Have you ever attended an end-of-project meeting on a project that had major problems? If you have, chances are that one of the major themes you will hear is that “we should have spent more time planning.” Many project managers think that they need to jump right into the project by gathering business requirements. They think that if they do a good job gathering the business requirements, they are ready to run on the project. That is not true. In fact there is a definition and planning process that needs to happen before you ever start gathering the business requirements.
Before the project work begins, the project manager must make sure that the work is properly understood and agreed to by the project sponsor and key stakeholders. The project manager works with the sponsor and stakeholders to ensure that there is a common perception of what the project will deliver, when it will be completed, what it will cost, who will do the work, how the work will be done, and what the benefits will be. The larger the project, the more important it is that this information be mapped out formally and explicitly. All projects should start with this type of upfront planning to prevent future problems caused by differing viewpoints on the basic terms of the project.
Common Planning Problems
Poor up-front definition and planning cause problems in many areas later in the project. These problems include:
· Lack of business support. If you do not define the major characteristics of a project up-front, it is very common to have differences in expectations among the major stakeholders. This is true even if you take all of your initial direction from the sponsor. As a project gets larger, even the sponsor may not have a totally complete picture of what needs to happen for the project to be successful. Other times, the sponsor has a vision, but there are other visions that may be better or more viable. These competing ideas end up surfacing later in the project and causing confusion and rework.
· Poor estimates. Usually a project needs to have a budget and deadline before the business requirements are completed. In many cases, if the definition and planning is not done ahead of time, the project team starts off with inadequate resources and time, and you don’t realize it until the project is already in progress. Many projects that could be successful are viewed as failures because they overshot their budget and deadline. This situation is often caused by the project manager committing to numbers that are too low, the result of a lack of up-front planning.
· Poor scope control. One of the major aspects of defining a project is defining the high-level scope. If you do not define and gain agreement on scope, you will find it very difficult to manage scope effectively throughout the project.
How to Avoid the Mistake
Spending time on a good definition and planning ends up taking much less time and effort than having to correct problems while the project is underway. It should not be surprising, then, that the best way to avoid this problem is to do a good job of defining and planning the project up-front. This includes:
· Defining. Before the actual work of the project begins, make sure you have spent the time to define the project objectives, scope, assumptions, risks, budget, timeline, organization and overall approach. The project manager may think that they know all of this already. However, the purpose of this work is to ensure that there is a consensus between the project manager, project sponsor and all other stakeholders. Even if the project manager and the sponsor are in agreement, there may be other major stakeholders that have other ideas. Differences of opinion need between the major stakeholders needs to be resolved before the project starts – not while you are in the middle.
· Planning. The project manager should create an overall project workplan before the project starts. This will help you estimate the total project effort and duration. The project manager also needs to ensure that he or she has the detailed work mapped out over the next few months to ensure that the project resources are assigned the right work once the project actually begins.
In addition, it is very helpful to have an agreed upon set of project management procedures that are used to manage the project. These will include how the project manager will manage scope, issues, risks, communication, the workplan, etc. Again, the key is to define these all up-front to better manage expectations. For instance, if you define and get agreement on the procedure for approving scope change requests, you should have a much easier time managing change once the project begins.
What if You Are Already Into the Project?
Of course, the best way to solve a problem is to prevent it to begin with. However, what if you do not have that option? Let’s say you are into a project, and you start to see some of the problem areas described above. For instance, you start to see stakeholders coming forward with different ideas for what the project should accomplish, but you are already well down the path to the prior vision.
If you are having trouble with one or two aspects of the definition process, you may be able to resolve it with a mini-definition process. For instance, if you find that you cannot control scope because you did not define it to begin with, you can take the time to formally define and gain agreement on the scope. This involves going back to the sponsor and major stakeholders to gain the consensus and approval that you did not get earlier.
If you start to see differing visions as to what the project should achieve, you may need to actually complete the entire definition process while the project is in progress. This is very difficult and painful, but it can be done. You need to take a step back and define objectives, scope, roles, risks, etc. You might need to actually stop work on the project until this definition process is completed, although in many cases this is not practical.
As painful as it is to define the project while it is in progress, it is still preferable to ignoring the problem. The first option may end up causing rework, resulting in additional cost and a later delivery date. However, ignoring the problem may end up making the entire solution irrelevant or obsolete as soon as it is delivered.
* From TenStep Project Management
Postingan
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar