Some projects are very critical from the point of view of
– Customer expectations
– An early adopter going live who would take a decision on whether to invest in your product or services, or
– Existing customer who could be a major bread earner for your company or having strong political clout.
In such situations the project needs to be more stringently tracked and controlled. You cannot afford to miss a single milestone. You need to ensure that the required quality is maintained.
But then projects do not operate on ideal situations or controlled environment. There can be situations where in some internal milestones can get missed without compromising on overall timeline. There can be situations where certain external dependencies can trigger a delay in the delivery of a few modules. There can be risks coming in due to last minute addition to scope that would have been committed to the customers by another group or team that was not part of the original plan.
Such projects and such situations definitely require one to follow the best project management practices. But there is this little bit of extra that can help ensure success in such projects. Here are five tips that can help you in such situations.
1) Communication – yes. This is the key to managing any project. However, why I iterate this here is because such critical projects need a little extra care in managing communications. You would need a combination of different types of communication here. While you should definitely communicate overall project status to all stakeholders and higher management, it’s important to keep a track of the corporate dynamics and sync with your immediate superiors to ensure the right status and information goes out. You may also need to be quick in responding to the so called innocuous mails coming from the customers, or their representatives.
2) Risk management – Risk management and communication go hand in hand. While you need to be aware of what’s happening around you and what are the approaches to risk management, you should also be communicating the risks and the mitigation plan every now and then and ensure that the concerned stake holders are fully aware of it and it’s consequences. This would mean reiterating certain points in status reports, meetings, or even through emails and one on one meetings.
3) Alternate project plans – This comes in picture when you feel that certain part of project cannot be delivered in the same time frame due to some external dependency that is not in the project team’s control. Even as you highlight the risk and communicate often, it helps to have alternate time lines or delivery approach that are possible to help deliver the broken pieces.
4) Discipline, discipline and discipline – This is key to deliverables. Ensure team follows process to the extent necessary even in the midst of hectic timelines. Ensure regular standups, meetings, workflow techniques are all followed. Ensure that technical compliances are followed. Sometimes, these can become hindrances and block the delivery of the product.
5) Flexibility – This seems to be the opposite of the previous point. But if thought deeply, that is really not the case. While we must ensure that the team adheres to processes and standards. It does good to do away with certain redundancies when one realises that certain processes do not add any value. It’s also imperative to take quick decisions and be flexible in the delivery approach, in changing the plan if needed so that the overall delivery timelines are met.
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