Mudassar KhanProgram (Project )Manager| Woodward Canada IncPeterborough, ON, Canada
The purpose of a project is to advance one or more business objectives. Most projects start out closely aligned with these objectives, but gaps inevitably appear. Projects drift and business objectives change and evolve. Without redirection, projects and deliverables end up failing to meet expectations.?
How to overcome this issue? Saving Changes...
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Eric SimmsSenior Program ManagerBaltimore, Maryland, United States
I encounter this problem frequently in my current position. I think one of a PM’s jobs is to keep stakeholders focused on why a project is being done. Each stakeholder has personal interests in projects, and often these interests aren’t the stated business objectives. These separate interests can cause stakeholders to construct a false impression of a project’s business objectives that differs significantly from the official business objectives. This can cause project drift and stakeholder disappointment with deliverables, though the project met all its stated objectives.
A PM has to herd stakeholders back to the project’s original objectives, and this is often sufficient to keep the project on track. However if enough stakeholders feel the project’s objectives truly need to be changed, then the proper steps can be taken to do so. Saving Changes...
S RajasekarSenior Project Manager| AllscriptsBangalore, Karnataka, India
this happens because lack of clarity in business objective , Need to have right leadership ,feasibility study and market analysis should be done to come up with clear and right business objective. Without that people create business plan with subjective goals and with high level details which fails often Saving Changes...
Mudassar KhanProgram (Project )Manager| Woodward Canada IncPeterborough, ON, Canada
thank you guys for your kind response :) Saving Changes...
I was going to make a comment about agile (the manifesto and supporting principles, NOT one of the many flavors of agile), but if you go back to the original document that described processes that have come to be known as Waterfall, it included feedback loops and communication/coordination with key stakeholders.
If you want to maintain a minimal/negligible gap between what is expected and what is being delivered, you need frequent/regular communication, a change management process that everyone follows, and your stakeholders need regular access to what is being delivered before you put a bow on it.
If you've been in project management more than a few months, you've most likely delivered what was requested/documented only to be told the delivered product isn't what was wanted. If you can't get feedback before you deliver product, deliver it as a pilot with the expectation that you will receive feedback and make changes to make it a better product. Set that expectation from the beginning.
I will admit, I have done this and had a very negative experience in the sense of the response I received when product was delivered. I could look at this as a failure, but it did two things for me. 1) It gave me more insight into the organization I was dealing with, that has since helped me in later dealings with them. 2) It kept me from spending a lot of time delivering a product to multiple organizations that may have responded the same way. I had a small failure I was able to recover from, instead of a reputation destroying failure. Saving Changes...
A series of checkpoints, similar to what is part of PRINCE2. Where the project report, it can be stop or what is required/decided by the organisation. Saving Changes...
Igor ZdorovyakDirector of Projects| ImmunovantFair Lawn, Nj, United States
Hi Mudassar,
It's important to have weekly stakeholders meetings. To make sure that project is doing what it supposed to do. At an executive meetings evaluation of projects should continue. Regarding do those project still provide relevant value to the business or solve the needed for which they were intended for. Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
Project objectives are the meassure to project success. Project objectives must be defined from business objectives. What you state, when you analyze that, most of the times are incorrect project objectives defined. For example, you can find lot of project objectives like this: "grow 5% in market share in the currect year". Totally wrong becauser you could achieve that thanks the product/service/restult but not thanks to the project so it must not be a project objective. That is all you have to take care about. The PMI has made a great work on that to clarify this in the next PMBOK version. I was part. Saving Changes...
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