Balance Your Project Portfolio Between Current Needs and Future Goals
Project and portfolio management revolve around orchestrating efforts that are launching or are in progress, as well as planning for future initiatives. The efforts that
Project and portfolio management revolve around orchestrating efforts that are launching or are in progress, as well as planning for future initiatives. The efforts that
The fast pace of project planning and execution can sometimes take a toll on team members. Nonstop communications, coordination across multiple stakeholders and cross-functional groups,
Everyone in your project team is busy but your initiative isn’t moving ahead. You may be stalled trying to get through a particular sequence of
Good project communications are a fundamental component of project success. Formal memos, meeting agendas and minutes, quick question-and-answer sessions in the hall—they all contribute to
One common problem organizations encounter is the existence of multiple concurrent plans for a single project. Between the various cross-functional groups, from accounting to engineering to HR, you may discover there are too many schedules in use. With all these timetables floating around, how can you trust any of the resulting progress estimates? The true status of each activity soon becomes a big question mark. Sound familiar? It’s the “many truths” problem and it could doom your project to failure.
It isn’t uncommon to encounter challenges during a project. Teams may lose a key member, putting additional work on everyone else, or a critical material might suddenly become unavailable. These problems are relatively routine and most PMs have the experience and resources to deal with the issues without derailing their project’s progress.
Is your organization launching a new facility? Whether it represents an expansion of existing operations, a relocation from a previous site, or an entirely new function for the company, there are a number of risks around material procurement that must be identified and properly addressed before your facility startup project can deliver the expected results.
Conducting ongoing checks of a project’s health is something teams should do on a regular basis, but surprisingly few actually do. If your organization is one of those that doesn’t already carry out routine monitoring, it’s an important skill that’s worth the effort to develop. A well-informed assessment gives project managers the level of awareness they need to proactively spot potential problems, deploy solutions, and monitor the results to ensure their fix was effective in bringing the project’s progress back on track.
The need to develop new processes should be an expected part of any facility startup project. Depending on the type of site that’s being launched, the organization may not have established protocols that address any number of functions—inventory management or materials receiving, for example. Or it’s possible that formal processes do exist within the company, but that they aren’t comprehensive enough to encompass all the activities that will occur in the new facility.
In the early phases of project planning, there are many things the Project Team doesn’t know. But as the process gets underway, the team needs to make it their mission to ensure they get the information they need to understand where risks exist, to determine the most efficient and effective scope and timeline, and to make the best decisions as they move forward. If the data being used by the Project Team is incomplete or inaccurate, the project could go over budget or even fail to achieve its goals.
When you have a project too important to fail, choose PMAlliance.
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