Surviving Catastrophic Project Failure- Part 4

By: Michael Gaccioli, CEO, Managing Partner

Welcome back! Well here we are, Part 4, our final installment of our series Surviving Catastrophic Project Failure. In this section we will take a deep dive into the remaining 4 components that are critical to surviving any failing project. As always, if you have not read the previous three parts of this presentation please go back and have a read. You won’t be successful if you read the last chapter to understand the book, shortcuts don’t work.  All your comments and insights are welcome. We continually strive to refine our practices and we hope that this presentation proves as insightful and valuable for you as it has been for all of us at BTI.

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Maintaining other Project Activities

Although you’ll be tempted to work on the problem area of the project to ensure that it is recovering from the spiral as quickly as possible, you must be aware that your attention to the problems might draw you away from the other parts of the project. If those parts are left unchecked, you could find they start to fall into trouble as well. So, you thought your job was easy now that you had talked to the team, then the sponsor and now the client, you would be wrong. It is going to be more difficult. While the project portions that are not in peril may appear to be rolling along just fine, you need to pay attention to them, closely, so they don’t end up in peril. There is no sense in focusing on your problem child and letting others run rampant. In my situation the project portions that were okay drew to a quick close. We were wrapping up the detailed design and we were planning for construction and commissioning. Although the other parts were “within normal targets” I still met with my team regularly and in fact probably walked around and asked more questions of the team with the heighten state of awareness that I was in. So, what can you do to ensure that you stay on top of your “normally running” project portions? A few suggestions are:

1. Communicate with your team about current events.
2. Keep validating work against milestones.
3. Weekly meetings and audits of work
4. Walk around and ask questions (make them aware that you are still around)
5. Keep the team working at the same pace as before, as much as possible.

While these are some first steps, there are others, and I am sure everyone can think of a couple not mentioned. But the challenge of maintaining the work effort is keeping your team focused. They are going to feel the pressure on the project due to the failing portion or failing project.

Project Team Cohesion, Self Esteem, and Stress

The project team will know by now that you have a problem with the project if they may have known before you. They probably also know you will be working on the problem non-stop for the foreseeable future. This knowledge may cause the remaining project team to ease off on the gas or start to slip on their milestones. You need to apply the same project control rigor that you applied to the project portions previously and maybe a bit more.

I would be remiss if I said that my team, the entire team, wasn’t under stress during the project or during the period of the failing project portion. The project had gone through a couple of major changes during the detailed design phase. First the original client project manager left his company. Second, we had a few change notices that modified the scope of the project by adding an extensive amount of work, an additional 1/3, without a change to the end dates. So much for the equilateral triangle of the triple constraints. Then the shoe dropped with the failing of a portion of the project.

Based on my project description you might think or even suggest that if the electrical and control systems portions of this project were going swimmingly and the only ones that should be feeling the stress should be on the team members with the failing process portions. Not exactly. The process team was feeling the heat, they were pretty stressed out since we were grilling them trying get to the bottom of the problems, but these people didn’t live in a vacuum and neither did any team, not even yours. People talk and can see the stress others are under. Stress is like contagion, and it spreads quickly. Think for a moment, of a day in the last week or two weeks ago when you woke up on the wrong side of the bed or had a frustrating commute or conversation in your day. You probably snapped at someone more than likely didn’t deserve it or wouldn’t have been on the receiving end of this any other day? Now imagine two months of this. What can you do? What should you do? Better yet what shouldn’t you do. These are a bunch of questions I asked myself. Based on my experience I have come up with a few suggestions should you end up in the same predicament.

1. Keep a positive outlook and attitude on the prospect of making it through a rough patch. No one likes or needs a chicken little.
2. Do not negatively criticize anything that someone is working on, especially if they are on the recovery team.
3. Talk to each team member one on one. Find out what is troubling them, find out how you can help. They are human after all and could have more going on than just work.
4. Let your team vent. Ensure that the environment is controlled and it’s better one on one.
5. Make sure they get days off. You can’t work 7 days straight and 15 hours a day, without burn out.
6. Set reasonable expectations, the project won’t get better by setting unrealistic expectations.
7. Don’t place blame on anyone for the failed portion of the project. It typically isn’t just one person’s fault. Besides, the buck stops at the PM anyways. You will have more success in getting them refocused and back working to fix the project issues if you don’t.
8. Finally, and most importantly, measure progress in wins, not in losses. Even if it is the end of the world, a positive attitude and reinforcement will be greatly appreciated by your team. And it’s good Karma.

People are people. Stress can have horrible effects on individuals. It can cause family troubles, drinking in excess, under/overeating, high blood pressure, and yes even heart attacks. You need to keep yourself healthy and watch your team. People will literally kill themselves trying to fix a problem. I for one felt the stress of the project failure. Like I mentioned in my opening comments, I was feeling pretty darn good about this project when all hell broke loose. I wasn’t sleeping at night; I would come into the office at 4 am. I was eating then not eating. I even partially broke down in front of the president of our company when I spoke to him about the issues because I felt personally responsible for the failure. You see the way I was raised, as many of you have been was that I am responsible and accountable for what I do or what those in my charge have done. I am certainly not the first one and won’t be the last to feel this way, so imagine those individuals on your team that are at the front line of the problem. Imagine their stress. Take care and handle them carefully because they may be walking a fine line of should I stay or should I go. Trust me, the support that I received from my company (sponsor, managers, and president) Made dealing with the failing portion of the project easier. I was able to get on to the recovery process.

Working to salvage relationships

This may be the last main topic I am going to talk about, but it should not be the last thing you consider. There will be a great deal of discussions after you have identified the issues to your team and to your client and while you are during your recovery efforts. During this time, you will need to have a great deal of patience and practice diplomacy. Your team and client relationships will be put under a considerable amount of strain and stress. Your team members may feel like they are being blamed for a failure and that may not necessarily be wholly true or warranted. The team may not buy the recovery plan, or they may think the solution is unreasonable. Most certainly the client will be unhappy because they are in an unfavorable position of having to deal with a project in trouble. Maybe they thought that this project was going to be a slam dunk, or it was to be their end of career swan song and they were going to go out on a high note. There is a myriad of reasons that can be considered which will cause relationships to be under strain but whatever the reason, you must work to smooth out the rough patches. You need to salvage the relationships to get the work done or to save face with the client and continue to get work from them. Well, how do you suggest I do this? It is not an easy task. I have three suggestions for you that will help maintain or even improve your relationship with the team or the client. Communication, Communication, Communication. Oh, and a whole lot of honesty. You can’t go wrong with being honest.  Don’t try to BS your way through a meeting with the client when you are already in the doghouse. That will not win you any favor with them. The more forthright you are with them the less chance you have in losing and more of their trust and credibility. So, will the team and the client be happy with just communication and no BS? Possibly. It will also take an effort on your part to turn the tide on the problems and help to get everyone back on the same page and continue the effort for a trusting relationship.

There are a few other tips and tricks I have that are beneficial to working relationships in conjunction to communication are:

1. Return the client or team members phone calls/emails promptly. Showing the client that you have them first on your list will go a long way to easing some tension. With the team it will show that you have not abandoned them and will continue to communicate with you.
2. Follow through on what you say you are going to do, and if you can’t meet targets or timelines then you need to communicate that with them directly. It is better to deliver the information in advance and well before any missed deadlines.
3. Don’t deliver the minimum requirements. Although you are trying to get out of your tough spot, go a bit further. You couldn’t please them during the initially identified time frame for this project, so you might want to add a little something to your recover efforts so that they feel like you are really trying. Make sure that it isn’t just for brownie points, make it work something to the client.
4. Take responsibility. This goes far with clients. Don’t cut your team off at the knees in front of your client by blaming them for something when they aren’t able to defend themselves and defend your team when necessary.
5. When specifically dealing with the client and their requirements for discussion with their management, offer to be present to support them and take the burden off them having to explain everything on their own.

Although my last point may not be required, it will go a long way to show the client that you are not going to leave them to their own devices. Not all these efforts are going to work, and you may have to find creative ways to improve the relationship but stick with it. It will take time to rebuild the relationship. Your efforts will not be in vain. SO, my very last tip would be to persevere. It is going to be a tough road to travel, but your willingness and attitude will be key to you and your project.

Project strain, stress, troubles or even failure are not something that we want to deal with as we have previously discussed; however difficult situations or brushes with failure make us better and temper our steel. One of the senior managers that I spoke with about my fear of being terminated said to me that the worst thing a company can do it terminate a project manager or a team member that has failed at a particular task if they show effort and resolve to correct the situation and truly want to be part of the solution. The experience and knowledge that the company would let walk out your door is incredible. The lessons learned by the team or team members, or project manager can’t be taught at school or through a course. These life lessons will enrich the organization and improve project execution and delivery. After thinking about this for a moment, I realized that failure, trouble, or those difficulties all have a purpose. I don’t want to relive any of those situations experienced through the recovery portion of the project failing. But with the tips outlined above if you learned anything it is that a failing project can be recovered.

I am sure that the next project will be one of the furthest things from your mind while dealing with your current project ebbs and flows, but the effort that you put forth in tough situations such as this will be a defining moment in your career.

Thank you for joining us on this 4-part series Surviving Catastrophic Project Failure. No one goes into a project expecting it to fail but it is important to manage expectations that occasionally things do not go according to plan. We hope that this series has been insightful and that you can walk away learning from mistakes made in the past and work towards being better Project Managers every day.

As always, your comments and feedback are welcomed. If you have further questions or an experience to share with us, please feel free to contact us, Info@BTIEng.com.

Until next time, we wish you success.