Rick MorrisOwner / President| R2 Consulting, LLCHoover, Al, United States
I have been working on a theory of the myth of the mandated date. Outside of true mandates, such as regulatory or activity driven, how many mandated dates do you feel are without merit? For example, as we work with organizations and dive in to the data of a failed project, we ask, "Was the date mandated?" The answer is yes. When we asked who is responsible for the mandate, we are unable to find anyone that will reveal that he or she is the person and why the date was mandated. We are seeing situations where middle management hears an Executive state that they would like it to be done in the third quarter. Middle management then passes the information as it must be done by the third quarter. The project team then works to the mandate and when things go wrong, the date is the prevailing factor. When you go back to the Executive and ask if the third quarter was mandated, the answer is no. In our practice, a mandated date must be followed by who, when, and why it is mandated. You will be surprised how many mandates go away when this occurs! Saving Changes...
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Dinah YoungProject Manager / Software Asset Manager| Prince William CountySpringfield, Va, United States
I have seen this often. The most frustrating part is that the team will kill themselves to meet a mandate, but the customer will not be ready to actually use the product for several months. In some cases it has been years.
We are in the process of setting up a PMO to assist the teams and keep this from happening again in the future.
We are engaging the executive management to sign off on the Charter and the Project Management Plan. Then any true mandates will be known up front and negotiated appropriately. Any dates set by middle management will be discussed.
It is amazing how many dates are shifted from "I need this right away" to "Oh 6 months will work for me" when they realize that their team needs to perform tasks as well for the project to be successful. For example, we were approached about doing a pilot project for a group. This was a very important project to ensure the safety of personnel. The project was going to need participants in 3 different roles. The customer could not find enough participants and the ones they found only were in the one role. When we told them that we could not proceed, it was no longer an important project and the entire thing was cancelled. Saving Changes...
This applies to all constraints - make sure they are real and not just perceived. You are absolutely correct that in many cases, there is flexibility that we can tap into if we have the courage to ask...
Kiron Saving Changes...
Meade RubensteinPM III| IT Project GuideSparta, Nj, United States
I agree with Kiron, it applies to scope, costs, etc. A mandate is often another term for target and a good PM should provide feedback to all 'mandates' as to their impact on costing, other projects and impact to risk levels...those discussions usually level set the true 'mandates'. Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
Is not a problem for me. I take the date as fixed and I work to plan all the rest from that date. For example, the scope. Saving Changes...
