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PM Tips, Tricks and Tidbits: Project on Fire

I was recently asked to provide advice on a project that was “on fire.” What does that mean?

It is a project that is failing due to deadlines being missed, an out of control budget, and the project team doing extra work for free to keep the client happy. I knew we couldn’t afford to waste any time figuring out what was going wrong.

A new project manager, let’s call them the Firefighting PM, was assigned to the project and made solid initial progress. They consolidated all issues and created a previously non-existent issue tracking system. Additionally, they began gathering information from key stakeholders.

This project was nearing its final months. The budget was extremely tight, and no additional resources could be brought in. The priority was to keep the client happy, however the overall health of the overall project was slipping.

They discovered that, despite the project’s nearing completion, time had been wasted on chasing squirrel-like distractions. And to make matters worse, key team members had left the project…

I advised the Firefighting PM to begin building trust with the team immediately.

How could they do this?

Very carefully.

First – dig deep to get the full picture of what’s going on to understand how it developed to its current state.

They discovered one project team member was doing nothing to get the project back on track, another was doing tasks ineffectively, and a third was trying their best just to get stuff done.

We discussed ways to build trust and accountability, such as scheduling individual calls with team members to assess their productivity, commitment to the project, and their feelings about communication and collaboration within the team.

Second – facilitate a meeting with the project team to observe their collaboration, receptiveness to feedback, and openness to new ideas. It was discovered that the root cause of the project’s challenges was lack of consistent planning and documentation, coupled with high staff turnover and insufficient knowledge transfer over the length of the project.

The Firefighting PM now had valuable information to share with both the project owner and client. With permission from both parties, they started moving the team towards a more collaborative and trusting project environment.

Over a two week period, the squirrels disappeared and were replaced with a laser beam focus on the last remaining tasks and deliverables. The Firefighting PM’s title was changed to Trusting PM, and the client was sending the team handcrafted donuts with extra sprinkles.

No one could ignore the truth: projects pivot, but with trust and collaboration, success happens.