I just started a new internship as a PMO analyst, and was asked to submit a report on the quality assurance methodology and potential improvment.
What we are doing now is to conduct gate reviews when the projects reach certain key milestones, planning, requirement, developmnet, testing, etc. Just to check the key documents, to ensure that the project has the required documents before it moves to the next key phase. Beside, in the gate review meeting, we investigate five key elements( business case justification, planning, resources, communication, govenance) to see whether the project is on track or not, to see whether there are any new issues or risks that need to brought into the attention of the project sponsor.
Just wonder according to your experience, what are the bad things about this approcach? Are there any areas we can improve? or are there any project management tools/ quality management tools that I can implement? Personally I have thought about EVA( Earned Value Assessment), but obviously this is not enough..
Your suggestions are very much appreciated. Just give me some hints.. Saving Changes...
One of the learnings I had when first implementing a gate process was to ensure that the gate reviews were based on evidence. There was a temptation from some of the stakeholders involved in the reviews to take the word of the Project Manager that a particular item had been completed when in fact it was either incomplete or not fit for purpose e.g. we had a PM stating that the project plan was in place when, although it had been pulled together, the end date was 2 weeks after required delivery. The PM was claiming that this wasnt an issue and they'd "catch this up" going forwards, but as a result of the gate review, they were given a strict deadline to prove the project plan was viable and provide updated evidence.
That raises another point which is to recognise that some of the date requirements may not be met, but this may not be deemed sufficient to prevent the project from moving to the next stage. However, this needs to be managed closely and the relevant actions, owners and deadlines need to be documented / minuted after the gate meeting and tracked to ensure that they happen. You may wish to think about how you then report this e.g. on a RAG basis where Green = Passed Gate in full, Amber = Passed gate with caveats, Red = Failed gate.
When first implementing a new gate review / quality assurance process, we also completed a metrics deck to demonstrate how each project was performing which enabled us to determine key success / failure trends (e.g. always fail Initiation or always have poor quality on a particular type of project or with a particular project manager). This also allowed us to put in improvements and demonstrate how, over time, the performance at portfolio level started to improve as a result as teams became used to the process and became more adept at adhering to it. Saving Changes...
Hmm! yes I remember the gate reviews! such beaurocracy and paper pushing and generating more documents, too many meetings, do I have anything positive to say, frankly NO. More delays and more beaurocracy.. someone has made there bread and butter from introducing gate reviews! Saving Changes...
The gate reviews are not the place to bring new things to the attention of the sponsor. Actually I would make dead certain there are no surprises for the sponsor on a gate review byt making sure she is fully briefed before the board meeting.
What I found is that a lot of senior execs do not really know what their role is during a gate review. I have seen gate reviews where the PM was pushed aside and half of the C-suite started in a 3 hour factless planning binge before getting bored and handing the mess over to the PM again. This was not a very effective gate review.
From this perspective I would aim to influence the behavior of the review teams by providing them with a good, simple and focused governance process by having well organized and structured gate reviews. This way a regular meeting of half a dozen high level stakeholders can quickly deal with issues which are over the PM's head, evaluate the viability the project (immaterial if it is on track or off track) and review the big risks.
"But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown."
