A project that is out of control, either in respect of your budget or the timetable, will not get back on target without some serious effort and commitment on the part of the individuals involved in the project and the organisation doing the project. Fortunately there are three simple ways to help the project manager regain control spanning a project and rescue it all from failure: Determine the current statusReview just about all tasks and activities so that you can determine exactly where the project stands to get the actual schedule in addition to actual budget. Ignore any previously approximated costs and times and concentrate on determining the actual status. Review all available reports and discuss with team members to explain that you want to know exactly what progress has been made irrespective of just about any previous estimates, promises and also commitments. It is fundamental to regaining control of your project that you begin from a known baseline. That way the re-planning has the best chance of success and you can, hopefully, avoid the project getting a disaster. If you didn't aim to determine and document most assumptions, the obvious without so obvious, in early stages of the job, now is the time to take some action. This is not some time to be enthusiastic about the results as it is more than likely clear to all concerned that there are major problems with the project. But it is necessary now to be unrelenting and ensure all presumptions are known and reported. And don't just reassess the status of the project in terms of time and budget, also reassess the available resources in terms of skills and people. Are the strengths as well as weaknesses of the team the same as they were at the beginning of the project? If not take this under consideration in the re-planning as well as re-scheduling. And make sure everyone knows that you intend this project to be a success, don't allow an air flow of failure to slip in or the project will certainly fail. Re-affirm the project aimThere would have originally been a eye sight that ensured commitment to your project, secured funding and enabled the project to get off the ground. It is a project manager's role to remind people of the original vision and try and reignite several of the enthusiasm with which this project started. The business aim will need to have been clearly defined and documented at first of the project and yet if this was not the case then now is the time to rectify that selected problem. This will help for you to remind people of the key benefits of the completed project, for them as individuals as well as for the organisation. Involve people in the project and ensure they know the benefit of each task they complete from the overall success of this project. Inspire the team and make every member feel valued. That might sound like trite motivational-speak but it really is vital to make sure that a project remains controlled and ends in success. Decide how to accomplish the project aim This means you have thoroughly assessed the place that the project stands with respect to the budget, the schedule, the people and their skills. You know, and have communicated plus reinforced, the business strive, the vision of the completed project to everyone the team member and all other stakeholders. The next step is to plan how to get from where you are to a completed in addition to successful project. It may be that a lot of the factors that have hosted the project off course in the first place still exist so there will probably be little cause for optimism in regards to re-planning to the end of this project. But plan you must? if necessary the project status may need to be reassessed and re-planned again in 2, 3 weeks or months time. But in order to move forward effectively you must plan a full itinerary now. In some industry sectors just like IT, which are rapidly changing and which will have a high turnover of staff it is practically impossible to prepare a project from start to finish that will not need to be reassessed as well as re-planned at various stages during the project. Do not let that this happens instill an awareness of failure into any team. In some industries this is certainly normal and a really detailed plan is unlikely to proceed with out using hitch on a difficult project. Finances and other resources can change during the course of a long project together with project management skill is discovering how to regain control of an project affected by uncontrolled circumstances. Treat such things as to be able to re-enthuse the team and remind everyone on the initial vision of the project then progress to that successful achievement. Professional project management training in internationally recognised methodologies just like PMP can assist with the help of training and advice on the best way to handle such situations.
