Project Management

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Anonymous
Where would you place your priorities when taking on an existing "in trouble" project. Budgets blown, way over schedule, undelivered deliverables, little adherence to process and a vendor that consistently reneges on promised dates/deliverables.

Assume there's no hand over from the existing PM, who is being "reassigned" externally.

Thanks.
ADE
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Mike Cooper PMP Principal Project Manager (retired, sort of)| New England Project Services Westford, Ma, United States
Although this may sound simplistic, whenever I was asked to turn around troubled projects (which was on several occasions) I just let three questions quide me:
1 Where are we?
2 Where do we need to be?
3 What do we need to do to get there?


Occasionally I consider a fourth question:
4 How did we get here?
But I usually set aside that root cause analysis for a later time. I try and stay very focused on how we should move forward rather than considering what happened in the past. And I try to get the team, management, customers, suppliers, all focused on moving forward.


Once you start to get these three questions answered, you can then focus on all the other activities to get buyin, key decisions made, plans set into motion, etc.


Also look for some short term deliverables that can demonstrate to everyone that the team is able to produce. This is a good confidence booster both for the project team and the external project stakeholders.


Good luck!

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Anonymous
This article might provide some inspriration:
http://www.cio.com/archive/121504/cio_turn.html


Its hard not to panic sometimes - but you need to take time to step back and work out what you're priorities are, taking a few days/weeks to do that will pay dividends very quickly. As Mike mentioned; working out how the project ended up in a mess is probably a discussion for a later day, but clarifying where things stand and making that communication to all stakeholders will assert that someone is now in control. Perhaps getting a few wins will boost the project team and start to get engagement from your sponsors.

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Mark Price Perry Business Driven PMO Evangelist| BOT International Orlando, Fl, United States
Dear Anonymous, your post is quite pertinent and the replies are also very good. I would only add that if it is possible, as part of the "handover" or lack of one, you might consider three things: 1) getting a confirmation of sponsor expectations and support, 2) re-baselining of the project, and 3) a meeting with the responsible manager of the vendor team to review contractually obligations, performance expectations, and remedies. I would also recommend watching Twelve O'Clock High, based on the true story of precision daylight bombing during WW2. This movie is widely used in Situational Leadership Training. Sounds like you have the opportunity to be the Gregory Peck character and exhibit your SL leadership "Style 1" skills. Best of luck! -- Mark Perry, VP of Customer Care, BOT International
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Mardee Bullock Parker, Co, United States
My suggestion would be that you treat this like a Project Recovery. Using the 'fresh start' theory, restart the project from the ground up. Dust off the scope document, make sure it's specific, measurable and complete (most likely it's not). Once you have a good handle on your scope, sit down with the team and walk through the project plan to get a clear idea of where you are. Then, with the team's help, rebuild the plan and re-estimate everything.

Sit down with the vendor and set new ground rules. Ask them to reassess their plan the same way as yours and walk through it with them in detail to evaluate dependencies and synch up the milestones.

Having worked on the vendor side most of my life, I understand that we have our share of blunders (there are a lot of bad vendors out there) but often our biggest problem to delivering on time and quality was that we couldn't nail down the customer on what they wanted.

Good luck. I've done several project recoveries and often been the third or fourth vendor on the scene after other vendors had failed. Most of the time, both the team and the vendor are relieved to have a fresh start. Apply the project management fundamentals (plan your work and work your plan) and you'll do fine.

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