In this article we will deal with the stage when the project manager loses the compass and is required to return to the beginning of the axes, the stage when we realize that if we do not freeze a situation and reset ourselves we may find ourselves losing precious time, a lot of money and the moment of success in the project (statistically about 70% of projects meet rocks and some even fail and do not reach their end).
More than once we found ourselves developing additional muscles while moving and in fact deviating from the initial program, the same program in which we cast the vision, we formulated concepts of structure and operation which allowed us to go into optimal planning with the office of architects.
Unfortunately life is stronger than anything and the unexpected befalls us time and time again, which inevitably forces us to make continuous situation assessments on every issue that besets us in project management challenges. A contemporary situation assessment and the mention of returning to the zero points, will help to return the project to the original track, without losing too much momentum or at least remind us why we set out and where we would like to meet the project in the end.
This approach tries to enable the desire for originality, innovation and the desire to influence the success of the project in positive terms (with an emphasis on long-term projects) but comes with a high risk profile because the milestones in the project are constantly being reopened and sometimes these are the background noises that divert us from the track.
From our experience at Dviewsion in managing long-term projects, we must stick to a number of principles in the project management routine that will inevitably help us bring the project to a safe conclusion:
Initiate a meeting of intra-organizational entrepreneurs at the level of managers who have an affinity for the vision and a direct influence on the project once a quarter/halfway for the purpose of cutting the situation, the following are the main highlights of this meeting:
- Host the forum in a different and different place other than the workplace.
- The pace is long enough for the benefit of the meeting, at least 3-4 hours.
- Prepare a focused presentation with clear objectives that will form the basis for brainstorming.
- Make sure there is a clear visual summary for the continuation of the project which will be a goal for the next meeting.
- Issue an orderly summary and make sure that all the partners in the project understand the deviations required in the project as a clear compass for the next quarter/midterm.
Regularly show in every weekly status and in every meeting with the project partners what the goals and objectives of the project are, it is both a compass and a definite catalyst to focus the people in the statuses so that they don't brag.
Create reporting routines for the project managers and partners forum once a week, in order to create a continuum of information and understanding of what is actually happening in the project, the main emphases in this type of report are:
Issue a short, to-the-point and clear report that will allow optimal acceptance of the situation.
Create work packages headed by permanent package managers who will allow focusing on responsibilities and will allow anyone who is responsible for a certain area to focus on the report in their section.
Created a clear Gantt for all work packages, performance control clocks and red flags that will allow one brief glance to understand the situation in terms of schedules, tasks and concrete contents for the current quarter.
There is also an alternative approach that says "resetting the project" as the name implies (don't get excited, it's not about deleting the project like you do when resetting factory settings.. 😊) but freezing a situation for a moment, realigning the scope of the project, the budget, the timeline and the resources and this is usually in front of a new approach to the goals and objectives of the project in light of new constraints such as the "Corona" period, "war" or a change in the scope of the budget which forces us to return to the beginning of the axes and examine the goals and objectives of the project that were established. The main advantage of resetting a project is that it can rely on learning and experience gained so far in the project stages and benefit from it in the following execution stages and understand what were the root causes that prevented the progress of the project.
However, the reset approach is often considered a last resort, as it can be costly and result in the loss of work that has already been done. In addition, a project reset can significantly disrupt the original expectations and this poses additional management challenges for entrepreneurs and project management partners.
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