Dear project colleagues,
many know the situation. In the middle of a complex IT project running for several years one receives the sudden order to take over a leading position: initial chaos and overstrain by information overload, disorientation, time pressure due to expectation to keep the project running despite the ongoing orientation phase are the result.
How do you manage this situation? Which individual strategies did you develop despite different project requirements and despite project standards? Do you use checklist, project landscaoe, mind maps or other tools?
It would be nice if you could list up the first five steps you would choose to manage the first weeks and please recommend some checklist or other tools in order to get through the initial complexity.
Thanks a lot for your recommendations!!!
Ulrike Saving Changes...
I have been in this situation too..was asked to execute a Fixed Price project from the execution phase.The reason for the chaos was primarily due to lack of progress visibility to stakeholders and also lack of motivation for the team to achieve milestones. Below are the steps I took in the initial few weeks 1. Understand the project objectives,team and assess the current project situation 2. Steps to address the chaotic situation - come up with a status tracker-list of pending tasks,effort involved and planned start and end date , in consultation with the team(No luxury to use a nice tool) 3. Made changes to the weekly status report to provide better visibility on the current project status to stakeholders 4. Organised daily status meeting with the team to discuss the progress, risks ,hear the issues/blockers and also emphasized the importance to meet the milestones as a team 5. Worked to address team's issues by getting the necessary external support etc 6. Did daily catch-up call with customer team for few weeks to gain back their confidence Saving Changes...
