The question:
One of our IT projects seems to be spinning out of control. The
project manager, however, denies the existence of the problems.
Given that this project is viewed as critical by the business, how
can I ensure that it does not end in failure?
The answer
Proper reporting could have prevented this
problem
Robin Laidlaw, president, CW500 Club
"Seems to be spinning out of control" is a strange phrase to use.
There are a number of issues to be considered, some managerial and
some technical.
Do you have a project reporting methodology? It seems that you do
not, otherwise you would not use that strange phrase. The reports
should indicate if the project is running late, over budget, has
been subject to lots of (unauthorised?) specification changes. If
it is showing red alerts on all such aspects then yes, it is out of
control - but you should know that, not just be concerned that it
may be.
By what criteria is the project manager saying it is OK? He must
have data - why not show it to you? If he will not show you his
project progress reports then you can be pretty sure there is a
problem. If he does not have such reports then you are running a
rather slack ship.
Project managers are usually given projects to manage so, if this
project is beyond his capability, then it is the fault of the
person (you?) who gave him the assignment. If he was given a
project that is beyond him, and it is going wrong, then it is not
surprising if he is creating some smoke-screens - our industry is
littered with past project managers who have been fired for project
performance problems.
You say the project is mission-critical: you must therefore act
immediately and decisively. You must instigate an urgent review of
the project - maybe bringing in an external group who will give you
an unbiased report - and then take the action needed to get the
project as back on course as soon as possible. Report to the board
immediately; if they are planning revenue and profit dependent on
this project's original timescales, costs and functionality, the
longer they are kept in the dark, the more angry they will
be.
When you have recovered the project as well as you can, then you
must review the managerial processes which led to this situation
which appear to be threefold:
- Who signed off the project for board approval with this project
manager in charge?
- Who gave the assignment to him, if he has not convincingly
proved in the past that he could handle it?
- Why have you not got proper project progress reporting systems
in place which automatically send reports to the project manager's
boss?
If the answer to one or all of the above is down to you, then you
have put yourself in a vulnerable position.
Consider whether it is time to walk away from the
project
Ollie Ross, head of research, The Corporate IT Forum,
Tif
I am presuming that if this project is critical to the business it
has board-level ownership; that it was approved using a structured
process to outline the deliverables, benefits, and metrics for
measuring success against these criteria; that milestones and key
stages were agreed and are reviewed using an approved methodology;
that informal and formal communication between all involved,
responsible and accountable occurs regularly; and that slippage
issues or irregularities are identified early and dealt with
collectivelyÉ yes?
Then you should have the evidence to hand that will either support
your project manager's confidence, or justify your fears.
But if facts and figures are not available and there is no means of
collecting them, the board and the business is as much to blame as
the project team and all must now work together to rescue a
spiralling situation.
Is there a clear finish line? Stick to it. The project must have a
clean end point. Is it a question of scope-creep? Refocus on the
core deliverables and cut the frills and secondary initiatives. Are
there problems with suppliers or the technologies? Could you walk
away if you needed to?
Fast-changing or turbulent market conditions regularly give rise to
problems in the time it takes to deliver some projects. Business
benefit cases either do not materialise as expected, or can
disappear overnight. Reduce these risks by setting up regular
"gateways" at each phase of the project where the business reviews
market conditions (and whether the money being spent on the project
is still worth it) and decides if the project should
continue.
It is vital to keep overall control of a
project
David Threlfall, director of MIS, Enesco
As project "sponsor" it is vital that executive IT always keeps
overall project control without undermining the project
manager.
The perception by departments outside IT as to the success or
otherwise of each project may not reflect how the project is
progressing on the Gantt chart, however, perceived success is how
company confidence in IT projects is developed and will affect
support for future proposals.
To avoid poor perceptions, you need to:
- Have a clear and realistic definition of project goals
- Ensure full company buy-in; involve all departments, from user
to executive, that can be affected by the project, no matter how
minimal
- Define clear, realistic milestones
- Recognise any personality conflicts and address these quickly
and professionally
- Avoid a blame culture, learn from mistakes, support team
members and move on
- Most importantly of all: communicate.
Appoint a mentor to help with risk
management
Sharm Manwani, Henley Management College
Any successful IT project will be managed "hard" and "soft". The
former relates to having the right project environment, including
methodology, tools, and reporting. On the softer side, you are
clearly one of the priority stakeholders whose expectations are not
being managed.
From what you have said, the project manager is not managing risk
effectively. You do not specify what structure you have in place to
do this, but you can certainly influence the development and
maintenance of an effective risk register based on probability and
impact. This will ensure a shared understanding of risk and might
actually allay many of your concerns. Ideally in this
business-critical project, you would have a contingency option
where you can take personal action.
Project managers are successful because they have a strong focus on
delivery and are happy to take full responsibility. You need to
find the right balance between maintaining that personal motivation
and being close enough to take action if needed. Consider
appointing or acting yourself as a mentor. Explain how easy it is
to go from "hero to zero" as a project manager, and the importance
of both methodologies and stakeholder management.
Consider bringing in a heavy-hitter to rescue the
projectChris Potts, director, Dominic Barrow
It sounds like time to bring the full force of your company's
people-management strategy, sourcing strategy and risk policies to
bear on the situation.
The obvious option is to replace the project manager with someone
else. I assume the situation is more complex than this or you would
not be asking the question. If, for example, you have no one else
on your staff who could manage the project in his place, then bring
in an external heavy-hitter on contract who will also strengthen
overall business project management. You will have to pay more in
the short-term but the return on investment will be
worthwhile.
Alternatively, I know there are sometimes political considerations
that make such straightforward solutions difficult. One
"politically correct" option is to manage the problem via one of
the suppliers involved in the project, although this is risky and
not usually the best alternative for many reasons.
It is time your project had a thorough
healthcheckGill Williams, partner in Ernst & Young's information
security practice
Some people work best when up against a deadline, either because
they need deadlines to motivate them or so that they can always
come through and "save the day".
Most organisations will not tolerate this approach to project
management. It is not only about delivery against scope, budget and
timescale but also about business success, which means getting
stakeholder buy-in.
Your feeling that this project is "spinning out of control" may be
because you are starting to see some red flags such as loss of
project pace, out of date plans, vague progress reports; or because
you do not have sufficient visibility about what is happening. The
key activity now is to get that visibility, particularly of
progress against plan, the status of change management and
resourcing, and the risks and issues status.
A "healthcheck" can be done at any point in a project and it does
not need to be time-consuming. It is never too late to get a clear
view of what is working and what is not. It may be helpful to get
that view from an independent party, either from elsewhere in your
organisation or externally, to get a truly objective view.
Do not be put off if the project manager says he is too busy to
take part in a review - it is better to take some time now to be
confident that the project will deliver, or to be able to take
steps to get it back, on track than to wait for it to fail.
Remember that it is the project that is under review, not its
manager, (although resourcing and capability of the steering group,
the project sponsor, project manager and the end-users should be
part of the review). Finally, take this opportunity to put in place
good project governance going forward for all projects.
Get close to the project manager and be
supportiveRob Lambert, senior lecturer in IS, Cranfield Information
Systems Group
It would appear that you are facing two issues. First, at an
organisational level you do not seem to have effective project
planning and review processes in place that would apply as a matter
of course to all projects. Therefore you need to review these
processes to ensure there is clarity and agreement among your staff
as to the purpose of project reviews, the documentation to be
produced and the quality of the data to be discussed at the
meeting.
Effective review meetings are meant to help both the organisation
and the individual project manager, they are not "witch hunts",
although this does seem to be the case in many blame cultures. Good
review meetings should enable project managers to identify issues
and concerns they have that may affect the outcome of the project
.
Second, you need to understand why the project manager in question
appears to be so closed and defensive. Is it that he perceives
review meetings as bureaucratic and of little value? This you need
to address by discussing the value, both to the organisation and
the project manager, of effective review meetings.
Alternatively it could be the project is "spinning out of control"
and you certainly should know about this. Hence it is imperative
that you get close to this project manager and ascertain, in a
supportive way, the reason for his apparent defensive
behaviour.
You need to assess and then manage the risksRoger Rawlinson, NCC Global
Your issue is risk. You say in the past that your project manager
has always delivered, so one option is to trust him on the basis of
his track record.
The problem with this approach is that you may have trouble
sleeping at night and, if the project fails, you will have failed
in governance and due diligence.
As this project is business-critical, the risks are even higher in
terms of the impact of failure, so it is vital that you talk to
your project manager. Discuss your requirements in terms of you
reporting criteria to the business and the implications of this
process.
Discuss your requirement for project metrics that you need to
present upwards. It sounds as though this type of reporting will be
new to the project? In which case you will need to be tactful in
how this is introduced. You need to sell it as a benefit to your
project manager; explain it will help them as well as you, it will
enable them to escalate issues upwards and therefore manage
expectations and risks.
The situation that you describe is not good. It may be that your
project manager is saying everything is fine, but in reality he may
be panicking and your style of "arm's length" management, leaving
it to the project manager to deliver the goods, makes him reluctant
to approach you with his problems. Sit down and talk to him about
this in an informal environment.
Learn to handle personal relationships with all
partiesRoger Marshall, Elite
You would be well advised to hope for the best but plan for the
worst. Your judgement is probably right and the project manager's
is wrong.
There is no substitute for getting involved in the detail yourself
(or asking another experienced person to do so on your behalf).
Insist that the project manager takes you through every line in the
plan and explains why he is confident that it is in order. You will
either end up convinced or with a set of action points that will
involve extending the plan, adding resources or cutting the
deliverables, but probably a combination of all three.
You will then have to sell the new plan to the customers, while
getting all the grief over in one go. Naturally the new targets
must be realistic and you will need to maintain your personal
monitoring role - this is now your project as well as the project
manager's. Handling the human relationships - with the project
manager and the customers - is the hardest part.
The experts
Computer Weekly has put together a panel of experts. You can
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questions (or your own solutions to this or the next question) to
computer.weekly@rbi.co.uk
NCC Group
www.nccglobal.com
Deloitte
&Touche www.deloitte.co.uk
Cranfield School of
Management www.cranfield.ac.uk/som
Computer Weekly 500
Club www.cw500.co.uk
Henley Management College
www.henleymc.ac.uk
British Computer Society
www.bcs.org.uk/elite
Impact
www.impact-sharing.com
The Corporate IT Forum
www.tif.co.uk
Dominic Barrow
www.dominicbarrow.com
Ernst &Young www.ey.com