Project Management

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Moving the elephant project? suggestions?

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DORA LUZ Mejia CEO| IT Explore Envigado, Antioquia, Colombia
I have been in some large and difficult projects that challenge myself. somethimes I feel I cannot doit and feel really disapointed about the profession. It happens when you see the project at the same point, the vendor is having a lot of troubles with quality, but still is promising that the project is not going to move the date!! and the team is feeling that you as a project manager are not doing nothing to change the situation. have you felt as an elephant that you cannot move? any resilence tips?
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Eric Isom Owner| learn.pmguaranteed.com Ut, United States
Jun 03, 2019 7:46 PM
Replying to Eric Isom
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Go ahead and post some specific challenges. We may be able to provide some useful suggestions.
Is there anyone in procurement or with procurement experience that can help you get control of the vendors?
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Riad Alhammoud Project management| Langan Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
This happens when you have a market challenge like you don't have many specialist vendors in the market and tight budget for the project so you are forced to accept the bidder even if with poor Prequalification and for sure the project will be messy.
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Stephanie Willis Project Specialist / Data Analyst| US Tech Solutions Lawrence, Ks, United States
Jun 05, 2019 3:43 PM
Replying to George Freeman
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Dora,

From a practical standpoint, when you encounter alignment issues in a project (i.e., different groups having different opinions on the same subject) and you as the PM are unable to get your hands around the problem, then it’s normally time to call a “check point”.

You need everyone physically or virtually in the same room, so you can “challenge out” the state of the project. You should ask all the leads to come prepared to present their status and issues in a presentation which they will send to you ahead of time, so that you can put everything into a nice clean stack.

This action creates accountability as they know they will be questioned by you and others. The end result of this checkpoint meeting should be “alignment” or “visibility of the issues which are bringing concern.”

Every now and then, a heightened level of accountability is needed to keep things on track!
Indeed and those statuses where there is an issue, we should be challenging them to also be prepared with actions they are taking or preparing to take to get on track and keep things moving.

An example might be, when responsible parties think it's enough just to say "...yeah, we've run into some issues with a supplier." I would ask, "What are we doing to gain or maintain momentum? Do we have an alternate supplier that can supply us now? Do we have enough material to carry us through this phase, etc." (or something along those lines)? Action items, and deadlines are often useful.

Maybe a high level meeting of expectations and ground rules would be advantageous. I think that is part of the communication strategy/planning.

*I'm new to project mgt, and currently in a certification program at the college so these forums are a good way for me to formulate critical thinking skills around the topic since I am not yet operating as a project manager. I am on the project management team at my company, however; and I have managed projects before (informally).*
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