Facilitating Team When Given New Tight Budget Part 2

 

Tight budgets can present a minefield for relationships between your team, the sponsor, and stakeholders. If you are able to negotiate this situation effectively, you can be successful in managing the project and be respected enough to handle larger, more complex projects.

In the previous post, I covered how to make sure your team has a positive attitude going into budget risk analysis. Assuming that has occurred, you will be safe facilitating the next step, which is to complete the formal risk analysis. This post is not about the general process of risk analysis, but only guidance in handing the tight budget situation with your team.

Keep the end in mind: You do not want the sponsor and other leadership to see you or the team as fearful and not suited to manage the effort. Instead, you want to communicate areas of concern in a thoughtful manner, assuming all involved are looking for a successful project outcome. A preliminary risk analysis would work just fine in this situation.

Preliminary Risk Analysis:  Identify Budget Busters

Now it's time to let your team tell you what they are concerned about. Your facilitation will help put these concerns into concrete project risk language. Focus the discussion first on identifying those factors that will add more time than planned and thus cause an overrun of your project budget. It is easier to keep at least a couple of general categories in your mind to help project team members explain their concerns in more precise terms. The two used here are Complexity and Novelty.

For the risk analysis examples used below, assume that the budget is low because the durations of phases were too short in the initial budgetary estimate, created prior to the project team being assigned.

Address Complexity. Week after week, different types of delays can add time to complete activities. Complex projects mean more questions to address; more time for reviews, approvals and issue resolution. Consider:

• The number of stakeholders involved across the organization or enterprise
  Are there more than a recent project that took the same amount of time? Was there a similar project completed with a similar number of stakeholders that can serve as an example of more time needed?
• Required synchronization when stakeholders have standard periodic meetings where you must present content for approval
  Are these sessions monthly, quarterly?
• Mid-project changes to stakeholder engagement process or organizational structure
  Have future changes been communicated?

Example Reporting Component. Inability to deliver new product by deadline due to expected longer duration to complete activities in most phases. The number and breadth of stakeholders involved, and the need to commit to their respective engagement requirements will add more time than previous projects to obtain input and approvals to proceed. Impact: Medium. Likelihood: High. Response/Mitigation: Document (1) effects of engagement processes and (2) early durations of issue resolutions and of obtaining approvals in order to estimate future activity durations more accurately.

Address Novelty.  More often than ever, brand new tools and processes are brought into the work environment that are disruptive to delivery expectations but also to the organization as a whole. Consider, for example:

• New powerful automations being implemented
• Use of Artificial Intelligence, where productivity improvements may have been achieved, or not
• New roles and operational processes based on either of the above

Example Reporting Component. Inability to deliver new product by deadline due to expected longer duration to complete activities in most phases. Project team is not yet proficient in using tools recently rolled out and stakeholders have concerns over how the tools work. Issues may arise that cause delays. Impact: Medium  Likelihood: Medium Response/Mitigation: Continue team training on new tools. Support stakeholder familiarization sessions for new AI tools. Document delays due to new tools and report significant to project.

Prepare for a Compelling Presentation

The next step is to write up your team's preliminary risk analysis. Choose a format that is formal, but without full rigor of standard reporting for your organization. Treat this as a helpful communication to your sponsor to raise awareness of factors that put your deadline at risk. It is better than immediately moving to the week-to-week reporting granularity that does not really capture the work environment as a whole.

It's also important to communicate these risks early. It relieves some pressure on your team, and helps you achieve understanding and support when you need to make schedule adjustments, or when you hit previously mentioned delays. Finally, you just look like you are in control despite the chaos.