Learning from a Project “Post-mortem”
For my blog posting this week, I will write about a project I worked on in the past as an ID that was not successful and did not result in the desired outcome. Once I reviewed and answered the questions on pages 42-43 of The Project Management Minimalist e-book, this gave me an opportunity to reflect upon the project and which areas were successful and those that were unsatisfactory. I will provide a brief summary of the project and answer the two questions outlined below.
This particular project involved a specific process that was going to be changing responsibility from one department to another. The department who was going to be taking on the responsibility needed to be trained on the new process, along with receiving step-by-step job aids for future reference. I worked directly with a SME in two different departments – operations and the department who was taking on the responsibility of the process. We held a project kick-off meeting and several meetings from the time of the project kick-off to the implementation of the project. Although the SMEs reviewed the training material and job aids several times throughout different phases of the project, the department who was taking on the responsibility raised concerns about the new process after it was implemented and the staff was trained. Ultimately, this caused re-work of the job aids, which took a significant amount of additional time and resources to complete.
Question #1: What contributed to the project’s success or failure?
The main area that contributed to the project’s failure was that all of the stakeholders, SMEs and individuals in my department were not on the same page when it came to the content of the process. Even though all parties held meetings and provided their approval of the process, there were requests made to have changes made during the implementation phase.
Question #2: Which parts of the PM process, if included, would have made the project more successful? Why?
The parts of the PM process which should have been included in order to make the project successful are the following:
1.
Estimate time, effort and resources (Greer, 2010): During the initial phases of the project, everyone
agreed upon this information. However, I believe the time, effort and resources
were underestimated for this particular project because the scope was not
properly identified and mapped out by the stakeholders.
2.
Handle scope changes (Greer, 2010): When the new department realized there were changes they
wanted made during the review of the materials, they should have let the team
know right away instead of waiting until the implementation phase. This could
have made a huge difference in the success of the project and allowed me to
properly handle the scope of the project in order to make the necessary adjustments
prior to the training of the staff.
Resources
Greer, M. (2010). The
project management minimalist: Just enough PM to rock your projects!
(Laureate custom ed.). Baltimore: Laureate Education, Inc.
2 comments:
I assume the overall project was successful in transferring the job duties but the failure was the additional work required to redevelop the job aids. Your project review identifies a problem with scope development. Portny et al (2008) identifies vague objectives and inaccurate work needs as common difficulties contributing to project failure. I wonder what might have been done differently to better identify the scope of the project. Did different or additional people need to be involved with the project planning?
What you are saying about communicating changing needs promptly makes sense but makes me wonder why they were not communicated. The purpose and benefit of performing a poet-project review is to identify problem areas so they can be avoided in the future (Russell, 2000). Identifying why changes were not promptly communicated will provide information on how to avoid the problem the next time.
References
Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. (2008). Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Russell, L. (2000). Project management for trainers. Alexandria, VA: ASTD Press.
Thank you Dan, you provided a great analysis as well. Yes, there was definitely a problem with scope development. One area in which I believe could have helped to improve the project was to develop a project charter. This would have ensured the project was not outside of the scope and we could have referred back to the document, even during the implementation phase. I agree that communication is definitely the key to a successful project!
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