October 2006

Project Manager Today

www.pmtoday.co.uk

"Trouble Shooter" Liz Goodman

After listing common symptoms of a project in trouble, Liz Goodman describes how it can be turned around without the luxury of a long audit.

According to Liz, projects in trouble often evidence one or more of the following symptoms:
Scope
Lack of business specification, or not sufficiently detailed; key documents
(such as high-level design) not signed off, or too much change to the product
begins to occur; project exceeds the build cost by more than 35% (excluding
the cost of the agreed changes in scope)
Schedule
The schedule slips and keeps slipping; project manager begins to crash
activities as the project loses control; team members crash activities and
they become infuriated to find that they are either further behind, or their part
is not yet needed; the plan is exceeded by the planned timescale by more
than 50% (excluding the time-scale impact of agreed changes in scope);
continual re-planning and high risks/issues arise; planning may not include
all team members, so failing to identify dependencies and actual deliverables
and activities
Team
There is low team morale and motivation as milestones are repeatedly
missed; blame culture develops
Supplier
There is major buyer dissatisfaction to the extent that the future of the project
is called into question; supplier/contractual disputes/problems occur

A plan is then outlined which allows the project to keep moving while addressing the fundamental issues.