Project Management Tools, Techniques & Best Practices
Project and program management tools and techniques articles and videos of project managers in action.
Listen to this month's Project from Hell Podcast and hear four conversations between executives, sponsors, project team members and PMs. Then diagnose what's wrong with this organization and why so many of its projects fail.
posted by Dick Billows, PMP, GCA @ 4:40 PM
3 comments
links to this post
Dick Billows PMP, has more than 20 years experience as a project and program manager both as a partner with an international consulting firm and as an executive with a Fortune 200 company. Dick has consulted with and trained project & program managers for over 300 organizations. He is the author of 14 books and hundreds of articles on project and program management. Dick is president of 4PM.com and directs the firm's consulting, in-person seminars and web-based 1-on-1 training programs.
3 Comments:
How do project managers get the project sponsors & executives in their organization to realize that project failure is frequently the result of too many a)poorly defined and b)top priority projects? I don't know of a diplomatic way to convince them that project failure is not always the result of inept project managers or lazy team members. understans
The project managers and team members just need to do a better time prioritizing their projects! I've seen way too many team members work inefficiently, chasing their tails rather than getting the work done. If they didn't mess around so much, they'd be able to get the work done.
I understand that there may be time issues for doing this; however, it is critical for an organization’s output being less than 70% ( guesstimated figure = to a school grade of "C") to perform a post mortem to identify exactly why outputs are ineffective.
A standard process MUST be put into place and to eliminate the political issue, I would quantify costs savings and waist to senior management; thus, showing the value of a standard procedure. Anyone with half a brain in business cannot throw out the bottom line figures. I would then lobby to senior management for an independent cross functional parallel team that can come in and create a system of: Project initiation, prioritization, and best practices identification and duplication. Empower this group to get feedback from stakeholders, but to in essence not be a part of the permanent team. This can be done by a 3rd party vendor or a separate group within the organization.
I would also sanction any project team member for any incomplete projects and have weekly meetings that focus on weekly wins and assigning task responsibility.
A kick off meeting with all stakeholders is a must.
Although some may say that everything is important, I would create a “weight” system that provided some idea of clear consequences to inaction or “dropping the ball” of a project. At least team members would be able to tell what was really bad to not get done on time verses what could be cleaned up if need be. A clear definition of importance is critical.
My 2 cents ;-)
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home