© 2012 Corporate System Solutions Incorporated. All rights reserved.
Clear Thinking | Clear Language | Clear Results ™
PREVENT PROJECT FAILURE
Projects fail for wholly avoidable reasons, but simply recognising and understanding these is not enough. A strategy must run through the project from start to finish to prevent failure.
the Sponsor’s role in projects and the responsibility they bear for :
is clearly established in the Project Initiation Document which, amongst others, the Sponsor signs off. As well as responsibility to and for projects, Sponsors have an internal responsibility to the Board, even where a Sponsor is a member of the Board, and the Risk Committee. The Board as a whole is aware of their project oversight role, and the Risk Committee for risk management
• providing governance
• setting objectives
• setting and adjusting scope
people are cautious of change, but are willing to embrace it if they clearly see the benefits it brings. We therefore take time to seek and incorporate their opinions, integrate them into the solution and invest them with ownership.
Ownership is key. The solution isn’t ours, it’s yours so the way that knowledge is transferred and the detail of that transfer is critically important to building a sense of ownership in your team.
the timescales and budget set out in the Project Initiation Document are, with the exception of the initiation stage, estimates. The gating process allows timescale and budget to be confirmed in terms of the next stage before that stage is approved. In this way costs and time are closely controlled, risk is mitigated, resources confirmed and benefit realisation clarified. Both Sponsors and Stakeholders have an unimpeded view of the commitment required for that stage and the overall project
accurate determination of scope is critical to the initiation stage and once agreed the Project Manager rigorously defends scope.
Where a valid change to scope is needed approval for that change is sought from the Sponsor via a defined change control process which sets out the rationale and effects on time, cost and deliverables. This prevents ad hoc scope creep and under the wire scope changes
staff
a Subject Matter Expert committed to a project adds value beyond their time and cost. Typically their time is loaded toward initiation, requirements and gating with less demand toward delivery and we plan accordingly, recognising the level of expertise a SME can bring and their available time. Unforeseen staff unavailability is accounted for in contingency planning and reviewed at each project gate
the quality of testing is improved by :
• insisting on Factory Acceptance Testing (FAT), imposing an obligation on the vendor to prove the solution meets requirements before acceptance into your test environment. This imposes the risk of failure on the vendor
• closely defining User Acceptance Test (UAT) in a robust test harness
• making sure sufficient test environments exist and have been requisitioned in advance. Where additional servers are required account for the cost and lead time into the plan and budget
• mapping UAT against FAT, eliminate gaps between both business and functional requirements
• clearly defining what is, and what is not, a defect and its severity. Clearly communicate to, and agree with, the vendor before testing commences
• ensuring that users test to their satisfaction, not the Plan’s
• finding the budget -