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What To Do When Taking Over a Large Project
July 15, 2010 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Project Management Guides
What To Do When Taking Over a Large Project
By Vaughn Smith
A project manager is given a project that is already underway. It is large with a high profile in the company. Success on the project could translate into significant career advancement for the project manager. Of course, the opposite is true as well. If the project manager can’t do a good job, then many negative consequences are possible.
The first step is to analyze the project. Why did you get it? What happened to the previous project manager? How large is the project, the current status, time lines and size of the team? These are basic project parameters that must be investigated. If the previous project manager was fired, you need to know why, especially if it concerned negligence on your new project. What else has changed in the scope, budget or schedule of the project? You must quickly analyze the strengths and weaknesses of this project. Document them and do further research when time permits.
You must also consider if you have adequate time to perform the project management duties for this project. If you are still expected to work on your prior duties, then you may have a major problem. The new project could easily take a lot of your time, especially in the beginning. When you honestly look at your existing workload and add the new project to it, what will your new workload be? You can’t be expected to add a new 20 hour or more per week project to your existing 40 hour work week. If this looks like the case, then you have to get help from management.
Take your workload projections to management and show them your quantified analysis. It is their job to assign priorities to your work. You can do a lot but not everything. They can give you authority to suspend some of your activities, assign additional staff to assist you or re-assign some work to others. If you present a thorough workload analysis to management, they will help you for the good of your projects. If not, then seriously consider that you may fail in some or all aspects of your current position.
Assuming that you have a reasonable workload as you take on the new project, now what? With the support of your management, you can now boost the importance of your project. Even if it is deemed to be critical, there are things you should do. Meet with the project sponsor right away. Introduce yourself, (if necessary), and explain what you have already learned about his project. Show that you understand the importance to the sponsor. Try to gauge the sponsor’s interest and boost it as much as you can. Your sponsor is the project’s biggest asset. If possible, try to get the sponsor’s boss to understand and support the project. Whatever you can do to increase the project profile in the organization will help you to gain or keep resources you need, which ultimately helps to ensure that your project will succeed.
With the workload and sponsor support issues covered, then you will be in a strong position to actually deliver the project. Keep communications open to your management and the project sponsor. Keep the team motivated and productive. Do what you can to make the project successful. Keep good executive and sponsorship support for a project by doing your job well and keeping everyone informed. This is absolutely vital. Of course, you can later leverage your success by showing the executives how you helped them during the completion of this critical project. Taking over a project is a risky proposition but a good project manager can become great by following simple steps and getting the job done right.
Vaughn is a PMP certified project manager. He also is certified in procurement and contract management. His background of 25 years in the technical and project management field includes work for government, transportation, financial, medical and other industries. During his programming career, he used about 15 languages, 6 operating systems and 5 database engines. His primary focus now is project management and the improvement of various aspects of it. He particularly concentrates on documentation of lessons learned. Vaughn runs a professional project management website, http://www.PracticalPMJournal.com
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3 people have left comments
Hello Vaughn,
You brought up two very important questions that people taking over large projects don’t seem, in my opinion, to ask themselves:
Why did you get it? - Was it because it was failing miserably, nobody else wanted it, and it was dumped on you to take the fall? Or was it because you were the one entrusted to saving it? Is it destined to fail or not?
What happened to the previous project manager? Did he/she quit because it was doomed? Did the project manager get fired (a question that popped into my mind before I saw you included it) or quit the company?
My question to you is, what happens when the PM takes its over-burdened workload to upper management and gets no help in response, and instead is told to make it happen no matter what? I don’t think this is a rarity in this economy, and I think there are companies that were operating like that before the recession. Your thoughts?
Laura
Steelray Software
Vaughn, great article. I would do some more steps.
1. Analyze what was wrong with the project itself.
When a project manager is fired, it is often because there are things that go wrong in the project: some stakeholders’ interests were not taken into account, problems with resources, budget, schedule and other project requirements. Therefore, I would ask not only about the fired project manager, but also about the root causes for something wrong with the project.
2. Engage with project team.
If you are a new project manager who takes over the project from the other project manager, usually the project team’s morale is low, and there may be some sorts of barrier between you and project team members. You should overcome any obstacles with your project team as soon as possible to get the most of your people. You can do it through interviewing them about what they think about this project, what they consider to be wrong, what their suggestions are etc. By this you show that you are really with the project team, respect them and you are interested in carry out the project successfully.
Son Nguyen
http://pmreviews.org
I would also add that a review of the communications is mandatory. If things have not been going well prior to you taking this project on, you can bet the comms behind it was just as bad. Review the scope and deliverables and make sure these are agreed by all stakeholders and suppliers.