Chapter 12

Checking Each Stage

In This Chapter

Staying in control

Monitoring against an up-to-date plan

Three areas of stage checks

Checklists for checking

Planning a project thoroughly is essential, but if you have any knowledge of project management at all you’ll know that the trick then is to keep it on track, monitoring it against the plan. One thing’s for sure, your project isn’t going to go exactly to plan but, strangely perhaps, that makes the plan even more important. It forms a baseline that you correct to.

You must keep the plan up to date if it’s going to be any use to you for control. Checking the stage must begin then with updating your Stage Plan from the information and actuals (time sheet information and spending information) that comes in with the Team Progress Reports.

Your stage checks should be in three areas:

• Team progress: To assess the position of each team as you look at the Team Progress Reports.
• Whole stage position: Having got all of that progress information in, take a wider look to see how the whole stage is progressing, including some forward projections to see where it’s going and if it will finish on target.
• Periodic checks: At some of your assessment points you’ll probably want to do periodic checks, notably on the risk position and the viability of the Business Case but perhaps on other things too such as supplier management and stakeholder management.

This chapter has checklists to help you in each of the three areas of checking. As always, adapt the list to the needs of your project. On the one hand you don’t want to perform unnecessary checks that just waste time. On the other hand, many projects get into trouble, and even fail, because the checks are inadequate and fail to pick up on warning signs in time to take action to deal with a project-threatening problem.

Team Progress Checklist

When it comes to teamwork you really need to check in two ways:

• Look at factual progress information given in progress reports or in regular meetings with Team Leaders.
• Visit personally to see how each team is getting on.

This first checklist focuses on examining progress-related information; the second one tackles the team visits.

• Production: If the Work Package is to deliver multiple products, are any products that are due to be complete by now actually complete?
• Quality timing: Are all the scheduled tests being done at the right time, or are any getting delayed or missed?
• Quality responsibilities: Are tests being done by the right people?
• Spend: Check that any team spending or commitment of funds is according to plan.
• Outlook: Look at the Team Leader’s forecast for the rest of the Work Package, and consider if anything could affect the running of the stage.

If the reports from teams show everything going exactly to plan, go check that out. Make sure that the team is not merely feeding back the information that was on your plan in the first place; ‘At the end of Week 3 on this job we’re supposed to be 50 per cent complete and it’s the end of Week 3 so that means we should report 50 per cent complete.’ If you confirm that a team really is exactly on target then that’s great … just unusual.

Team Visit Checklist

Getting out-and-about is important for you as a Project Manager. It’s been said that you can’t project manage from behind your desk and that’s something I very much agree with. Actually talking to team members will give you information that you simply can’t get in other ways. Part of that information is picking up on non-verbal clues. When you’re talking to different people take careful note of their expression and attitude. Also listen out for how they say things, not merely what they say.

• Equipment and facilities: Check that the team has what it needs to do the work.
• Environment: Is the work environment proving suitable for optimum performance?
• Atmosphere: Check whether the atmosphere in the team room is purposeful and upbeat. Look out for people who don’t seem to be engaged and for messy work areas that indicate lack of organisation.
• Motivation: Assess whether the team members seem well motivated and enthusiastic.
• Cooperation: If the team members have to be in touch with people in other teams, does that interaction seem to be working well, or are there signs of a lack of co-operation or signs of friction?
• Encouragement: Take the opportunity to encourage team members and express appreciation for their work (if they’re doing a good job, that is).

I started working in projects with computer systems analysis and design. I was taught that when I went to visit people in their offices the first thing I should do on entering the room was to take a quick and unobtrusive scan round. It’s a habit that’s stuck with me and it pays off in project management too. You can take in a surprising amount of information in just a three-second sweep around the room with your eyes as you enter. For example, are people looking purposeful or bored, and does the room look well organised, or cluttered and disorganised?

Another lesson from my systems analysis days is to beware of snapshot syndrome, where you see something in a ‘snapshot’ at a particular moment and then wrongly assume that it’s happening all the time. A senior manager tried to put me on the spot once. He had walked past a room and, glancing in through the glass panel in the door, saw some of my staff talking together. I was summoned to his office to explain why my staff spent all their time chit-chatting and not working. He was a bit taken aback when I pointed out that at that moment he and I were talking, not sitting silently at our desks. He didn’t like it either when I went on to challenge his assumption that the staff talking was continuous, and then his other assumption that they weren’t talking about the work. I gave him a clear example of where those staff would need to discuss something. The reality was that the staff performed very well and were very professional. So, use your eyes, but check things out and beware of snapshot syndrome.

Stage Check Checklist

To get early warning of any problems and keep on track, you must carry out regular checks. So build a regular check into your routine. The sooner you detect any problem, the earlier you can do something about it and the less damaging it is likely to be. Finding problems isn’t a problem ∅ you can now do something about them – but problems going unnoticed is a major problem.

A common question is about how often you should check the project. There’s no definitive answer to the question because it will depend on the nature of the project, your own management style and the people you are working with. Personally I prefer weekly as a default because if everything is okay the check doesn’t take very long to do … and I always prefer to find any problems sooner rather than later.

• Update the plan: Put the ‘actuals’ from timesheets and spending information into your project plan, although if you have a project administrator then he or she can do that for you. If you haven’t kept the product plans up-to-date with product deliveries during the last period, do it now.
• Progress: Check what products have been delivered in the stage by the team(s) compared to the plan.
• ETC: Check the ‘estimated time to complete’ for current Work Packages against the plan. If anything is too far off the plan or exactly on plan, check it out.
• Performance: Check whether teams are performing at the level that you expected or if performance is significant above or below what you had anticipated.
• Staff availability: Check the timesheets to see whether the work hours reported by teams and team members are in line with the work hours that they are scheduled for. If staff are not sufficiently available to the project (perhaps they are being called out to do other work) then take action now before you start missing important deadlines.
• Spending: Check what has been committed in the last period, compared with the budget (and Procurement Plan if you are using one).
• Quality: Look at your Quality Checklist, or log. Check that tests and checks that are supposed to have been completed by this point have been. Also check the signoffs to ensure that the tests were carried out by the correct people.
• Rework: Look at the level of rework after quality checks to correct faulty products. See if the amount of rework is reasonable or if it reveals a quality problem with significant errors in things going for test.
• Risk review: Check that you’ve taken any planned risk reviews in the last period. If you’ve overlooked one, schedule it for priority action now.
• Project Memos: Look through your Project Log for outstanding action points. Make sure that anything unresolved is genuinely ‘on hold’ while you are waiting for something such as additional information and it’s not that you’ve simply forgotten about the matter.
• Morale: Assess the morale of your staff. You might schedule a walk-about just before your stage assessment or you can think about project staff you have met recently to talk about the work. Were they upbeat and enthusiastic, or downbeat and subdued?
• Relationships: Think about how teams are working together. Think back to see if you have seen any signs of friction or frustration. Check particularly on relationships between your own organisation’s staff and any supplier staff working on the project.
• Forward projection: Using the information you’ve assembled for the previous points, do a forward projection to make sure that you will finish the stage within any limits set by the Project Steering Group (PSG). If not, consider if you can alter things so that you will hit the target or, if you can’t get things back on track, then report the matter to the Sponsor using a Project Memo – Warning.
• Forward view: Check what lies ahead in the period up to your next check. Make sure that you’re aware of action such as major spends, checks on suppliers and action on risks. If you’re using a Project Log for reminders, then cross check with that log to be sure that you’ve noted everything in there.

Most computer tools for project scheduling allow you to monitor progress using the measure of percentage complete. Remember that this measure is unreliable. Instead, focus primarily on the products, which are about delivery, and are much better for progress monitoring. Progress reporting based on delivery is fact based and verifiable. A team that has finished a product so that it now ‘only’ has to pass test may well report it as 95 per cent complete. However if the product fails test and needs substantial re-work it could be considerably more than five percent away from completion. You only know for sure where you are when the product is delivered.

Risk Check Checklist

From time-to-time during a stage you may want to check the overall position on risk. This check isn’t the same as the regular reviews on individual risks but rather a global view.

• Overall risk: Check to see whether the overall risk level is still within the limits set down by the PSG. If not, report it to the PSG (or just the Sponsor) in the way set down in the project controls.
• High severity risk: Look at the high-severity risks to see whether any significant change could cause a problem for the whole project.
• Risk mechanisms: Review the risk mechanisms to make sure that they are working. You usually do this check more in the early part of the project than later, when you have more confidence that everything is working well.

Business Case Check Checklist

This checklist is for a high-level checks of the Business Case, where you need them, at intervals during each Delivery Stage. You’ll be doing a more thorough check towards the end of each Delivery Stage to update the Project Charter in preparation for the Stage Gate.

• Benefits projections: Do the projections still look right in the light of any new information or circumstances that have emerged in the stage to date?
• New benefits: As you get more certain of the project and its impact, check to see whether there are any new areas of benefit that weren’t apparent at the start.
• Changes: Check the effects of any changes to the project and make sure that you’ve picked up on any knock-on effect on the Business Case. There may be additional benefits, or perhaps reduced benefits, as a consequence of the change.
• Cost and time: See whether any changes in the forecast cost and time of the project are likely to affect the viability of the project.
• Viability: Following on from the last point, assess the ongoing viability of the project across all of the elements, including the latest risk assessment.
• Stakeholder impact: Check whether you need to inform particular stakeholders of any changes to the Business Case. Perhaps the latest projections of benefits in a particular business area are now reduced and you need to warn the PSG or the relevant organisational manager about that.

When assessing the impact of any proposed change in the project, you should include any impact on the Business Case. If a change then goes ahead, you should update the Business Case if it was affected. The Business Case check in the list above is to be quite sure that you remembered to make any necessary adjustments.

Supplier Check Checklist

Where your project involves contracts, monitoring the contracts has to be part of the work of your stage checking. You must make sure that the work is being done in line with the contract, that the supplier is performing well and also that supplier staff are supported.

Remember that supplier staff can’t work in a vacuum. In his ‘100 Rules for NASA Project Managers’, Jerry Madden estimates that NASA needs to allocate one of their employees to work alongside every contractor. Unless you’re involved in That may seem a high ratio where you’re not involved in aerospace engineering, but it nevertheless demonstrates the need for supplier support and sometimes to a surprising degree.

• Correct delivery: Make sure that you are getting what you want and not what a supplier assumes you want. Particularly in the early part of the project make sure that suppliers are following the Product Definitions, not ‘what we usually do’.
• Progress: Check on progress, especially if the supplier’s staff are working on their own premises rather than yours and are out of your direct view. Are you being told actual progress or what a supplier thinks you want to hear?

Watch for defensive and even angry reactions from supplier managers when you check things. I once uncovered a major problem. I asked to see some records when visiting the supplier’s premises and when I checked them I found very significant discrepancies. The supplier manager involved showed no regret at all about this major error, but instead was very angry with the member of their own staff who had let me get sight of the records.

• Formal monitoring: Check to see whether a formal contract monitoring point is imminent. If so, part of your check should be to cover the points set down in the contract. You should have these points recorded in your Procurement Plan if you are using one.
• The right people: If the supplier’s staff have recently arrived on site, check that the right people have come. Be sure that it’s the experts you agreed, for example, not trainees.
• The right people retained: If it’s later on in the supplier’s involvement, make sure that the right people have stayed on. Some suppliers have been known to send in good people at the start, but then those staff get mysteriously called away because ‘something urgent has cropped up’ and are gradually replaced with less experienced people.
• Quality: Are the right tests being done or is the supplier cutting corners and hoping that the staff get products right first time?
• Involvement: Are organisational staff being involved as required, such as with testing, and not being sidelined?
• Support: Check that supplier staff are getting the support they need from your organisation’s staff.
• Relationships: Check to be sure that a good working relationship exists between supplier staff and your own organisation’s project staff, and between the staff from different suppliers. If there are problems, address them quickly, including involving supplier managers.
• Integration: Make sure that supplier staff are sufficiently integrated into the project. They won’t usually be regarded in quite the same way as full time employees, but check that a ‘them and us’ divide isn’t forming that will threaten effective working.
• Payment: check that any payments due to suppliers have actually been made.

Working with suppliers is a two-way street. You have a responsibility to the supplier as well as the supplier having one to you. In particular make sure that payments are made in a timely way. It’s unfair anyway to delay payment to a supplier who has supplied the agreed items or service. But then you may want to use good suppliers again so it’s in your own best interest to maintain a good reputation. Small companies in particular may not want to work with your organisation in the future if they have to chase payment repeatedly to get what they are owed. Be aware too that you could face legally enforced surcharges if you don’t pay within a reasonable period.

Stakeholder Check Checklist

Stakeholder management is often talked about, but mostly at the start of a project. Clearly, if you need to manage stakeholders that’s an ongoing action. Stakeholders can often make or break a project, so it will pay you to keep on the ball during the stages. This checklist is to help make sure that you’re keeping tabs on your planned management actions and to spot where you might need new ones.

• Comms: Where communications were planned to keep stakeholders informed, were those communications made?
• Feedback: Check with one or two stakeholders to make sure that they’re getting the information that they need or want. If you talk to one or two each time you do a stakeholder check, then over the course of a stage you’ll keep in personal touch with all of them. That contact will create a good impression and to get, or keep, stakeholders on side.
• Involvement: If stakeholders were to be consulted, for example in the design of particular products, check that they were actually consulted.
• Current state: Check to see whether stakeholders are happy with the project or if they are getting disaffected. If you are trying to bring opposed stakeholders on side to support the project, are you making the progress you hoped for or do you need to modify your stakeholder management?
• Management actions: Where you were planning particular stakeholder management activity has it been done or has it been overlooked in the busyness of the main project work?
• Planned actions: Check to see whether any planned stakeholder management actions are due in the coming week (or your selected period between stage checks)

Readiness Check Checklist

If other projects or areas of the organisation have to make changes to accommodate what your project is going to deliver, you need to keep tabs on progress with that related work. You won’t be in direct control of that related work since if you were it would be part of your project. What you want is confirmation that everything else is on track, or to get early warning if it isn’t.

• Plans: Check that plans are in place for the other areas of work and that the delivery dates are correctly coordinated with your project.
• Progress: Check progress on the related work. As with project progress try to get factual information not estimates such as ‘We’re about half way there, more or less.’ or ‘Well we should be ready in time.’
• Priority: Ensure that other managers have given the right degree of priority to the work. If the work needed to accommodate your project is just a low priority inconvenience compared to the important day-to-day work of the department then it’s likely to get put off if that area comes under pressure. In turn that could threaten the successful delivery of your whole project.

Your project is important to you and in the front of your mind most of the time. Remember that to people doing associated work, their bit is probably just another task in a long list of things that they’ve got to do in their already busy jobs.

Lessons Checklist

Taking note of lessons being learned in a project is hugely important, but something that you can so easily put off when facing day-to-day pressures in the project. You’ll be tempted to think ‘Oh I won’t forget that, I’ll make a note later.’ Then, later, you’ve forgotten about it completely.

The good news is that it doesn’t take long to think through if you need to note down any valuable lessons when you include it as a routine part of a stage check. Neither does it take long to make a few brief notes – so don’t leave the job out because it will be of enormous value to future projects.

Keep the lessons notes brief. That way you won’t feel it’s a huge job to write them and people reading them in the future will have a couple of pages to read through, not a thick book.

• Warning signs: Starting with the bad stuff, think about anything that’s gone wrong and, importantly, whether you missed any warning signs which could have helped you take action earlier.
• Pressures: Sometimes you won’t have had a problem, but you did come under pressure. Think if you could have avoided the pressure.
• Corrections: If you had a problem and took action to correct it, assess how well your solution worked and consider it for your lessons notes. That way if a future Project Manager hits the same problem, she’ll have some advice on how to deal with it effectively.
• Different approach: A really helpful check when thinking about lessons is to ask ‘With the benefit of hindsight, if I had to do part of the project again would I do it differently the next time around?’
• Novel stuff: Think whether you have tried anything new in your project control that’s worked really well. If so, note it to help future Project Managers.