Project Management

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Have you ever been in a project situation where you were dependent on a resource that you knew that could not complete the deliverables? If so, what were your mitigation strategies?

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Jason A Gonzalez Director of PMO| Chumash Enterprises Santa Barbara, Ca, United States
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Keith Novak Tukwila, Wa, United States
The situation Vijay describes is not-preferred but not unheard of. If there is a problem with the engineering definition found in production, an engineer might literally hand mark (redline) a printout with red and blue pencils to make changes right on the paper. That get scanned into the system to vault the engineering and a -1 part might become a -1R with the part number on the physical part changed with a Sharpie. The electronic updates to the CAD file would happen later.

This can have major downsides. The definition of certain things becomes the electronic version, plus some handwritten notes that are easy to miss when trying to support the product after delivery.

There is added cost involved and it is often used as an exception. When those exceptions happen too often, it is easy to lose configuration control
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Peter Rapin Subject Matter Expect; Project Delivery| Independent Consultant Ontario, Canada
Oct 18, 2022 1:04 PM
Replying to Vijay Suryavanshi
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Engineering is complete in the form of redlines issued to Manufacturing. It gets updated and released in the electronic system slowly as many changes pile up together.
As I see it you are entering a different phase of the project - the product has been delivered but effort is still being applied. It happens in the infrastructure industry as well where occupancy is provided but deficiencies continue to be addressed. Maybe this is unavoidable, but it needs to be controlled. In some cases, it may be a quality management issue where "we'll fix it later" becomes the response of the day.

If the post-delivery adjustments/changes are unavoidable there have to be targets and control mechanisms in place. With infrastructure construction we tend to apply 97% rule-of -thumb for 'substantial' complete with reasonable time (weeks, months depending on project complexity) defined for 100%. Warrantee period starting at 100% (not 97%). This phase should be recognized and acknowledge in the Project Charter.

I worry about a project bleeding to death - team disbanded/re-assigned, budget thin if any and interest/motivation diminished.
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Thomas Walenta Global Project Economy Expert Hackenheim, Germany
Vijay,

yes, it is a typical situation.

First, it has not to be due to a deficit or mistake on the resource side. He/she is probably unhappy about the situation, as you are. A good leader would ensure this person is not blamed, stigmatised or even punished.

Second, there are as many mitigation strategies as there are possible root causes:
- bad estimates
- lack of skills
- suboptimal resource assignment
- faulty/lacking prerequisites (as discussed in this threat design documents)
- low team trust/collaboration

And third, mitigation actions I have taken were
- coach the individual, reduce anxiety, close skill gaps
- assign a second SME with experience to help them jumpstart (get temporary help but if possible keep them in charge)
- make sure they get team support (assigning/alerting team champions)
- solve the problem/root cause (probably by others), if necessary have workarounds to meet milestones
- in 40+ years, I only removed a SME once from the project, as a last resort and obviously failing as a leader (well, some left by themselves)

Thomas
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Sergio Luis Conte Helping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based Organizations Buenos Aires, Argentina
If you know this in advance then you have to raise a risk. Beyond that you have to talk with her/him to understand why this behavor and find alternatives.
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Latha Thamma reddi Sr Product and Portfolio Management (Automation Innovation)| DXC Technology Mckinney, Tx, United States
Good read
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