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A business tale of what it takes to turn around troubled projects.

The year is 2005 and times are good. The business environment is vibrant and the economy is strong. Large businesses are committing large amounts of capital and resources to implement new strategies, establish new capabilities, and open new markets. It was no different at PintCo, where Jack works as a Director of Customer Relationship Management.

Jack walked into work on Monday morning like any other. He dropped his briefcase in his office, grabbed a cup of coffee and headed down the hall to meet with his boss, Brandon, about one of the company’s troubled projects. Although Jack had substantial experience, he had only recently joined PintCo after being hired away from a chief competitor. He was still learning about some of the nuances of his current employer.

After the typical morning banter, Brandon and Jack got to the topic at hand. “Jack, I’ll get straight to the point. I need to you to take over the Customer Master File project from Paul.” Brandon said. He continued, “We hired you because of your significant project management expertise. I know that you’ve turned around a lot more difficult situations than this.” Over an hour later, Jack emerged from Brandon’s office and set out to learn more about the challenge that Brandon had posed to him.

Jack was an experienced business leader and project manager. He had seen more than his fair share of ugly projects; some he turned around while others had spun hopelessly out of control. He would be able to tell very quickly how this one would go based on the makeup and culture of the project team.

TROUBLED WATERS

Over the course of the next few weeks, Jack took over the Customer Master File project, met with key project team members, and conducted dozens of interviews with key stakeholders. It was only a few weeks since Brandon had handed the keys to him for this troubled project, and now Jack was back in Brandon’s office to give a rather stark update on the situation.

“Brandon, I’ve talked to the project team and to key stakeholders, and I now why this project is in trouble,” Jack started. “If you truly want me to turn this project around, I’ll need your support to make some critical changes.”

Brandon, a 20-year veteran at PintCo, knew what was coming. He had seen too many projects start, flounder, and then fail at the company. He didn’t want to hear that another project was on the brink of failure, but he asked anyway, “What did you find out, Jack, and what can I do to help?”

Jack drew a deep breath and began to explain his findings. “Brandon, as you know this project has been in flight for nearly 6 months now and it is already behind schedule and over budget.” Jack went on, “In talking to the project team and other stakeholders, I don’t see the situation getting better without making some pretty significant changes.”

Jack’s experience helped him to quickly identify a number of critical issues with the project, which he carefully outlined for Brandon:

* “The scope of the project is not well defined,”

* “The IT architects are sitting in their ivory towers and disagree with the project’s direction,”

* “The project team is not functioning as a team,”

* “There is a lack of clear executive sponsorship, and”

* “Steve from Marketing is trying to manipulate this project for his own political gain.”

“I’m not going to sugar coat this for you Brandon,” Jack explained. “I’ve seen this situation far too often in my career, and if we don’t change the situation this project will fail in glorious fashion.”

FOUNDATIONS FOR SUCCESS

Brandon knew that what Jack said was true, and he also knew that changing the situation would be difficult, painful, and potentially costly. He reluctantly agreed with Jack, and together they laid out several key changes.

“Thanks for working with me on this Brandon,” Jack said. “Just to confirm, let me summarize the changes that we agreed to implement:

“First, we’re going to stop the current project and recreate a clear and well-defined scope and get consensus buy-in on the new scope.”

“Second, we’re going end the architectural holy wars by assigning key IT architects to the project on a full time basis.”

“Third, we’re going to co-locate the team and assign members to a full-time basis on the project. No more part-time participation.”

“Fourth, Brandon, you agree to be much more visible and an active participant to drive key decisions for the project, and”

“Finally, Brandon - you are going to have a heart-to-heart with Steve and if necessary his boss - to eliminate any political agendas that could derail the project.”

Brandon and Jack both agreed with the plan. Jack knew that some of these changes would be unpopular, but without them the project would be doomed. He left Brandon’s office with a sense of relief and apprehension. There was still a lot of hard work and heavy lifting yet to be done…

CELEBRATIONS

Six months later, Jack ran into Brandon in the break room as they both were angling for their morning coffee refill. “Jack!”, Brandon shouted while patting Jack on the back. “Congratulations on getting the Customer Master File project into pilot. By all accounts, it has been a resounding success!” Brandon crowed.

“Thank you,” Jack smiled and answered, “but you know it was pretty touch and go after we met in your office to plan the project turnaround. There were a lot of unhappy campers and several of them didn’t like the idea of being assigned 100% to the project if you recall.”

“But we quickly converted them - and now I see a project team that is hitting on all cylinders,” Jack added. “In fact, Sharon told me she was ready to quit six months ago - and now she’s happier than ever and up for promotion.” Jack explained.

“I love it when a plan comes together,” Jack said proudly as he turned to walk away and take on his next big project.

Robert Howard is the Founder and Chief Executive of ClearBrick LLC, a leading provider of customer experience business solutions, research, and online customer experience advice.

Consider using a pmp simulation program to pass the project management professional exam with minimal study time and effort. There are many ways a candidate preparing to sit for the pmp exam can prepare to pass, but a pmp software program is probably one of the best methods to use. Theres no better way of preparing for the exam then simulating the exact testing environments over and over with questions similar to that which will be given.

As the team completes the project plan, the end result should be in line with customer requirements in the areas of quality, scope and expectations. If a change is required, it can deviate from the scope, budget and risk requirements. A schedule change can make the project run longer or even shorten it. A good example of a schedule change is if the customer needs the project completed before the beginning of the quarter or business cycle.

A change in budget can be both increasing or decreasing money into the project. Scope changes to the project are often requested by the stakeholders and can be addition or decreasing in features. More often than not, the changes to the project include a combination of all 3 parts of the project. The project manager can handle change ways and changes through analyzing change requests and his own personal change control process.

Changes can be discovered by team members which discover new things about the project which can be enhanced or improved, but may increase costs and project length. The type of change requests that a project manager receives daily include customer and project members scope improvements and modifications. The change control system is a process to review all changes through a system that takes into account and review the proposed changes and how the changes will effect the project. The manager should constantly update the baselines of the project to keep them up to date with what is going on currently. The project management information system can automatically keep track of this or the project manger can do this by hand.

Look at all the inputs into the change control plan. The project plan will usually change at some point in the execution plan and the anticipated changes should be prepared and accounted for. Analyze performance reports to measure changes in the baseline and how they may effect the critical issues of the project. The reaction to obvious effects to the plan must be promptly recognized and covered.

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To get ready for the PMP exam, you want to see the questions and answers from a different point of view than you are used to. A pm exam simulation program with a lot of questions can help you in preparing. When you choose a program, look at how many questions are included and the quality of questions. Are the questions really wordy or long, like the questions in the official examination? A lot of people fail to investigate the quality of the actual answers included in the program. You can easily miss this as most people do because they may be only focused on the price. Consider this, what good is a pmp simulation program if all the answers are juvenile and obvious. Its not really preparing you because you can easily mark off 1 or 2 answers.

The project manager executes the project plan when it is finally ready and approved by management. The members will start to work on the deliverables and details of the plan with the guidance of the manager. During executing the project the end product is created and a substantial amount of the project budget is allocated during the executing phase. A flaw in the executing process can thrown the entire project off track and the project manager must make sure the executing process is secure. The project manager can think of corrective actions to take in case of different risk that can arise.

Changes and anticipated changes can effect the schedule and the cost constraints. What solutions can you provide if something goes wrong, solutions can include adding more resources, fast tracking or moving sections around to speed up the process. The project manager should provide substantial leadership skills to provide direction and guidance of communication. People need leaders to motivate and inspire workers to accomplish the goals of the project.

When preparing for the exam, dont simply memorize terms and processes, try to truly understand them and be able to see how they are used in situations.
The project manager should train members if they lack the skills to complete a project. The manager should hold meetings with the members to ensure goals are being accomplished and everyone is working on their part of the project. Meetings review the status of the project and allow the manager to interact with the members and take a pulse of the status of the objectives.

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Consider using a Project management professional PMP exam simulator to practice as many questions as you can while studying to get a feel of how the test will be administered. You can pass the PMP exam on your first sitting, remember the PMP exam is expensive and you dont want to end up taking it multiple times. A pmp simulator is often the shortest path to PMI PMP exam mastery for any candidate seeking certification.

Most provide standalone connectivity, which means no internet connection is required, you are free to use the program on the go or at work. The program tests your knowledge of all essential PMBOK areas that are used by the Project management institute. Professional in project management has come to recognize PMI as the standard and most well known body in the world. The program is updated with changes to the PMI codes and regulations. Some candidates feel that when they are preparing for the exam it will be straightforward and they can similar rely on their project management experience obtained during workplace performance, this however is often not the case.

The project manager must have a plan of who will do what within the project. The project staff sheet must not only the skills required to perform the task, but also the staffs time requirements and cost of hiring that person. The person can be an external worker hired from outside the organization or be an internal employee. Either way the person must be paid either on a yearly, contract, hourly and etc, basis. The overall staffing plans cover how the resources including people resource, will be brought in and allocated to successful completion of the project.

How ill the information concerning the project be allocated among the members and though each other. What risk will the members of the project have to deal with to complete the plan. Beware of changes that can arise during the project and how you will deal with such changes.

The risk plan should have alternatives to deal with open and unresolved issues that can arise throughout the life of the project and drastically effect the schedule, cost of both. It is almost impossible for a project manager to plan for every issue that could come up and effect the project. The manager should use project software tools, lessons learned and past experience to prepare and somewhat plan for risk.

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A PMP simulator can help you assess your readiness for the project management professional examination. Candidates for the exam can now maximize their study efforts and time. The interface of an actual exam simulation that is similar to that of the actual test given by PMI is more dynamic than just using a book or questions on paper.

With its flexible usage and wireless programming, you can use the program on the go or at work. The questions themselves are developed by Project management experts and often come endorsed by authoritative professionals. The questioning, answers and structure is similar to that of the actual exam administered by the project management institute that accredits project managers. The timer functions of most PMP simulation programs allow you to simulate similar conditions to that of on test day. Let us analyze the work breakdown structure which is a reoccurring theme on the pmp exam. What are the functional requirements and design plan for the overall project. The WBS begins at the start of the project and continues to guide the project throughout. It defines the type of organization structure that the project manager must work in.

The organizational structure can be matrix, projectized or functional structures. The schedule of the project estimates how long the project will take and takes into account available resources and constraints. Individual deadlines are set for specific project attributes to make sure the project stays on track. The project manager should be able to make a prediction as to when the project will be completed. What is the base-line or basis for the project completion date. Project managers should use lessons learned, personal experience and project tools to estimate when the project will most likely be completed.

The demands of the stakeholders, management, cost and project members must also be accounted for by the project manager. The formal, documented plan must be approved by management before the project can start the first step and continue. The project scope document is a higher level statement that will be a reference throughout the project. The scope gives reasons for deliverable in the project and detailed project objectives.

The plan must contain budget estimations, project schedule estimations, project dates for set beginning and end and the responsibility of each person involved in the project. The baseline and lessons learned should also be completed for the project scope. The experience will be useful in future projects and helpful to the Project management knowledge base.

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Jacquelyn Donner, PMP