Gordon AlexanderSenior Principal - Global Programme Director| IndepndentChelmsford, Essex, United Kingdom
Hi everyone, I thought I'd see if anyone has come across an effective way of managing the ripple effect.
For anyone not sure on what I mean here is a summary.
You are at your desk and at 10:27 you receive an email from an irate stakeholder stating that this is ridiculous and his project cant be delayed by 3 months it would miss its launch and we would be behind the competition, cc'd are the IT director and CIO, no mention of which project. Before you can respond and ask what he is talking about? emails start flying in from all over the place. Operations saying this cant be supported as they have limited resources etc..etc..etc… By the time you find out its now 11am and you go to look for the PM who ha just finished his weekly Project meeting with the stakeholders from all the areas. When asked what is going on he says he doesn't know yet an issue was raised in the meeting and he hasn't had time to look into it yet.
We spent the next few hours trying to see what the real issue was and what if anything could be done, while ducking around the irate stakeholders who want answers 2 hours ago. Worst case you end up infront of the CEO as this is one of the companies top priorities where he wants answers. The simple answer was (in one case) that after review the issue was not as disastrous as people made out, a delay in equipment arriving which was being delivered 3 months before it was required to ensure we had enough time to test and train people was delayed. Someone in the meeting sent an email to his boss with the raw details causing the ripple effect. Had he/she listened to the PM and waited until he had done a full review this would not have happened. The ripples kept going for a couple of weeks as people came back off holiday.
This is not a frequent occurence but does happen occasionally the usual culprit is someone who is on the peripherals of the project who reacts too quickly.
Things I've tried in the past:
Telling people this story at kick off meetings and how important it is to wait until the PM issues a statement.
Closed Project meetings with trusted people only.
Building trust with the key stakeholders, telling them this story and what to do if they hear of an issue that isn't communicated by the PM.
These all work to a certain extent and the Trust factor is the best mechanism, just wondering if anyone else has another way of stopping this from happening
