FELLOWS FORUM
In the last 18 months I have been heavily
TWO PROJECTS – TWO VERY DIFFERENT OUTCOMES
involved in two projects/programs that
FELLOWS HAVE GIVEN EXCEPTIONAL CONTRIBUTION TO THE PROJECT MANAGEMENT PROFESSION. HEAR FROM ONE HERE EACH QUARTER.
had vastly different outcomes for their respective organisations. Whilst project professionals all acknowledge risk management is vital for a project’s success, it does continually amaze me how little diligence and perseverance is committed to “actively” managing risks throughout a project’s lifecycle.
SITUATION 1: There are 11 large, white legal binders lined up, four binders per box, across my study floor. In total they represent nearly five years of governance body minutes for a project that was supposed to run for 18 months. In reading each of the monthly governance minutes, I am struck by the minimal risk and issue discussion and the completely absent dependency management discussions. After all, this was a highly complex technology based project with significant impacts across all of the client’s business functions and with significant impact on the client’s customers.
SITUATION 2: The project managers are all in the room for the first of what would become a weekly 90 minute risks, issues and dependencies discussion. There are eight project managers representing streams such as change management, systems delivery, process development, communications and stakeholder engagement etc. The program has a dropdead delivery date of 1 July 2019. There are eight concurrent streams of work with significant up-stream and down-stream dependencies across the eight streams of work. The Program Manager has an excel spreadsheet which she maintains.
(Source: Canva)
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