Recovering Runaway Projects
In spite of
people’s best intentions and lots of effort projects can, and
do, get out of control threatening planned completion dates,
costs or the deliverables. If you find yourself in the
unenviable position of having to take control of such a project,
what can you do to rescue it?
Where Did We Go Wrong?
The first
thing to be done is to get the Project Sponsor, the Stakeholders
and the project team to recognise that the project is in trouble
and to identify what is not working. For example, it may be
that stakeholders are disinterested or disconnected from the
project, or key members of the Project Steering Committee have
stopped attending meetings where important decisions need to be
made or, simply, that people have stopped doing things that they
are meant to complete.
In trying to
figure out what has gone wrong, it is important not to look back
or attempt to allocate blame. The past is history. When
mistakes have been made, we must learn the lessons and plan for
the future. The aim is for the project team to stop the project
from deteriorating and to secure the undertaking’s future.
Equally, pointing the finger of blame serves only to satisfy
personal egos and does not add value to the project. As project
manager, you should look to establish a "no-blame" culture where
people can feel free to point out future problems. The airline
industry is a good example of this type of culture.
Review the
project to see if its business case still makes sense, e.g. will
the project deliver the functionality and the benefits
originally anticipated, is the payback or Return on Investment
still acceptable, can the project be completed in an acceptable
timescale to satisfy the market opportunity? Do not be afraid
of cancelling the project if the business case is weak.
In the public
sector, the UK Treasury’s Office of Government Commerce (“OGC”)
has developed a series of structured "Gateway" reviews
for large projects designed to examine a project at critical
stages in its lifecycle to provide assurance that it can
progress successfully to the next stage. The process uses
established techniques to ensure the effective
delivery of benefits with more predictable costs and outcomes.
The Project Triangle
he options
for recovering a "broken" project are governed by the
interdependencies of time quality and deliverables. This is
sometimes known as the Project Triangle. The key to
resolving the interdependent constraints in a runaway projects
is to identify which of the three elements is unchangeable.
Typically, this will be the most important element in the
successful completion of the project. When a project starts to
go wrong, one or both of the other elements get out of control.
Quality lies at the heart of the project triangle and affects all three
elements; any changes you make to a side of the triangle will
almost certainly affect quality of the results. Quality is the
result of what you do with time, money and deliverables. For
example, if you find you have additional time in your project
plan, you might be able to increase the scope of the project
resulting in a higher level of quality into the project and its
deliverables. Alternatively, if you need to cut costs to meet
your budget, you might have to decrease the project’s scope by
cutting tasks or reducing task durations leading to a lower
quality outcome for the project.
The
interdependencies between time, cost and delverables mean that if, for example, your project is
running over budget and you do not want to sacrifice the
completion dates or the quality or the project’s deliverables,
then you should consider renegotiating contracts with both
suppliers and internal staff resources. Think about using
financial incentives or time-in-lieu (for internal staff
resources). Similarly, if the project is running late and the
budgets cannot be extended, it might be possible to agree with
stakeholders for a phased rollout of the deliverables.
The Project Team
As with so
much in business, success needs good people and good people
management skills. Sometimes in runaway projects, the people
involved become tired and jaded. It can be worthwhile injecting
new blood into the project team but not necessarily replacing
the entire team. Team building and morale raising also helps,
so look for early wins and celebrate these successes.
Re-introduce
the Sponsor to the project and let the team see that the Sponsor
cares about them and the project. Give worn-out members of the
project team a few days break from the project.
It's no use
saying that, if we sit around and wait, it will be all right on
the night. It's much better to tell people that we are actively
reviewing budgets, timescales and deliverables to ensure a
successful outcome. In other words, be positive and make sure
that people see that you are doing positive things.
Ralph Leishman will be delighted to discuss how we might help
you to recover runaway projects. You can contact him by
email at
Ralph.Leishman@4-consulting.com.
Ralph Leishman is a director of 4-consulting,
click here to view his profile.
