3 Signs Your Project Is Headed For An Accident
From the Voices on Project Management Blog
by Cameron McGaughy,
Lynda Bourne, Kevin Korterud, Conrado Morlan, Peter Tarhanidis, Mario Trentim, Jen Skrabak, David Wakeman, Wanda Curlee, Christian Bisson, Ramiro Rodrigues, Soma Bhattacharya, Emily Luijbregts, Sree Rao, Yasmina Khelifi, Marat Oyvetsky, Lenka Pincot, Jorge Martin Valdes Garciatorres, cyndee miller
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by Kevin Korterud
The technology found in today’s automobiles is simply amazing. Front and side traffic radar units, anti-dozing head movement detectors, driving timers that alert drivers when they should stop for a break — all good examples of accident prevention mechanisms.
Projects to some degree are like automobiles: They are on a journey to deliver passengers (the project team and stakeholders) to a pre-determined destination. However, despite the introduction of many modern project management technologies, research shows that we continue to experience project accidents. These accidents result in extensive and costly rework to get a project back on track.
I think part of the solution to avoid these potential problems is to borrow from recent automobile technologies as a way to detect troublesome signals. These signals are not readily perceivable from traditional project management methods.
Here are a few examples of anticipatory signals that portend the onset of a skid that often leads to a project accident.
- Forecast Volatility
A core competency of a project manager is to determine the schedule, budget and progress trajectory of a project. The project forecast is essential to determine where the project will finish for these measurements. Schedule, budget and progress forecasts from team members that exhibit great degrees of change over prior reporting periods are indicative of trending to an accident. This downward spiral is exacerbated when the forecast measurements come with great uncertainty; e.g., “I don’t know what this will take to finish.”
Several techniques can be employed to reduce the volatility of forecasting. Some of these techniques include initiating a peer review of the forecast with another project manager or supplier subject matter expert, as well as pausing the project to recalibrate the forecast in a dedicated working session. Taking time to implement these and other techniques to mitigate forecast volatility will get the project back on track before an accident.
2. Static Project Status
Project status reports can offer a tremendous amount of value to a project manager. They accumulate both qualitative and quantitative data that sheds light on the current project state. But, despite the visibility status reports provide, they’re just a snapshot. That limits their ability to show progress trends. In addition, a project status report that does not show content changes week over week indicates that the project is likely stalled and headed toward an accident.
To increase the anticipatory value of a project status report, introduce trending and predictive data for risks, issues, deliverables and milestones. This allows the project team to determine what level of progress has been achieved, as well as what progress to expect. It also better positions the project manager to escalate mitigations to avoid an impending project accident.
- Diminishing Stakeholder Engagement
At the beginning of a project, stakeholder engagement and enthusiasm is typically high. This is not unlike the start of a road trip. But, as time passes on a project, the level of enthusiasm and engagement can begin to wane. Stakeholder engagement over time will face tough tests from project risks to resource challenges to dependency conflicts. Each can sap the energy levels of stakeholders. This leads to passive engagement at best and complete disengagement and absenteeism at worst.
To keep stakeholder engagement at the proper level, stakeholders need to be treated like any other resource on a project. Their time needs to be managed in work plans to avoid oversubscribing their capacity. In addition, their work should be focused on higher value activities that promote project progress. Providing the team access to project support staff to maximize productivity also helps further stakeholder engagement and leads to persistent engagement.
Perhaps one day in the future there will be technology solutions that provide anticipatory signals for projects headed for an accident. Until that day comes, however, project managers still need to think organically and look for hidden signals of dangers to project budgets, schedules and progress.
What do you see as the leading indicators that a project is trending toward disaster?
Posted
by
Kevin Korterud
on: May 03, 2018 06:18 PM |
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Comments (20)
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Thanks for some good points Kevin.
Rami Kaibni
Community Champion
Senior Projects Manager | Field & Marten Associates
New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
good points, thanks for sharing
Thanks for sharing Kevin!!
Excellent points Kev, thanks
Anish Abraham
Privacy Program Manager| University of Washington
Auburn, Wa, United States
Good points, Kevin and thanks for sharing.
Drew Craig
Sr. Agile & Product Coach| Vanguard
Philadelphia, Pa, United States
Great correlations, Kevin. Appreciate the article!
Al Taylor
I.T. Contractor| Independent
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
good discussion! I believe metrics from completed projects can be used to predict project outcome. Check out this web site that demonstrates the potential... www.itprojectstats.com regards.....Al
Alok Priyadarshi
Project Manager| Tata Consulting Engineers Limited
Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, India
Thanks a lot for sharing.
Kevin Korterud
Associate Director | Accenture
New Albany, Oh, United States
Hi all...very happy for all of the positive comments! A very popular topic.
As with automobiles......even with our increasing levels of automation opportunities around projects...someone still needs to drive!
Kevin Korterud
Associate Director | Accenture
New Albany, Oh, United States
Al...interesting website. I need to go deeper on it over the weekend. I recollect talking a few years back about a public collection of project info that could be used to help with project performance...at first glance looks like this is a great step towards that goal!
Good read and correlation.
Thank you Kevin. really helpful topic. I think as a good practice regardless to risk management purpose, a brief safety report could be helpful when introducing every project status report.
Diego Vanegas
IT Project Manager| Independent Consultant
Bogota, Dc, Colombia
Excellent contribution, thanks Kevin.
Alan Bergsma
Director of Project Risk Management| ALB Consulting
Paradise Point, Qld, Australia
Thanks for sharing Kevin.
It is especially welcome that you introduce the concept of Risk Trends. Risk trending is a concept that deserves more attention.
I copy the below excerpt on the topic from the book "Bullet Dodging - A Risk Management Handbook for ICT Projects"
"9.6.1 Trend Analysis
We use trend analysis to forecast future performance based on past results. Trend analysis looks ahead into the future of the project for expected problems. It warns management of potential problems if current trends persist.
Trend analysis in risk management may be less complex than in cost and schedule trend analysis, but it is no less important. Trend analysis in risk management allows the project manager to forecast project risks.
Trend analysis in risk management can give managers early indications that a project’s risk exposure is reducing, remaining static, or increasing. It can give an early indication of a project’s risk exposure trends, so we can make informed decisions and take corrective actions.
Trend analysis’ biggest benefit is that it gives us an early warning if the risk exposure is increasing. With trend analysis, we don’t have to wait until the risk exposure breaches risk thresholds. Trend analysis enables us to wave a flag of warning and take action much earlier.
Importance of Consistency
In order for trend analysis to be accurate, we need to maintain consistency. We need to utilize the same risk assessment methodology throughout the project. We need to use the same tools and techniques to gather data, request input, analyze data, and report. We need to use the same tools and techniques to ensure that we are comparing apples to apples when we compare past data to present data.
In an ideal world, we would also have the same people involved throughout the project to ensure that any subjective assessments of risk inputs or of risk analyses are subject to the same, consistent cognitive biases.
Involving the same people in risk management activities is more likely to result in the same cognitive biases being applied, resulting in more consistency and more accurate identification of trends.
Trend analysis enables trend reporting. Trend reporting enables management to make decisions earlier than they would otherwise. Trend reporting enables management to see where the project is heading and to take proactive action if they don’t like the trajectory.
Trend reporting allows management to reallocate effort and resources in the face of a risk profile that is trending towards a threshold. Trend reporting enables management to focus more resources on project risks if the overall project risk profile is trending up. Trend reporting also enables management to focus attention and resources towards particular risks and areas of uncertainty that are trending higher.
If you do perform trend analysis and reporting in your risk management, endeavor to use the same methods throughout the project. Whenever possible, try to keep the same stakeholders involved consistently throughout the project. Consistency is critical to realizing the benefits of trend analysis.
The lack of consistency can mislead management with false trend identification. Changing the methods that you use to identify and monitor risk mid-project can skew the results and render trend analysis useless, or worse. False trend identification can either waste time and treasure in chasing shadows (false negatives) or it can disguise the true size of the project’s risk exposure (false positives).
If there are inconsistencies in the methods and stakeholders used in tracking trends, there is a danger that we waste time and money chasing phantoms.
Such a misreading could be caused by changing the methods used to assess risk, or it could be caused by different people bringing new cognitive biases to their assessments. Either of which could result in the risk being measured differently than it was measured earlier, despite the real risk exposure remaining unchanged.
This type of false negative can cause a perception that risk exposure is changing when, in reality, it is not. When such false trends are reported, there is a danger that decisions could be made, and actions taken to address an increase in risk that was really only a false negative reading.
Conversely, involving new methods and stakeholders could result in the project measuring risk exposure the same as before, when, in reality, the project’s risk exposure has increased.
Reporting such a false positive is even more dangerous than reporting a false negative. Such reporting can cloud management’s view of the project’s increasing risk exposure. Management may make decisions with a rosy view of the level of risks involved, unaware of the growing danger lurking just below the waterline. This can lull management into a false sense of security, when, in reality, disaster may be just around the corner.
Conclusion
Trend analysis and trend reporting are tools that can enable projects to respond early to changes in their risk exposure. This early response can save a project time and money and increases the project’s chances of success.
But, trend analysis works best when we maintain consistency in the methods and people, we involve in the risk assessment, trend analysis, and trend reporting."
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