor high rises in India yet. The project was considerably delayed due to lag from the customer’s end. This culminated in the occupants taking serious note of this and had shot off a letter to the customer threating legal action. The ball was set rolling for me for another roller coaster ride for no fault of me or our organisation.

Due to inconsistent inward cash flow, my organisation fell short of supporting me for resources (especially the man power that was required to be deployed in large numbers to meet the customer targets). The customer sensed this and arranged for manpower from their side for a part of the important work that needed special skilled manpower. Even now I consider with regret that we had to forcibly accept such terms out of despondency.

That apart, we started this work. I decided to make this site as my office. The teams were deployed to work extra hours. Working in the night in heights and other critical task that could endanger injuries were strictly denied to the teams working in the night.?I was a permanent attendee at the project site to keep our teams motivated.

We were still working with less than needed resources for the reasons stated. In the course, my superior would call me at least two times a day to check on the progress. In one such conversation, being the person I was, that never gave false reports, I said “We are doing our best. In fact I am hoping against hope”.

I had shut down my office visit for over a month.

Finally, we achieved the task successfully, and more so to the customer were satisfied. The inspection that one of the statutory organisations did was successful in the first attempt.

When we put ourselves in a mission mode, our goals move towards us to find us as much as we seek them.

I still remember the “hope against hope” remark of mine after almost 14 years.

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