Going Back To Basics On A Troubled Project
Here’s the scenario….you are in the middle of a project engagement. You and your project team have been cruising along on the project and things seem to be going well…or at least seemed to be going well. Suddenly, it’s become increasingly evident that all is not well. Maybe the project budget is upside down. Possibly you’ve done some recalculations on the project timeline and you realize that the final delivery date is going to have to be pushed out a month. Or possibly you’re finding that you and your team are starting to miss some milestones for whatever reason….maybe you’re project team members are getting pulled away to other projects or you need your project sponsor’s full engagement and you’re just not getting it from them.
Whatever the cause or causes, your project is going south – as many do at some point during the engagement so you’re not alone in this. But your definite desire is to succeed. What do you do? We all know that quietly going about your business or maintaining the status quo is likely going to just exacerbate the problem. It isn’t going to heal itself. We’ve all found ourselves in this situation at least once – I know I have.
No matter what the issue, these general steps for going back to basics, addressing the issue, and getting back on track that I’ve outlined below are the basic best practices that I’ve put together based on my own experiences and those of colleagues that I’ve interacted with on similar concerns. I’ll touch on each at a high level since the underlying potential issues that could cause this type of situation are about as countless as grains of sand on a beach…
1. Stop and regroup.
First and foremost….stop and regroup. Depending on the issue or issues at hand, this may be just with your team or it may be with the entire group of stakeholders from both sides. Eventually it will need to be all stakeholders. My recommendation is to first regroup with your team and discuss the issues, come to an agreement on a corrective course of action, and then involve the customer. But don’t delay – any time wasted or any lack of action displayed to the project customer will only result in more customer concern and dissatisfaction.
2. Hold a formal face-to-face with the customer.
Next, conduct a formal face-to-face meeting with the customer. Decide, as a cohesive team, if a work stoppage is necessary to get to the bottom of the issue or issues, resolve them and move forward. Discuss what you and your team came up with as suggested corrective courses of action and decide on how to proceed…jointly…with the project customer.
3. Conduct a mid-project lessons learned session.
Now is also a good time to conduct a lessons learned session. It doesn’t have to be a big session or a long session. But discuss the good and the bad on the project – you may uncover other issues that can be addressed now and stop a similar action later on in the project if this is a long-term, sizeable engagement.
4. Assign tasks, update the plan.
At this point you’ve figured out how you’re going to proceed. Rework the project plan to include the corrective action that must be taken – and reforecast the budget at this time as well. Assign the tasks to both sides of the project team that are going to need to be tackled as you work to resolve the issues that brought you to this point. The project manager must manage these closely if you hope to get back on track and move forward.
5. Restart / Re-kickoff the engagement.
In some cases, you’ve halted the forward progress of the project while you took a couple of weeks to work through current issues. In others, you’ve just agreed on what actions to take from this point forward to get back on track. In either case, get agreement from the project customer that both sides are ready to resume work on the project and move towards completing the effort. To that end, I would suggest conducting another formal kickoff meeting to get restarted. It doesn’t have to be a big dog and pony show in person like you might usually do to formally kickoff the beginning of a large project. A 1-2 hour call will do the trick. But go through the revised project schedule, budget, issues list, risk list, assumptions and whatever else is necessary to make sure you’re all on the same page and ready to move forward productively and cohesively together.
Summary
Major project issues that bring on a situation like this don’t have to mean it’s the end of the world or the end of your PM career. Stop, take a deep breath, and take account with your team and your customer where you’ve been, where you’re going and what you need to do to get there. Just don’t bury your head in the sand…it will never work. Bring the issues to light, discuss them, address them, and move forward.
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Note: this project tip was provided by Brad Egeland. Brad is a Business Solution Designer and IT/PM consultant and author with over 25 years of software development, management, and project management experience leading initiatives in Manufacturing, Government Contracting, Gaming and Hospitality, Retail Operations, Aviation and Airline, Pharmaceutical, Start-ups, Healthcare, Higher Education, Non-profit, High-Tech, Engineering and general IT. Brad is married, a father of 9, and living in sunny Las Vegas, NV.
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