Problem Solving Professional Services
Project Management Reviews
of enterprise-wide, mission critical and high-risk projects.
First of all, do you really want or need a project?
- Projects are risky… best when strategic importance is critical, i.e. ‘time to market’
- Special attention from sr. management and a sponsor required to ensure success
- Should assign the best and brightest to the team… who are then lost to the organization during the project
- Desirable to separate team, facilities and culture from the rest of the organization to ensure productivity
- Start-up and shut-down time are significant especially for larger projects
- Special PM information systems required to help monitor and control
- Support and non-chargeable project time can be 15-25%, or more
- Many other ‘risks of failure, or ‘failure to deliver full value’ are present
What should senior management expect from a project?
- Results - consistent with approved scope and expectations… no more, no less
- Realistic estimates and status reports
- On-time (2/3 of all projects are optimized for minimal time duration)
- On-budget
- No surprises
- Satisfied stakeholders
- Healthy, empowered and motivated project team – professionally rewarding experience
- Good or improved relationships with suppliers and key stakeholders
What are the key risks?
- Lack of user involvement… No 1!
- Inadequate senior management and sponsor support
- Inexperienced project manager regardless of subject matter expertise
- Long durations (>6 months) without major deliverables or milestones
- Inadequate planning and communications
- Lack of clear statement of requirements and business objectives
- Ignoring scope, time and budget inter-dependencies along with unrealistic expectations
- Scope creep… scope changes will occur and must be managed
- Multiple organizational units, partners and suppliers add complexities and risks
- Team size, multiple team locations, time zones and implementation sites add complexities and risks
- Project status or progress information not visible or not based on validated measures
- Inadequate risk and quality management
- Human tendency to avoid ‘bad news’ until it is too late to take corrective action
- Technology is usually a small part of project success (<20%)
by Ed Bottrell
Key Questions:
Can the organization bear the costs of failure? Or 2x Overruns?
How will you know if a project is in trouble and needs corrective action?
What precautions should be taken to detect and avoid problems?
What is involved and how can a project management review help ensure success?
- Confidential, independent and objective
- Detect and avoid problems before they occur
- One-on-one sessions with PM, and team leaders if needed
- Assessment of current status against plan and expectations. Estimates to complete may require additional work
- Assessment of and recommendations to improve project management processes for scope, time, budget, HR, procurement, communications, quality, risk and overall integration management
- Summary of factors and key issues affecting project success, team productivity and stakeholder satisfaction
- Generally does not involve subject matter, financial or personnel audits and is not a substitute for good project management
Project management review time, deliverables and costs
- Initial reviews vary from 2-weeks for smaller, well run projects to about 5-weeks for large or troubled projects.
- Follow-up reviews, if necessary, typically last 1-2 weeks
- Reviews scheduled to minimize project disruptions
- Presentation report provided to senior management and to PM or selected project team members, if appropriate
- Competitive fee structure
- Fixed price reviews available