Chapter 18

Taking Over an Existing Project

In This Chapter

Pressures on taking over a project

A checklist for the Project Manager

Checklists for projects in trouble

Taking over as Project Sponsor

There’s no getting round it, taking over someone else’s project is usually a really tough job, and that’s for two reasons. First, there’s only one chance in a million that the project is set up the way you would have set it up had you been in at the start. Second, you’ll be under great time pressure. You have to get to understand the project and its characteristics fast, and the clock won’t stop while you do.

This chapter is to help you get to grips with your newly acquired project, and to do it quickly. There’s a checklist to help if you are a Project Manager taking over a project that’s in decent shape, even if it’s not quite as you’d have set it up. Then there are a couple of lists to help where you have been sent in as a replacement Project Manager because the project is in trouble. Finally there’s a checklist to give you some advice if you are the Sponsor stepping in to take over the project.

Project Manager Checklist

If you’re the Project Manager moving in to take over someone else’s project, you’ll be very aware that you need to get organised and to get organised quickly. This checklist is to help you think through what you need to do and in what order so you can get to grips with the project and bring it under your project management control.

• Charter: Read the Project Charter to get an understanding of the basis of the project, especially the scope and objectives. If you’re not familiar with the Charter and Project Management Plan (PMP) documents mentioned in this checklist, have a look at Chapter 2.

If the project hasn’t got a Charter, go straight for the plans and any documentation you can get your hands on that shows what the project is to deliver and how. If that information isn’t available either, talk to the Sponsor, key users and, if she is still around, the previous Project Manager. Don’t put her on the spot by asking ‘Why didn’t you bother to record this essential information?’ but rather take the more subtle approach of ‘Can you help me get a clear view of what the project is about and what it has to achieve?’ Also, be careful to leave the door open and say ‘If I need to talk to you again on one or two points, will it be okay if I call you?’

• Roles: Find out who is involved from the Project Organ-isation Chart. Make a beeline for the Sponsor (or equivalent) to get her take on what’s important in the project and how things have been going so far.
• Team Leaders: Make contact with your Team Leaders, perhaps by holding a meeting. Emphasise that you value their work and want to do everything you can to support them. Say also that you value their input as you familiarise yourself with the project.
• Team members: Go and visit the team members. You may not be too concerned about their part in the project at the moment because you’re still getting your head around the high-level stuff. However, they’ll be wanting to know who you are, what you’re going to be like to work for and whether you’re a monster with two heads or not. So go see them and build your reputation of being approachable and supportive.
• Team Leader discussions: Now talk to your Team Leaders one at a time to get their perspective on the project. Ask if anything in particular has been a problem so far. Reinforce the point that you will be looking to do all that you can to support them – and note any points so you can deliver on that support.
• User and supplier: Talk to the Project User and Project Supplier to get their views on the project.
• Interfacing projects: Check to see whether your project has interdependencies with other projects and work areas. If so, go and talk to the other managers of those projects and work areas and make sure that you fully understand the dependencies … in both directions.
• Re-plan: In the light of your discussions and fact-finding, review the Project Plan and re-plan if you think it’s necessary; it probably will be.
• PMP: Review the project controls in the PMP or equivalent and be critical on two grounds. First, to check whether you think that the controls are suitable, based on your discussions with PSG members and Team Leaders. Second, to assess how the PMP fits in with how you think the project needs to be controlled.
• Step back: Even if the project is very busy, go and find a quiet place or work for a day at home. Reflect on the dynamics of the project from what you have learned so far and think about how you need to control the project to bring it to a successful conclusion.
• Sponsor re-visit: Go and see the Sponsor again to talk through the project in more detail now that you have a better understanding of it. Discuss with her any control changes that you think are advisable to be sure of smooth project delivery.
• Hit list: Make a hit list of what you need to do first of all. You may want to include some support work for Team Leaders alongside dealing with any immediate problems or potential problems of your own.

When revising the plans and controls, don’t change more than you need to. If you don’t like something in the project and it isn’t your way of doing things, think whether it’s really necessary to change it or whether you can live with it this time around. Don’t change things for the sake of it, and especially where that would affect other people.

• Visit … again: In the first few days following the launch of your new plans and new controls, go and visit the teams again. You’ll be able to absorb more now, and also it’s important for team members to see you out and about, not just that initial ‘Hello’ visit followed by a disappearing act.
• Review controls … again: In the first few weeks following your appointment as Project Manager, check especially carefully to see whether your revised controls are adequate. If they’re not, review and adjust them again.

‘Problem Project’ Checklist

If you’ve been appointed as Project Manager to take over a project because it’s in trouble, you can take that as a real compliment. Clearly, someone somewhere thinks you’re worth your keep. Basking in the sunshine of that happy thought is likely to be a short-lived experience, though. You’ll probably be well aware that the sun will soon go behind a very dark cloud if you don’t make rapid progress in sorting this project out and getting it on track.

How you deal with the project will obviously depend on the nature of the problems with it. This checklist is to help you ‘feel’ around the project to identify the immediate and obvious problems and, perhaps even more importantly, those tucked away under the surface.

Earlier in this chapter I talked about taking over a project that isn’t in any particular difficulty, and emphasised that you should try to talk to the outgoing Project Manager. That won’t be so easy in a problem project. The outgoing Project Manager has been replaced … by you. She’s going to be pretty fed up that the project has gone wrong or she may even be clinging to the thought that things really aren’t that bad. She’ll be very aware that she’s now seen as having failed and the result is that she’ll probably want nothing more to do with the whole sorry business and definitely nothing to do with you. You’re unlikely to get much information or enthusiastic cooperation from that direction, then, and you’ll have to put much more emphasis on other information-gathering options.

• Sponsor: As a first priority, go and talk to the Sponsor to find out exactly why you have been called in and what the problems are in the Sponsor’s eyes.
• Charter and PMP: Quickly review the Project Charter, PMP or any other project documents to learn more about what the project is about.
• Look for problems: As you review project documents, look for and note any problems that you see and any important things that you don’t see because they’ve been overlooked. Watch out for inadequate things too, such as a clearly understated Risk Log.

When looking at a Risk Log for a project a while ago I was both concerned and slightly amused to see only two risks listed in what was clearly a fairly risky project. ‘Risk 1. The project will be late.’ and ‘Risk 2. We will have insufficient staff for the work.’ Clearly the risk analysis hadn’t been done properly, but the log also signalled another problem, which was poor project governance. Why had the PSG accepted such an inadequate log?

• Team Leaders: Talk to your Team Leaders, or team members in a smaller project, to get their take on what’s going wrong and why.
• Quick fix: Now that you have a reasonable overview of the problems, decide on, plan and put into effect any immediate ‘quick fix’ actions to halt the slide into more difficulty.
• Dig deep: Now think through the problems that you’ve been told about and any others that you’ve uncovered for yourself. For each problem ask ‘why’ and trace it back to its roots. You’ll need to get at the underlying causes not just deal with the surface symptoms.
• Re-focus: Make sure that the objectives of the project are clear and realistic and that the four control ‘dogs’ are balanced (see Chapter 8 for more on the four dogs). If the project is not in balance then talk with the PSG in general and the Sponsor in particular about adjusting the Project Charter. If the project is inherently unachievable, then you can expect to go down the same path as the outgoing Project Manager, and probably quite soon too.
• Re-plan: Re-plan the project and the controls you need. Pay particular attention to the product based plans and the ‘bottom up’ checks to find missing parts of the project. A lot of projects become ‘problem projects’ because of unforeseen but essential work which then throws everything else off course.
• PSG: Ask the Sponsor to set up a meeting of the whole PSG so that you can talk through what you have found and put forward your plan for tackling the problems and bringing the project in.
• Project Meeting: Unless your project is very big, in which case you may have to do this a bit at a time, call everyone together. Explain the problems and what you’re doing about them. Re-focus and re-motivate the staff, emphasising that the project is now achievable and that success is entirely possible. Be open with your plan so that project staff can see that the project is achievable.

Listen carefully to any points anyone makes in the Project Meeting. You want to keep things positive, so if someone comes up with a stream of strong negatives take that discussion ‘off-line’. Don’t dismiss negative comments, because they could be valid, but take them off-line by saying that you’ll talk to that person about the points later to be able to go into more depth. Then follow up on that by going straight to that person as the meeting closes to arrange a time for the discussion. In fact you might call out to the person as they are getting up ‘Mary, can I just have a quick word to fix a time to talk?’ That way everyone will know that you meant what you said.

‘Problem Project’ Actions

If you’re taking over a project that’s in trouble, look out for these problems. You’ll find some suggestions in the checklist on actions to tackle the problems, but obviously your preferred actions will depend on the exact nature of each problem and the underlying causes.

• Unclear or conflicting objectives: Get a simple objectives statement together which is unambiguous and get PSG agreement and then commitment to it.
• Unachievable project: Get the ‘four dogs’ of scope, time, resource and quality into balance. See the ‘Four Dogs Checklist’ in Chapter 8 for more on the dogs and the ‘project canvas’ that they’re pulling on.
• Overspending: If the project has been budgeted with unrealistic optimism, re-write the budget with realistic costs. Then work with the Sponsor in particular to re-write the Business Case and evaluate if the project is still viable.
• Under-resourcing: If staff resource hasn’t been forthcoming, and that’s why the project is under pressure, refer the problem to the PSG. Let the Sponsor take the lead in holding the other two PSG roles (Project Supplier and Project User) accountable for providing the resource in the plans. If the resource isn’t available, question the viability of the project or at least its targets such as the delivery date.
• Extra work: If extra but essential work has been found as the project has progressed, and it’s that work which has thrown things off track, make product planning a priority and check the diagrams for any further work that hasn’t been identified so far. Have a look at Chapter 8 for more on product planning. If you want to know the full story of the approach, you might like to get hold of a copy of the UK edition of Project Management for Dummies (Wiley).
• Moving goalposts: Some projects get into trouble because everything keeps changing and completed work is invalidated. That has a secondary impact of lowered morale, mentioned again later in this list, as people see their work trashed. Bring in effective change control to limit change to what’s essential. Make sure too that the project is properly thought through and that the PSG is committed to the Charter. Get the Project User on board to make sure that the requirement is clear because it sounds like people may be making things up as they go along.

If the goalposts are moving all the time, bringing in effective change control is considerably better than imposing a change freeze where all change is now refused. A change freeze just means that the project gets out of step with the business or operating environment. The problem with the freeze is that it’s mindless and indiscriminate. The freeze rules out sensible and productive changes as well as the unnecessary and damaging ones.

• Poor performance: If teams are performing significantly below target find out why. If it’s lack of capability then see whether you can replace some or all of the team members with staff who are better suited to the project work. If poor working conditions are to blame for the under-performance, including having a hassled environment with interruptions, work with the PSG to radically improve that environment.
• Low morale: Although related to the last point, low morale is worth making a checklist point in its own right, since it can be such a big problem. Find out why morale is down before you try to remedy it. If you leave an underlying cause in place, any morale boost you do manage to achieve will be short-lived.
• Inter-personal problems in the team: This problem can be extremely serious. Your action will depend on the nature of the conflicts. The best course may be to replace a Team Leader or one or two team members. Where two people are involved in a dispute it may be better to lose both rather than give the impression that one of them has ‘won’. See Chapter 10, which is about Managing the People, and especially Figure 10-1 on the three areas of team management. In this instance you will usually have to put the needs of a team ahead of the interests of individuals.

Many organisational managers assume that small projects are always lower-risk than big projects. In some areas the reverse is inherently true, and the risk of inter-personal conflict is one of them. In a project involving 1,000 people, if two team members are in dispute then what is the overall impact? It will depend on the significance of the two people, of course, but you get the point. However, if two team members get into bitter dispute in a project involving only four people, what’s the impact then? Small projects magnify some risks.

• Inter-personal problems between teams – This checklist point is usually even more serious than the previous one. Sadly the problem is not uncommon. For example a team made up of organisational staff may come into conflict with a team from an outside supplier. There’s no easy remedy apart from trying to resolve any issues. The trouble is that the issues are probably just the superficial symptoms of deeper underlying antagonism. If the matter is project threatening, the Sponsor may need to consider radical action such as changing supplier mid-project, or closing the project down and starting all over with different resourcing.

When I started in computer systems analysis and design I narrowly avoided being assigned to design the user interfaces in a very large IT project that was in deep trouble. I argued against the assignment and to my amazement my head of department listened and then gave me a smaller project of my own to design and build a different system. While working on my own, and very nice, project I watched in awe as the problems mounted in the bigger one. There was a team from my own organisation doing user testing, a development team from an outside consultancy company, then a Project Manager from a second consultancy which was a competitor of the first consultancy company. The deliberate lack of cooperation and the open animosity that flashed around that organisational triangle was astonishing. It was one of the reasons that the 18-month project was finally delivered 24 months after its target date, long after my system was designed, built and implemented.

Sponsor Checklist

If you’re a new Sponsor for a project that’s already underway, here’s a checklist to help you take on your new responsibilities, understand the project and work out how to be really effective in your new role.

• Read up on the project: Before you’ve even taken over formally, unless things have happened very quickly, get hold of the key project documents and read up on what the project is about. Look for the Project Charter in particular, but then check out the Project Management Plan (PMP) too. Check that you agree with the objectives and nature of the project. If you don’t make a note of why.
• Characteristics: Take careful note of the characteristics of the project. For example, is it business critical, very visible to customers, high-risk or heavily dependent on other things? Taking the characteristics on board will help you develop a clear idea of the approach you’ll need to take.
• Talk to the outgoing Sponsor: Get the outgoing Sponsor’s take on the project and what she thinks the key issues are. If you disagree with what the project is currently trying to do or the way it is set up, don’t say so. If pressed with ‘What do you think?’ just indicate that it’s a bit early to take any view as you’re still getting your head around everything. If you even hint at criticism, you’re likely to close down the communication and so miss out on things that could help you.
• Meet and greet, but briefly: Meet up with the Project User(s) and Project Supplier(s) on the PSG individually and briefly. This is primarily a courtesy action at the moment. Be careful not to commit to anything or to start discussing detail until you have a better grasp of the project. Ask open questions about the project and the way it has been running. Get a feel for whether your fellow PSG members understand their roles and are fulfilling them properly.

In case you’re unclear on question types, an open question encourages someone to talk. A closed question has a single answer and does not encourage further explanation. ‘What’s your name?’ ‘Nick Graham’. ‘Do you advise organisations on good project governance?’ ‘Yes, I do.’ Those questions are both closed questions, with a single answer. ‘Tell me, what do you think about the way in which we’re implementing project governance in this company?’ is an open question. There isn’t a short, single answer so the question encourages me to explain. When you ask open questions, people will often mention things that you wouldn’t have thought to ask about with your closed questions. Closed questions come out of your existing knowledge while open ones can explore areas that you don’t necessarily know about.

• Project Manager: Book a session to have a long talk to the Project Manager. You might include lunch in this to encourage more relaxed conversation. Check with the Project Manager how things are going from her perspective and ask about any problems. Say up front that you want to note down any particular points, and then do that so that you don’t forget anything important. Also ask, but carefully, about how the PSG has been functioning, if she is getting enough support and if decisions are being made in a timely way.
• Project audit: If your organisation has a project audit function ask for an additional audit to be done now. The audit will give you another view on how the project is running and warn you as to whether there are problems that you need to address. Talk to your auditors first though to spell out your reasons for wanting the audit. There are references elsewhere in this book, such as in Chapter 19 on Auditing Someone Else’s Project, to ‘nit-picking’ audits that just frustrate everyone rather than help deliver the project securely.
• Formal meeting: Fix a meeting between the PSG and the Project Manager. Talk through the project and particularly the objectives and controls. If you’re thinking of making changes then get input from others at the meeting before you make any final decision.
• Organisational manager(s): If you’re thinking of changing the nature of the project in some way, such as the scope, clear this with the organisational manager(s) who appointed you, and perhaps others as well.
• Business impact: Look carefully at any impact that the project will have on areas outside your immediate control. For example, will other departments need to change their procedures to fit in with the new procedure that your project will implement? Make sure that the impact is documented. Then make sure that managers in the other areas are aware of the work they need to do and that they have made arrangements (not necessarily projects) to do it.
• Controls: Review the project controls and make sure that they are in the right balance; not too much control and not too little. In particular check the amount of authority delegated to the Project Manager, and that includes how the stages and Stage Gates are set up. Also review the way that the PSG is working and make adjustments if it isn’t functioning as well as it should.
• Adjust: Work through with the Project Manager and PSG members what needs to be changed, if anything. Make sure that the Charter and PMP are brought into line with that. You might put in an additional stage boundary to mark the point at which the changes will be made, unless a convenient boundary is coming up anyway.

Resist the common management temptation to make a few changes in order to stamp your authority onto the project. Making unnecessary work for people is extremely bad management in any setting, but especially so in busy projects. If you need to cause inconvenience and create needless work to make your authority clear then you weren’t paying attention during your management training course. On the other hand, if you’re secure in your management and with your authority then you won’t feel any need to resort to such tactics, will you?