George LewisProgram/Project Manager| DXC Technology CompanyHeredia, Costa Rica
Former PM has left the organization, his project has been transfered over to you, there is no time for filling the initiation gaps or filling missing planning steps and you're in the middle of the execution, with no budget room to manuver.
What do you do in order to manage the project with all PMI Standards that former PM did not complete?
Do you continue and forget about incomplete standards? You can't go-over your budget...
Rember, sponsor won't alway care about standards and will asume that both project managers are doing their work 100% efficiently. Saving Changes...
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George LewisProgram/Project Manager| DXC Technology CompanyHeredia, Costa Rica
There could be a number of ideal responses, but if you stick to reality, what would you do? Saving Changes...
Pier Luigi CalabriaProject Manager| INFORM Institut für Operations Research und Management GmbH, Aachen, GermanyAachen, Germany
Manuals say "start from the risk register", in case you have one....
Ok, let's assume that you don't have anything, you should consider for sure that at the beginning (some weeks) you need to learn and get the status, you might not do any deliveries at all.
Is the Project Team the same left by the former PM? If so, it may be a bit easier: -.- meet the Sponsor asap first, ask him all about scope, time and cost (his expectations), including his worries -.- meet the Project Team, preferably in person -.- clarify your role and your responsibility -.- inform that you need to get them instructing you about the status and the proposed way forward -.- ask your Team and the Sponsor about the main stakeholders -.- go to the stakeholders one by one, introduce yourself and ask what most worries them, what do they expect from you (behaviorally and also project wise) -.- start putting all the inputs you get on any blank sheet -.- start thinking about scope -.- start thinking about activities, sequence and rough time plan -.- start to costify your plan roughly -.- fill-in an initial risk register -.- iterate -.- establish recurrent Team, Sponsor and Stakeholders meeting
Having done so, you may be already in a good position to start doing your job.
You can't stop the project, so you get up to speed as quickly as you can while moving the project forward. At the same time, you identify any gaps and incorporate their resolution into the project using appropriate change management techniques. Saving Changes...
Identify challenges/risks in the project first. Highlight the risks in status reporting. Though sponsor believe that PMs would do their work, but would always look for mitigating the risks involved. By sharing correct status and risks, you are bringing transparency.
Then you can explore options for budget, risk mitigation and bringing project on track. If possible try to add a technical debt sprint where you can buy some time for completing processes, documents and tracking schedule and implement corrective actions. Saving Changes...
Abu Haidar Mohammad GhaniAssistant General Manager, Project Management and Customer Support| Vintage ITDhaka, Bangladesh
1. Meet the sponsor
2. Know the status of the project
3. Build your team and attune with the project status and move forward plan
4. Start from addressing the remaing risks Saving Changes...
Richard FirthSenior Project Manager| University of LeicesterMarket Harborough, Leicestershire, United Kingdom
Agree with all the above.
-Meet with sponsor, flag and record the issues
-Have a re-planning session with the team to gauge their understanding of the work and check the timescales are still realistic
-Crack on and try to fill in any gaps in documentation if you have time Saving Changes...
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