Hi - The project I'm managing now is behind the schedule and the team has come into agreement to postpone the deadline. I am a new PM so any tips in communication to project sponsor and customer would be very helpful. It's be very helpful if anyone has any written samples! Thanks in advance! Saving Changes...
The first thing would be to make sure you uderstand 'the bad news' to the extent that you can offer alternatives. Why is the project behind schedule? (scope change, deadline change, understaffed team, underskilled team, tardy vendors, etc...) What are the trade-offs that will help you recover lost ground? (scale back scope, authorize overtime, alternative designs, and so on.) Is the team *really* in charge of the deadline? Isn't that the customer's call? Saving Changes...
Anon. I agree with Scott Kinney. Understanding how you got here is a big part of the news. Management needs to know what action they can take to fix this situation.
It has often been my task to take over troubled projects. In doing so I've learned that the issues effecting a project can 99% of the time be lumped into one three categories. These shouldn't come as a suprise but people often lose perspective of these common issues when confronting the details of the project.
1. Unmanaged Scope Change.
2. Poor quality of previous deliverables. All the way back to the project input documents, conversations, or charter and of course the Work Break Down Structure.
3. Poor personel management. Either over loaded employees, underskilled employees, or frankly poor performers assigned to key rolls.
Group your findings in these three catagories, so you can determine which has had the bigest impact. Deliver this information along with the news on the project performance. Also, from one PM to another, don't commit to any new time frames until you have a clear understanding of a plan and how you will not suffer from these same issues going forward. Keep the project RED until you have confidence in your plan. Going back to RED later will be much worse than keeping it RED until you have a plan you can believe in. If you don't believe that the company will address the causes of the projects issues they should be expected to continue. Make sure you project schedule reflects this.
Additionally, a comment you made gave me reason to pause. You said, "the team has come into agreement to postpone the deadline." The date you can complete the project is not determined by agreement. It is determined by an analysis of the work to be done, quality to which that work is done, and capability of the team. They either can hit the deadline or they can't. Either way you can through project planning and tracking predict fairly early in a project whether the team can hit the date or not.
Saving Changes...
Mark Price PerryBusiness Driven PMO Evangelist| BOT InternationalOrlando, Fl, United States
Dear Anonymous, I quite agree with Mr. Kester and Mr. Kinney. I would only add two observations for your consideration. First, there is no such thing as bad news, only facts. Good news and bad news are used for people who manage by hope and prayer. Facts are used by people who seek to manage by process. This leads to my second observation, you need written examples of how to communicate bad news to your project sponsor and customer like you need a hole in your head. The mere fact that you are looking for an example speaks to the fact that you don't have one which also suggests that you don't have a process or a very good one. Effective project management and communication between you, your team, your project sponsor, and the customers is far more than a template or a style. Like Mssrs. Kester and Kinney, I too read into your comments "...the team has come into agreement to postpone the deadline..." and "...tips in communication to project sponsor and customer would be very helpful..." The decision to postpone deadlines is not a project team decision and one would hope it is based upon a proper analysis, review with the client, and schedule update approval a not just a gut feel date. Likewise, communicating to the sponsor and customer should be a matter of process, not style or technique. Having said all of this, I commend you for your insight into the problem that you now face and for your taking time to research ideas and options. Well done. As for what to do, I would turn my attention to the process. "Fix the process, and you fix the problem." (Deming) Best of luck! -- Mark Perry, VP of Customer Care, BOT International Saving Changes...
Greetings - I am also new to Project Management and I find Mr. Perry's response interesting.
You mention that there is no such thing as bad news. Just to make sure I'm understnding this properly...
Are you suggesting that project sponsors will not view a delay as bad news? Or that a properly informed sponsor will be part of the decision to delay? Or at the very least, the decision to delay will not come as a surprise?
Of course, we may be talking about a recomendation to delay, rather than a decision, since it's customers/sponsors that really set deadlines anyway. Thanks,
GDS Saving Changes...
Mark Price PerryBusiness Driven PMO Evangelist| BOT InternationalOrlando, Fl, United States
Dear Greg, my previous post was a bit net, thanks for addressing this topic further. And yes, I am suggesting that a project sponsor would not view the "facts" of the project as "bad news". But first, let me suggest that it is the project sponsor, customer, or project approval authority, like Mr. Kinney notes, (not the project manager or the project team) that is the decision maker with respect to changes to the project scope, schedule, and budget. So, the premise that a project sponsor will be told of a decision to delay his project is problematic. Likewise, the notion that the sponsor will be "part" of the decision to delay is also problematic. The sponsor is the decision making authority for the decision to delay, not "part" of it. Should a project risk event occur beyond the project manager's ability to mitigate within the project plan baseline, the project manager, as Mr. Kester notes, through analysis makes a determination of what can be done. Alternatives could include a number of options. Schedule change, or project delay, is just one of them. In terms of the triple constraints - quality, time, and cost - also referred to in a project management process context as - scope, schedule, and budget; there could be a number of alternatives for the sponsor's consideration. Perhaps, to keep the project on schedule, the sponsor is willing to approve actions that would result in a budget change or a scope change. Again, these decisions are the sponsor's decisions to make, not the project manager or the project team. And yes, such decisions if made by the project manager or project team would come as a surprise to the sponsor. The bigger surprise would be that of the project manager's, once the project sponsor has an opportunity to "chat" with him. But getting back to my comment that you found interesting, "there is no such thing as bad news..." as I mentioned before, good news and bad news are used for people who manage by hopes, prayers, and excuses. For those that seek to manage by process, whether PMI's or another, projects are planned taking risks into consideration, executed and controlled according to a mutually agreed to project management process rather than ad hoc, and over the course of the project effort sponsors are kept informed of the progress of the project (via the communications process) and in the event of project difficulties the sponsors are able to make project decisions. In this light, the project manager doesn't present "good news or bad news", rather he manages the project. The more complex the project, the more likely it is to encounter project risk events. Risk planning by the project manager serves to identify and mitigate such risks. Let's say a project manager learns that a supplier will be two weeks late in delivering a server required for the project. Vendor delivery schedules sometimes slip, hence they represent a risk that can be anticipated and mitigated. So, is the sponsor unhappy with the "project manager" on account of the "fact" that the vendor delivery schedule has slipped? Probably not. Is this bad news? I would contend, no, rather it is a fact. Now, has the project manager planned for this risk? And is the project manager able to mitigate it or present alternatives for the sponsor's consideration? If no, then is the sponsor a little unhappy with the project manager? Probably yes. Hence, my point is that rather than focusing on ways to communicate or spin "bad news" to the project sponsor, a project manager might be better served by focusing on adoption, use, and continuous improvement on the organization's project management processes and best practices. Hope this helps. Cheers. -- Mark Perry, VP of Customer Care, BOT International Saving Changes...
Dear Anonymous...Great question which deserves a couple of tips. Tip 1. Relationship management.. Develop a healthy relationship with all project stakeholders, especially the client and/or project owner. This will help them accept your credibility when passing on good or bad news. Spend some time regularly, socialising with stakeholders. A cup of coffee is a cheap investment in a sound professional relationship Tip 2. Flag issues in advance.. Use risk management and issue management processes proactively to keep all stakeholders appraised of likely future impacts. Tip 3. Promote a forward-looking governance team.. Project steering meetings should spend a minimum of time on review of current status. This can be achieved if there is a valid expectation that all meeting participants have read and understood the basic status metrics prior to convening. This means that the bulk of a project meeting can be spent on looking at future issues, risks and log jams; looking for solutions and workarounds to these. This is a lot more productive than pondering the past. Regards, David Hudson, Brisbane, Australia Saving Changes...
