Lessons Learned

Here are a few lessons learned and suggestions that may help in discussions on your project.

Discuss early

Organizations often engage after much of the discussions and decisions on a project are already made and work has begun. An early discuss can include considerations that weren’t previously discussed, but that can have a major impact on the project’s scope and duration — and cost. Better to get all fundamental considerations on the table and start from a common base of understanding….even if the project does not start immediately.

Scoping Project

Often organizations launch into a project without really having a good understanding of the scope and approach. This can lead to rework, cost over-runs, and lengthened timelines. An objective judgment must be made on whether a scoping project should be conducted first or conducted as a first phase. By conducting a scoping project, the organization can spend a little additional time up front, but have a much better picture of the remaining project and outcomes.

Resources

Most organizations do not have spare staff on hand to implement projects. Yet when it comes time to staff new projects, the organization looks to its existing team. This means that day-to-day work does not get accomplished during the project, requiring shifting duties to other team members when possible, or requiring key employees to devote even more hours to accomplish everything they are tasked with. A good Project Manager can help the organization think through the appropriate staffing levels and make sure that no essential resources will be pulled from mission-critical activities for the project.

Risk

All projects have inherent risks. Best practice advises that all risks should be considered and mitigation strategies developed in the event the potential risk turns into a true issue. Identifying and discussing such concerns upfront — and the likely project impact — will mean that the organization goes into the project with its “eyes open” to potential issues and implications of remediation actions. For example, a client was moving to a new Customer Relationship Management platform. The client assured that its data was clean and the quality of data would not be an issue. Upon closer examination, however, the data was not as clean as assumed and it was in the wrong format for conversion. A comprehensive risk evaluation would have identified this risk. As a result, the project schedule and resulted costs were impacted, which also negatively affected the overall project timeline and subsequent cost.