Surviving Catastrophic Project Failure- Part 3

By: Michael Gaccioli, CEO, Managing Partner

Welcome back for part 3 of our series Surviving Catastrophic Project Failure. In Part Two we identified the 8 Key Components that are crucial to Surviving Catastrophic Project Failure. In Part Three we take a deep dive into the first 4 Components. If you haven’t read the previous two parts, 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.

---

Part 3: The First 4 Components

So, let’s dive in and I’ll show you some of the major components that I feel are a part of surviving a project that is in trouble or worse, failing.

1. Identifying that something is wrong.
2. Determine your current state.
3. Informing project sponsor
4. Inform the client.
5. Maintaining other project activities
6. Project team cohesion
   1. Team self esteem
7. Becoming the informer not the solution provider
8. Working to salvage relationships

Based on my project or any typical project that may be in trouble; what went wrong, why did the problems elude me, the client PM, and the rest of the team for so long? Let’s look at this and pull some of those how to survive lessons out of this project so that we can become better project managers. First things first, we need to determine if something was going wrong.

Identifying that something is wrong

At the beginning of the project, I was connected to the team. I knew everything that was going on and I was providing status reports to the client PM regularly. We even recorded our weekly conferences! So how did the process portion of the project slip away? Well like anything else, looking back you can see all the signs.

1. Over confidence
2. Excessive detail on a particular task, but vagueness on others
3. Protracted time in information gathering.
4. Too much time spent on seemingly insignificant/low value of work.
5. Silence

It isn’t about the team remember. As a PM you need to be asking the right questions and have the right people answer those questions. So, tip number one, avoid questions that provide the one-word response also known as closed questions:

1. How are things going?
2. Are you having any problems that you need help with?

Most importantly we as project managers need to ask the right questions. How many people have been told what the right questions are? How many people had to figure them out by themselves? Well maybe not all the right questions, but the ones that I have figured out for myself, the hard way are:

1. What part of your work is causing the most grief?
2. With respect to the project scope can you tell me what the client is expecting?
3. Can you show me your plan to complete this work?

I am not too sure if anyone reads magazines much anymore, but an article from March 2011 on the Project Management Network really stood out to me. “Raise the Red Flags” by Sandra A. Swanson, interviewee David Walton, managing partner of Bestoutcome (a project management consultancy in Slough, Berkshire, England), identified some great questions that should be asked of us all as project managers in an effort to identify problems:

1. Is there anything keeping the project team up at night?
2. Are there any roadblocks that you (as the PM) can help remove?
3. How is the sponsor handling his or her role? (Are they engaged or overly trusting?)
4. How are you keeping stakeholders engaged and supportive?
5. If it was your money, would you still do the project?
6. How much contingency is left in terms of money and time?

These are all great questions for sure. A lesson I have learned from the project portion that crashed and burned, is all about asking questions. This is my second tip; if you don’t have the answer to your question or the answer is not provided clear and complete, then stop what you are doing, no matter how urgent your immediate tasks are and start looking for the problem(s) because you and your team have your signal light on and are about ready to make a wrong turn. One key factor in finding out about any ongoing issues or problems within your project is communication between you as the PM and your team. It is crucial that your team feels comfortable to approach you about any issues so that a solution can be found. If you are unapproachable or start to ask them projecting questions like “why they let the situation get so bad”, then you are instilling fear in your team. Remember fear of failure leads to procrastination which leads to more problems and the cycle repeats.

Determine your current state

So now what? You are in deep, or you are in really deep with the problems that you are facing with your project or in my case the portion of this project that is beginning its death spiral. As you can imagine or are experiencing, that can cause you to lose focus and start to drift from that high of self-actualization you were once on, back to the safety level in the hierarchy of needs that we spoke about earlier. Back to the act of self-preservation, but you can’t slide backwards, you must fight your way out of this difficult situation. Yes, fight, because the urge to run and hide will be all consuming. You must resist the temptation to pack up that box and sneak out the back door before anyone on the team notices. You need to try and find a solution to the problems that are plaguing your project. How do you do that? Well quite simply, start asking more questions. Well maybe it isn’t that simple? Maybe there is more to do? Or is there? Not everyone is good at asking questions or possibly not asking the right kind of question. Maybe you’re apprehensive about conflict. All I can say about that is it is a bit too late to deal with your insecurities. You need to confront this situation head on, or it will eat you for lunch.

If you have found yourself in this situation, one of the first questions that you need to ask is, “Realistically, where are we at?” After your team or project lead tells you where they are at, the immediate follow up instruction, even before you say “Thank you” is “show me how you determined that level of completion”.

You need to completely understand where you are, or aren’t, before you even think of fixing anything. There is no sense in trying to find a solution until you know how bad the situation is. If you ever think that you understand completely, you don’t. Trust me, you don’t. You have been blind before you might be blind again. Take notes or record the conversation so you can refer to it. Go away and think about what has been said. Remember you are in a situation where you may not be completely focused. Once you have gone over the conversation and demonstration in your mind and you have worked out where you truly are against the project deliverables, formulate other questions to validate the initial response from your team. You need to be able to query your team repeatedly, if necessary, about what they have just said to you and what the status is of the project. You need to ask them the program question from different perspectives so that you can truly validate what they are telling you. This isn’t about cruelty or being pig headed, it is about getting the facts straight. You will need to enter what could be the lions den. You are going to have to let the project sponsor know what’s going on. In my case the walk to the sponsors office was nothing short of surreal. “That is tip number three, validation of what your team is telling you.

Informing the project sponsor

Now that you feel you have a better grasp of how deep your problems are, you’ll need to tell the project sponsor. I imagine that many of you may be thinking to yourself or saying to your neighbor that you should tell the sponsor that something is wrong first. I would agree and disagree with your point of view. I agree the project sponsor needs to know as soon as possible, but disagree because the first two things that is going to come of their mouth will be how bad is it and why did it happen?  So, sprinting off the project sponsor to tell them something is wrong will be good but you’ll have no useful information for them so they can start to help you out. Yes, there is an argument for at least letting them know something is up and you are working on getting all the facts, but having as much information before the conversation happens will save you a lot of grief in running back and forth between the sponsor and the team. So, there I was information in hand and walking straight to the door of the project sponsor. Have you ever seen a movie where the hallway or corridor seems to get longer, infinitely longer as the would-be murder victim walks or runs down it and they seem to be making no forward progress, well that is what it felt like. I dreaded the conversation I was about to have. Just a few days before this moment I had a project audit with the sponsor and I was telling him that everything was moving forward, we had a couple of challenges, but nothing out of the ordinary and all was moving forward as planned. Now I had to go tell him that we were way behind and that our budget was almost spent on their section of the project. I am sure now you know exactly where I would be on the hierarchy of needs.

Now having mustered up enough courage to talk to the sponsor, what are they going to say and what are they going to want to know? Well first, your sponsor (or if you happen to be a sponsor) is worth their weight in any rare earth mineral, they will say what mine said to me.

“Thanks for letting me know about the problem, now tell me how bad it is?” If a project sponsor starts to freak out, it probably isn’t going to be a smooth ride to the finish line. Not that it is going to be a smooth ride while recovering the project, it will certainly help with the personal stress that you will have to manage.

As a side note, if you are a sponsor, take note that project managers don’t purposely try to make projects fail. If you are upset or freak out on your PM, you run the risk of a couple of things will happen. First, you’ll put added stress on your project manager that they don’t need at that time. There will be enough after the problems are resolved to have this discussion. Second, you may end up losing your PM. Yes, they may quit since they may feel so bad about the situation that they feel they need to fall on their sword, or they fear that the situation will become untenable or too much to bear personally. This is a real risk that all sponsors need to take heed of. We are all in this together.

But I digress, so what is it that a project sponsor is going to want to know? Well, a few key items are going to be asked about.

1. What is the problem?
2. How far off the project milestones are we?
3. What is the project budget and where are we compared to where we should be?
4. Does the client know? (More on this later)
5. Do we have an action plan to deal with the issues? What is the plan?
6. Do you have the team’s buy in and cooperation with your plan?
7. What is the mood on the team?
8. What is this going to cost?
9. Do you need anything from me to help with the recovery or your plan?
10. Keep me informed (daily, weekly, or hourly) On how things are going?

Whew, now your head will be spinning, it might not be a firing line like I just said, but it will be tough. Based on your responses the conversation will take on a life of its own and you’ll delve deep into the project issues. Be prepared to spend a lot of time with the sponsor and be prepared to have the questions repeated. They need to know how the problem, solution, and the path forward are going to affect the bottom line of the project, the relationship with the client, the impact on the team and the other project/company employees. Oh, and did I mention too corporate bottom-line?

This brings me to tip number 4, be prepared and listen to your sponsor. They have more money than likely been down this road at some point in their career. However, if they freak out, they probably haven’t dealt with this solution, but listen to them anyway and they will have some good advice either way. Now that you have let the project sponsor know about the issues, you are going to have to talk with the client and let them know about any issues or delays that will affect the project. This isn’t going to be a pony ride.

Inform the Client

Now clients can come in all different shapes, sizes, and demeanors. Depending on your project criticality to the client’s overall operation or profitability you may have an easy time identifying the issues or you will be roasted at the stake. Regardless of what the conversation will look like or what the outcome will be, the client must know, and you had better be prepared for some difficult conversations.

During my project I had to make first contact with the client about the problems and quite frankly after the team couldn’t demonstrate what they had completed or the progress that the client thought we should have made, he already knew there was an issue. In a way that was a relief, but at the same time, I was afraid of what I would be walking into. The problem was, like me, he didn’t know how bad it was until we discussed it.

The way that you approach this conversation will determine how the remaining portions of the project work will go and how the recovery will unfold. The client is going to want to know a couple of key bits of information. First, they are going to want to know if the project deliverable(s) will arrive on time. In my case the portion of the project that was in a tailspin was not critical to the plant operation of to the bottom line of the company, but the answer was still no. Second, they are going to want to know what the expected cost for this delay will be. After that you can bet that you are going to get the “how could you let the project get so bad/delayed/behind.” I know clients for the most part is well meaning, and they are looking for answers rather than just pinning a guilt trip sort of question on you. You must be prepared for this question. It is going to come. In some cases, the client will tear a strip off you and others they will understand. They may have even determined the potential for this problem in their risk analysis and already have a plan formulating in their mind about how to help in the recovery. Either way, tell them the truth. If you have had a good working relationship with the client from the beginning of the project, then this conversation should be a bit less painful than if you haven’t been communicating with them. You need to be open and honest with the client. And that is tip number 5. There is no sense in sugar coating it at this point. Give them everything you know so they can prepare for a discussion with their project sponsors or stakeholders with the information you are providing. They too are not going to be happy about talking with their sponsors. Essentially you are going to have the same questions asked by them as the project sponsor asked. Be patient and make sure you keep them informed about your path forward. Get them involved in the recovery and the recovery will likely go smoother. The client isn’t hoping you’ll fail, but rather they are counting on you to succeed. The important thing about getting the client involved and having these discussions is to inform them, but one of the warnings you have to heed is that you don’t forget about the other portions of the project.

Thanks for joining me on this journey, exploring the first 4 Components that I felt were important parts of surviving a project in trouble. Next time we will conclude this series with the final 4 Components and wrap up with any insights and lessons learned.

Until then, I wish you success.