Project/Program Management Extra Steps series, Part 1

The objective of this series of blogs to talk about the extra step / out of box thinking /common sense/extra cheese topping used by Project, Program, Portfolio and PMO to make the dramatic change in situation. I would be taking up real life scenarios either experienced by myself or as I used as consultation to other programs.

Today being the first part of this series and I am taking up very interesting scenario which falls under Communication Management. We all know this is one of the most critical area as when we talk of IT projects, its mostly interactions with human beings.

Background : A large SI is executing projects for a APAC customer. The account is in category of 3P ( triple platinum ) indicating direct monitoring by Top management. Multiple projects(support, development, enhancement) are being executed and team size goes in many hundreds too.Teams comprising of diverse cultures and are operating from different geographies. There are numerous PMs/Prgm M governed/mentored by a team of PMO which is central to engagement. The relationship with client and vendor swings up and down. Also most of the team members are used to work under fire mode.

Scenario : Every week end, PMO collates a status report for top management. Delivery timings , content and quality of report is quite critical to this engagement. There are frequent audits carried internally by Client and any deviation with actual to reported status is treated a severe compliance issue and can lead to legal action against vendor. For collation, the practice is that PMO sends out mails to find out status from respective PMs. Last week one of the PM didn't not receive the mail because the PMO mistakenly used the old id ( email id for this resource was changed due to some issue).There was couple of follow up emails( mentioning very clearly that no response means , no progress during last month) on that, but these mails too were directed to incorrect ID. Please note PM is not at all aware of this as he is not receiving any communication.

Analysis : PMO is frustrated that there has been no response even after escalation and finally concluded that there was no progress during last month. On the other side PM is too busy with project and has taken for guaranteed that no communication from PMO means no status report this week. This resulted in a gap in reporting as project couldnot communicate a critical issue to Top management as well as it missed out to provide details of deliverables made in reporting week. Next week unfortunately the project was selected for client Audit and this gap surfaced out and loud. This made vendor situation very tough as it there were series of apologies. 

I believe these kind of situations are very common in large engagements(which requires lots of collaboration) or during the times things are on fine(the priorities are different). In above situation , seems like the communication plan was not updated, also not planned well during planning phase.

My 2 cents : Any mature Project management professional can propose numerous solutions  like to have updated communication plan, process for making sure plans are updated and communicated, strict SLA behind every official communication, central project repository , automation of status report creation etc etc. Above recomendations are  must from process point of view, however one can again caught up in situation like this. 

Now lets talk about the extra step , I believe, just a single call from PMO to PM could have averted this situation. These kind of extra steps requires very less physical effort however requires a big change of attitude. So guys, whenever responses are not as per expectations, dont just stick to what age old good process says, simply pick up the phone/ visit the respective person. This will surely make life easier and act as stepping stone for project success. 


regards, Ajay