'Resurrection' is life....Well, hold on!....I am not being philosophical...atleast not at a level that i will start giving you dictums of wisdoms. But i can definitely share with you something that i am absolutely sure all of you must have faced and experienced ( or something similar) somewhere in your personal/professional life.
Somethings things go great and sometimes they don't...that's just life...
And when they dont, that is when it becomes a cause of concern. Be it a Project worth 1000s or millions of dollars or be it your pefectly planned weekend getaway gone awry.
So professionally, to manage these situations, we have this breed of specimen called 'Project Managers' - whose job is to ensure things stay on track. Project Managers ensure that the project are run and executed smoothly, Projects meet their set goals and objectives and we all achieve and even overachieve our targets.
Examples of Awry
Personal
In our personal lives, say, we buy a house, we start to pay our mortgages diligently and then somewhere down the line, we miss a payment due to something unforeseen - a medical emergency, a job/family situation, mortgage plan changes etc, we start spiraling down the Rabbit hole.
Professional
Imagine a situation when you are on a project that is just not going the way as planned, the reports are all pointing that things have started to go wrong and it is time to raise the red flag....Hopefully you find this, before the Captain asks to abandon ship.
So what do we do when things start spiraling the path it was not meant to be...a Project down on its knees...
A Policy Admin implementation which kicked off with a much held fanfare and furore but suddenly somewhere down the way failed to keep up.
I have been a part of such a project which i will say, is a classic case study for this article. This project was a 3 year - multi Million dollar Enterprise level P&C Admin apps Setup project. It was a new organization entering P&C business that had engaged us for a policy, billing and claims solution setup....Successfully execution would have made the careers of many a people on the project, not to mention the benefits to the client, if it had met the roadmap timelines.
Initially things went well as planned for a few months then we started missing deadlines, good resources were leaving the project, client was having 2nd thoughts on using us as successful partners. It came to such a point that our consulting Org was threatened with a liability lawsuit, as we had risked the client's plan of going live with its new programs and products in a new market that would have really given them a competitive edge.
How did we come out of this mess.
First Things First
First we calmly took stock of where were on the project
- We had all our key stakeholders, responsible parties together. Tried to understand and outline how and where things went wrong.
Once we know the 'what' and 'why's, we decide to focus our energies positively, be constructive and stay away from the blame game as it was not going to help anyone....we remained focused and started to work on 'how' to fix the problem.
Come up with a plan to go from point A to point B
We had regular meetings with the Stakeholders and finally arrived at a consensus on what needed to be done
In your case, it may include things like,
Timeline changes
- Extending the project timeline
Scope changes
- changing the work scope to fit the timeline
Resourcing changes
- Lining up your A resources to get the job done, shuffling resources per competencies
Cost and budget changes
- Increase project budget
Unthinkable option
- Dumping the project altogether. Sadly, this happens in many cases when you are on a time bound project and you completely miss it.
Once you have the plan ready, make sure to dot your Is and cross your Ts. Have an executive summary of your plan ready. This will serve you 2 purposes, you will need it to convince your project sponsors that you are taking the necessary steps to get on track and the funding should continue.
Also this presentation will also help curb the project level noise, if any. You can use the same presentation with maybe a little tweaks for removing your team fears on where the project is going. Proper communication within Team is absolutely essential.
Later on, when things get back on track and project completes successfully(i am sure!...), remember to have a lessons learned session with the whole Team so we learn from our mistakes and future run is a lot smoother.
One of the major takeaway for our project case was, have regular status reports, meetings set that will highlight slippages right at the onset.
Summary
So all in all, as they say...'stuff happens'...It is all about how do we separate the men from the boys and get our act together and make sure all of us march towards the common goal of a successful project implementation.
Let me know if you all agree or have a different perspective, input on things based on your experiences.
Showing posts with label project success. Show all posts
Showing posts with label project success. Show all posts
Monday, December 2, 2013
Thursday, January 3, 2013
Successful Project Definition
I remember many years back i was on a fix schedule, T&M project with a large scope, it was a Mid Tier Company Claims System implementation and we had reached the project closedown phase and the end product had been finally delivered to the client followed by a month's warranty and post production support. The application was in Production for over a month and we, as vendors were all ready to wrap up. Then we got an email from the Client CEO saying they did not consider the project as closed as there were 3 functionalities not yet delivered, the service time was less than expected and the quality of the software delivered was sub par.
What went wrong here? Let's see...
Definition of Success
Everyone wants their project to be a success. But How do you define success? Is it when the developers have cleared their desks? Is it when the Deliverable is handed over to the Client? Is it when the Project End date is reached? Is it when the last Invoice is cleared? Is it when the product delivered meets defined quality standards and criteria? Or is it that the project was on time and within budget?
A Project has multiple stakeholders. Fact of the matter is, everyone has a different definition of Success. Every stakeholder looks at the project from his/her point of view and thus defines success from their looking glass.
Project success definition has to be a collaborative effort. Both the client and the vendor have to have a common goal defined. At the very onset of the project, it is the responsibility of the Client Organization to have a clear and tangible vision of what defines project success for them. The definition should be in measurable and understandable terms i.e. in terms of KPIs, SLAs etc
e.g For a Policy and Claims Processing web application,
- 500 Concurrent users access the System at Peak load with zero down time
- Page load time should not be more than 2 secs at peak.
- System should be able to process Intake, Adjudication, Salvage and Subrogation and search functionality for a claim without any errors.
- Intake functionality processing should take no more than 30 seconds...and so on....
Collaboration
Once the success criteria are defined by the client, these should be discussed with the Implementation vendor. The vendor's job is to completely understand and analyze the success definition. He should prod and question the client for any issues or clarifications because ultimately he is the one, who has to deliver on those. If there are any client dependencies that would need to be satisfied for the project to be delivered those have to be implicitly added to the SoW so everyone is on the same terms e.g. Infrastructure requirements, software, Licenses, Third party vendor relationships etc. Once all criteria are mutually agreed upon, it should be an integral part of the SoW (Statement of work).
Success criteria is also important for defining project milestones. This helps the sponsor and executive team track the progress of the project. This helps the project Manager take corrective action in case there are some ups and downs in the project during execution phase.
Ensure that the signoff requirements, Team responsible for signoff are also defined.
Success at each stage of the project has to be shared with the Team so that they are aligned with the Progress and know that their contribution to the project is what makes the project a success.
Relationship
Lastly there is a criteria that i think to be very essential for a project success and that is relationship. The type and level of relationship fostered between a client and a vendor defines success or atleast the perception of it. I have worked as a consultant with clients where i knew that the client could have been more rigid and firm when it came to finally signing off on a project, but because the client knew our work quality, dedication, efforts and the amount of energy we had spent in understanding the business, requirements and scope, he is also ready to let a few things slide off.
So to summarize,
Define entry and exit criteria that would make a project a success
Have tracking mechanisms in place to make sure the criteria are reached
Keep all the stakeholders and Team members in the Loop during each phase of project.
So the Key to a project success is meeting and exceeding client expectations.
Let me know if you all agree or if you hold a different view to this.
What went wrong here? Let's see...
Definition of Success
Everyone wants their project to be a success. But How do you define success? Is it when the developers have cleared their desks? Is it when the Deliverable is handed over to the Client? Is it when the Project End date is reached? Is it when the last Invoice is cleared? Is it when the product delivered meets defined quality standards and criteria? Or is it that the project was on time and within budget?
A Project has multiple stakeholders. Fact of the matter is, everyone has a different definition of Success. Every stakeholder looks at the project from his/her point of view and thus defines success from their looking glass.
Project success definition has to be a collaborative effort. Both the client and the vendor have to have a common goal defined. At the very onset of the project, it is the responsibility of the Client Organization to have a clear and tangible vision of what defines project success for them. The definition should be in measurable and understandable terms i.e. in terms of KPIs, SLAs etc
e.g For a Policy and Claims Processing web application,
- 500 Concurrent users access the System at Peak load with zero down time
- Page load time should not be more than 2 secs at peak.
- System should be able to process Intake, Adjudication, Salvage and Subrogation and search functionality for a claim without any errors.
- Intake functionality processing should take no more than 30 seconds...and so on....
Collaboration
Once the success criteria are defined by the client, these should be discussed with the Implementation vendor. The vendor's job is to completely understand and analyze the success definition. He should prod and question the client for any issues or clarifications because ultimately he is the one, who has to deliver on those. If there are any client dependencies that would need to be satisfied for the project to be delivered those have to be implicitly added to the SoW so everyone is on the same terms e.g. Infrastructure requirements, software, Licenses, Third party vendor relationships etc. Once all criteria are mutually agreed upon, it should be an integral part of the SoW (Statement of work).
Success criteria is also important for defining project milestones. This helps the sponsor and executive team track the progress of the project. This helps the project Manager take corrective action in case there are some ups and downs in the project during execution phase.
Ensure that the signoff requirements, Team responsible for signoff are also defined.
Success at each stage of the project has to be shared with the Team so that they are aligned with the Progress and know that their contribution to the project is what makes the project a success.
Relationship
Lastly there is a criteria that i think to be very essential for a project success and that is relationship. The type and level of relationship fostered between a client and a vendor defines success or atleast the perception of it. I have worked as a consultant with clients where i knew that the client could have been more rigid and firm when it came to finally signing off on a project, but because the client knew our work quality, dedication, efforts and the amount of energy we had spent in understanding the business, requirements and scope, he is also ready to let a few things slide off.
So to summarize,
Define entry and exit criteria that would make a project a success
Have tracking mechanisms in place to make sure the criteria are reached
Keep all the stakeholders and Team members in the Loop during each phase of project.
So the Key to a project success is meeting and exceeding client expectations.
Let me know if you all agree or if you hold a different view to this.
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