Project heck

Dear Bob …

I’ve just accepted the opportunity of a lifetime, only I don’t know if that means it will advance my career or result in my untimely demise.

I’ve been asked to take over management of a large project that’s gone astray. It was originally supposed to be a nine-month effort. Three years later there’s no end in sight, the project team is burnt out and demoralized, and our vendor partner is threatening to walk away from the project and accept its penalties because they claim we keep changing the specifications on them.

I’ve read your column for years, and recall your advice to always prefer the “desk of death” to replacing a successful leader. I’ll be the third project manager this year, so I think this qualifies as an opportunity.

But I have to tell you, I’m not sure this project can be saved, and if it can’t I don’t want to be blamed. Any thoughts?

– Faultless (so far)

Dear Faultless …

If it makes you feel any better, most of my clients have had at least one of these dead albatrosses lying about, looking for the next neck to hang from. (It’s these classy literary allusions that separate we Recognized Industry Pundits (RIPs) from the pack, don’t you think?)

I don’t know if the project can be saved or not, and probably neither do you. Which means your next step should be to put the project on hold for a month while you perform a feasibility review. In that review, determine how many of the elements needed for success are in place, and how many of those that aren’t can be established. Specifically, you’re looking for:

* An executive sponsor: This has to be a real one, not just a figurehead: Someone with a strong desire for the project to succeed, the authority to commit money and staff, and the clout to drive corporate decisions.

* A governance structure: Do all stakeholders agree about how decisions will be made?

* Clear charter: Is there a formal statement of why the project is worth doing, its business goals, and its formal deliverables?

* Persistence of purpose: Sometimes, projects outlive their reasons for being. Make sure there’s still a business need this long after the start.

* Project organization: If this puppy is organized into a single huge, monolithic project, it will never happen. If you won’t be given the authority to restructure it into multiple smaller projects, walk away.

* Project/Business relationship: Often, projects go south because project team members aren’t allowed ongoing, informal access to the end-user community. Every member of the project team ought to feel free to pick up the phone, call anyone necessary, and say, “There’s something I’d like to show you – can you drop by my cubicle for a few minutes?”

Perform your assessment. Report your findings to whatever governance structure is currently in place. If there isn’t one, call a meeting of everyone who ought to be involved in project governance to present them. If you can’t get them to agree to a meeting, tell your boss you’re walking away from the project, and the best course of action is to kill the project dead as fast and as visibly as possible.

Assuming you can hold the meeting, present a remediation plan, which is to say what it will take to put the missing elements into place. Very likely, what you’re going to talk about is rechartering the project, looking to salvage as much as possible from the work that’s already been performed.

One caution: It will be tempting to ask for a perfect situation going forward. Be careful to balance what you say you’ll need to succeed with the political realities of your organization. No project is perfect and sometimes you just have to “get it done ugly.” So make sure to ask for enough that you can succeed, but not for so much that you sound like a theoretician.

If you’re qualified for the job you’ve just accepted you already knew all of this. If you’re like most people (myself included) you’d find it easier to give this advice to anyone else than to yourself. So here it is, from someone else.

– Bob

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