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Be a Realistic Project Manager

February 22, 2009 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Project Management Best Practices

Be a Realistic Project Manager (#3 in the series Practical Best Practices for Infrastructure Projects)
By Natasha Mocke

Now that sounds silly. It is a project and you have to be realistic. Unfortunately often this is not the case. There are a few things that we think are simple at the outset of a project, that simply end up derailing the project, and most especially the project schedule.

  • Understand the real risks. Don’t outsource problems that cannot be resolved internally. Most often the problems I’m referring to here relate to internal politics, budget, management boundaries and business complexities. Put simply, if you don’t have buy-in from key stakeholders for your project and you don’t have the budget to do it, it is unlikely you’ll find an external organization that can navigate the business complexities and also be cheap enough to solve your budget woes. Good consulting organizations can often help with one, but that will generally come at the expense of the other. Good resources are simply not cheap, but they’re often more politically astute.

  • Understand your IT Rhythm of of the Business. Most large business have a IT lifecycle they adhere to. This includes budget and planning cycles, upgrade cycles, change request windows and freeze periods. In setting deadlines it is critical organizations consider these time periods when they start setting project deadlines. Do it up front. Don’t suddenly be surprised by an external organization challenging your deadlines because you didn’t plan up front. It really is not their fault.

  • Understand what you bring to the project. Your chosen supplier will be very dependent on internal staff contributions from your organization. This may be something as simple as input into workshops or document sign-offs, or more complex like working day to day with your project management office, depending on your company for procurement or for decisions that materially affect the project. In all cases these are critical dependencies for moving to the next phase of the project delivery. You will need to ensure the right people in your organization view the project with the right level of priority in order that you meet your project success criteria. It is far harder for external organizations to work with companies whose project sponsor is incapable of driving the right behaviour internally.

  • Avoid asking for extras before the job is done. The ‘how about we do this and that’ conversation really needs to occur when all parties are satisfied the initial project objectives are going to be met. I often sit with customers who suddenly see the potential of what they’re implementing and then want more from it straight away. It’s an exciting time, and it’s wonderful to see the enthusiasm, but it’s also important to remember what has been contracted and that the additional work you’re requesting translates to project scope creep. Scope creep often entails more time, more budget and more resources. Scope creep discussions also often delay work in progress. Be careful, and expect to pay more at a minimum. Responsible consulting organizations will often point this out, but it rarely reaches a willing ear.

Natasha is a Pre-Sales Architect for Infrastructure and Business Productivity applications and systems. She has worked at a major software vendor for more than 10 years, in a number of consulting and delivery management positions, including Service Line Architect for a period of 4 years. She has more than 18 years of experience working with her customers to design and implement solutions in these areas and is primarily focussed on security, virtualization, messaging and management architectures. She is a Microsoft Certified Architect: Infrastructure, and was one of the first Microsoft Certified System Engineers in the world.

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