Dedicated to Project, Client Management (Wiki re-designed October 2009...)
Sharing Lessons Learned
What worked
- Having a team kick off before the project was too far down the road allowed everyone to get on the same page and get to know each other
- Having meeting minutes, regular status reports and team members be accountable for meeting their dates.
- Instituting a steering committee
- Communication: using ADKAR (Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, Reinforcement) principles to draft each communication piece
- Setting up an effective Change Management System for the project. Engineers could not entertain changes in scope without the Project Manager's written approval
- Keeping effective track of contingencies and growth in the system
- Setting definitive communication guidelines for the project, preferably a project communication plan. This may be a part of the Project Plan
- Identifying project stakeholders on a power/interest grid (also referenced in PMBOK). Identify the key influencial stakeholders, and keep them abreast, happy and informed
- Finding out strengths and task preferences of team members. People work best when they're pursuing their passions and the level of productivity is amazing.
- Managing risk like one's life depended on it
- Preparing a Project Charter, getting it signed from the sponsor and circulating it to all other stakeholders
What didn't work
- Not having a structured release plan. Requirements kept changing every week making it difficult to contain scope.
- Project Scope was not frozen early enough
General Lessons Learned (Uncategorized)
- Never assume requirements, support, resources availability etc - always confirm and then reconfirm because circumstances change.
- Do not underestimate technical complexity
- Have a sound system in place that provides the Project Manager full access/view to all charges hitting the project (in real time)
- Understand the positive and negative impacts associated with client and supplier governance arrangements. Many projects fail as a result of poor governance.
- Don't assume that the client knows exactly what they want. Use prototyping and user labs to reduce expectation misalignments.
- Top down support is key to the success of a major project. Ideally, get your executive sponsor to introduce you and lend their support at your kick-off meeting
- Good change management is important, especially on projects that fundamentally change how people work
- In a large or even a small unfamiliar organization, beg, borrow or steal an org chart of stakeholders. You just never know when you'll need it.
- The number of changes are exponential to the length of the project (or, at least it appears that way)
- Communication, communication and communication
- Never freeze contract in terms of finance, especially for fixed cost project, before the scope of the project (or statement of work) is signed off
- Brief key stakeholders on bad or unexpected news as early as possible (and preferably in person, not be e-mail)
- Don't underestimate the impact of politics as the organizational structure gets more complex. This can significantly impeed progress as delays are caused by trying to reach consensus
- Ensure information available in the system databases is of the highest quality, otherwise systems integration issues can arise in the future
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