May 6, 2022
What do we all want when we start a project?
Success.
Unfortunately, wanting success and securing success are two entirely different things. But that doesn’t mean it has to be hard. It just means that the correct steps have to be taken.
And one big step is ensuring that your business has strong and lasting relationships with your vendors.
A business rarely has all the resources to successfully execute a project on its own. Ultimately it will have to turn to external resources, and it makes sense to expect that smooth relationships with vendors will result in a smoother ride for your project. That’s why your business has to have an efficient vendor management system in place.
These four steps will help to ensure that your project can reap the rewards of a successful vendor management process:
- Establish Business Goals – Before you even enlist a vendor to help you, you need to establish what your project goals are. This is simply so that your vendors can understand what you need from them and what you need done.
- Appropriate Vendor Selection – Do your research before you select a vendor. Make sure that they have the experience you are looking for. What do their quotes actually include, and what are they leaving out? We have all been caught out by fine print before, so make sure your project isn’t left struggling because of such. Make sure the vendor you choose for your project has your strongest confidence.
- Risk Assessment – This step should not be underestimated. To expect that a project will run smoothly the whole way through, will likely be your project’s downfall. Risk assessment and risk management will help your relationship with vendors, as you can expect and thus manage the hiccups and bumps that might otherwise have had them lose confidence in your project. These steps will help:
- Identify risks that are likely to come about.
- Analyse the effects these risks could have. How likely are the risks to happen? And if they are to occur, what will the likely impact be? Measure it on a simple scale.
- Create a plan of action for the risks – can they be mitigated? Can they be avoided entirely? Can they not be avoided? If not, is the project worth going ahead with or will you have to think of an entirely new strategy to achieve your goals?
- CREATE and KEEP a risk register document. This will allow you to smoothly assess your roadmap and analyse how you deal with risks.
4. If there is a problem, never play the blame game. We are human beings, and ultimately, because we are such, we all make mistakes. Handle each mistake with grace and patience and reflect on how you can avoid them in future. If it was your mistake, own it and ask yourself how you can do better next time.
Ultimately, building healthy relationships with your vendors will allow your project a far greater chance at success than it would do otherwise. As the saying goes, two heads is always better than one. So working collaboratively is key.
If you can make sure that you have a smooth and healthy vendor management system in place, that you pay them promptly and that you avoid reaching for the contracts every time there is a mistake made, you can build a team upon which you can build an empire on.
Feb 25, 2022
Sometimes skills and achievements on paper may seem impressive. However, in reality what is actually required from a great project sponsor is a much more unique set of skills and behaviours. Without such, it could be very difficult for any organisation to deliver a winning strategy.
These skills and behaviours aren’t black and white, and often enough they are already inherent within an individual. With that said, however, these skills can definitely be learned but it will take someone who is patient and willing to commit to their team’s best interests to do so.
Ultimately, effective project sponsorship is the difference between project success and failure.
That is why we, here at Luminate, have worked hard to compile a list of six core skills and behaviours that you can expect from a great project sponsor who will successfully lead a project team to delivery success.
1. Uniting a team that has confidence in their sponsor: Now this is easier said than done! A successful project sponsor needs to forget the list of attributes classically listed on paper for a successful team and instead hire those that have enough innovation and drive to get the job done successfully. Resourcing a project correctly from the outset can have a huge impact on the success of the project.
2. Remain calm in the face of obstacles: Almost all projects will run into bumps and hurdles during the delivery process. If a project sponsor is overly optimistic and expects everything to go smoothly, that is a sure sign of trouble ahead. What makes a project sponsor effective, is the ability to navigate the murky waters of any project and keep it moving forward carefully and smoothly. It’s crucial that a project sponsor is always informed and makes decisions with confidence to lead the team through any setbacks that occur.
3. Understand the importance of their role: Too often a project sponsor’s role is underestimated and overlooked, and quite often this is by the project sponsor themselves. An active and engaged project sponsor is always fully informed on progress within their project team and this allows them to successfully guide the project to success.
4. Make swift, aligned decisions: A great project sponsor will be able to clearly outline the business problem at hand, and articulate the risks and the advantages of the proposed actions. Realistic decisions can then be made in a timely manner and in keeping with the goals of the project’s success at the forefront of each action taken.
5. Be able to maintain regular communication: From the start, a great project sponsor should clearly set out the requirements and methods of communication to all stakeholders. Being an effective communicator and keeping a team united through communication is a key skill that is needed from the Project Sponsor.
6. Be a collaborative Champion: What we mean here is that while always having a grip of the reins is important to ensure the project does not lose course, it is also just as important to know when to step back. Knowing when to trust the project manager has got the detail in check is also a key skill. Then your role may be more distant advice and subtle observation. Knowing when to step back and when to step in is a very important skill.
Overall, a great project sponsor requires critical thinking skills. To lead a successful project team requires patience, consistency, natural authority, and the ability to instil passion and drive with all stakeholders.
People make projects. Need help securing the right resources to make your next project viable and successful? Talk to us, at Luminate we can help you to deliver a project successfully and professionally.
Jan 21, 2022
According to PMI’s 2018 Pulse of the Profession Report one of the pivotal reasons that projects fail, is because of the lack or inadequacy of support from the project sponsors. This is the case for a staggering 26% of all organisations, and 41% of organisations with a low project management maturity.
A project sponsor’s role is often underestimated and overlooked. Often the reins are handed over to the project manager once the project is given the go-ahead, and everybody seems to forget the importance of the actual sponsor, or so we think. However, the aforementioned figures clearly show that their role, and their engagement within that role, matters too much to the success of a project, to just let them fade into the background.
Articulating roles and responsibilities right at the beginning of the project is a must, so everyone understands the authority of the project sponsor. The best project sponsor is both engaged and active, and will be ‘joined at the hip’ to the project manager to ensure they are at all times aware of what is going on and that surprises are avoided.
Transparency is important. Back in the day the project sponsor would put a stake in the ground around dates and budget, based on nothing by a hunch without any rigour underpinning them. The project manager was expected to take these wild arse guesses and turn them into reality. More often than not, these optimistic whims proved wrong, sometimes with devastating consequences.
Sadly, some of these sponsor behaviours are still seen. The only way to deal with this is to defuse emotion with facts and be unequivocal about what is reality versus what is ‘hit and hope’. There’s no point in saying six months into execution that ‘We always thought the plan was optimistic’. Over optimism can almost always be called out during initiation, based on facts and supported by empirical data. The project manager is not accountable for achievement of the business case benefits. That sits squarely with the sponsor. But they are responsible for clearly communicating to the sponsor the risks and assumptions identified by both internal and external subject matter experts. The onus is then on the sponsor to act and to empower the project manager to do their job and present a realistic view. The sponsor must then endorse that the plan is feasible. Burning cash and tying up scarce resources on an over optimistic plan or doomed project, after having been told that there is no chance of success or redemption, is simply reckless. Don’t be that type of sponsor. Get real, support your project manager and delivery team.
Ultimately for a project to succeed, the project sponsor must be aware of what is always going on in the project and be willing to help the project manager deliver the intended results. If the plan doesn’t stack up, then the sponsor needs to recognise this and be the one to stop (or not even start) the project.
After all, it’s your signature on the business case.
Dec 10, 2021
Optimism is inherently a positive word. It is exactly what our teachers and parents tried to instil within us. However, when it comes to managing a project, it can in fact be the biggest enemy your team could have.
Overconfidence and over-optimism can result in unrealistic milestones and deadlines. These milestones and deadlines may well have been created with the best intentions, but most often they will have been created to keep key stakeholders’ interests high. Unfortunately, this can backfire when your project starts to fall apart. This could be in the form of missed milestones, budgets being blown, or even when your loyal team-mates begin to show signs of apprehension, asking for extensions of time.
If your entire project is predicated upon an analysis of costs and schedules that have little room for error, then all the small problems might begin to compound, leading to your project blowing its budget and running outside of its framed schedule. If you expect to deliver without setbacks along the way, then without even analysing your project, I can safely say it will have a very slim chance of succeeding. And that’s not me being pessimistic. That is me being realistic.
Nobody likes Mr. Realism. In fact, quite often, they are the ones that can bring a cheering room to silence. They are the ones that can stir doubts in people’s minds. But ultimately, they are necessary. Especially when it comes to managing highly complex projects. If you can expect the unexpected, then chances are that if your project’s wheels start to come loose, you will have the right tools on hand to get it back up and running and back on track.
There are six typical ways in which optimism can negatively impact your project:
1. Overconfidence. Otherwise known as the Dunning-Kruger effect. Overconfidence can lead to unrealistic deadlines and an underestimation of what is required.
2. Oversimplification. Much like the above an overly optimistic PM can use assumptions as opposed to direct figures. This can lead to overambitious and unrealistic goals.
3. Avoiding pain. If you always convince yourself that you will catch up at the next milestone – you will never truly address the issues beneath the surface.
4. Confirmation Bias. This can be when 99 signs point towards there being issues with your project, but you focus on the 1 sign of positivity.
5. Availability Cascade. This is where the vision of the project gets repeated enough times that the vision of the project and the realistic expectations of the project get confused.
6. Perceptual Bias. And finally, this is where Project Managers focus on individual details as opposed to taking that much needed step back and assessing the full picture of the project, especially when under pressure.
If you and your team cannot see what is going wrong, then sometimes the best thing you can do is bring in an independent expert who can get to the root of the problem. As the saying goes – you cannot see the wood for the trees. An independent project manager could be exactly what your project needs. To find its flaws, and to help you re-evaluate the course and strategy that your project requires.
So yes, optimism is a beautiful thing, but it can also be a disastrous and erratic form of managing. Our project managers know the balance and can ensure that optimism does not lead to the downfall of your project’s goals.
Nov 5, 2021
When a project’s scope is initially being mapped out, chances are that the team will be feeling optimistic. Nobody starts a project thinking the worst, in fact, at the beginning most will think of only the benefits the project can bring to the table, and rightly so. A team should always believe in their project from the outset. However, things can turn sour, especially when the project drags out and its costs begin to rise.
Value creep is the inherent enemy of every long project. It is when the benefits of your project start to spiral downwards while the costs climb. The project may have gotten off to a fantastic start but has now reached a position where it begins to stall. Most project managers will feel hot under the collar once they start to see the benefits tailing off. And believe us when we say that it happens more often than you think.
The value of a project is defined as what has been gained after the costs have been detracted from the benefits. However, not all projects are so straightforward, and not all criteria will be so simply set out. In order to truly create a buffer between your project and any value creep, it’s critical to set out the definition of the success criteria at initiation stage. It is also imperative that you define HOW you will measure such success criteria and WHEN you will measure it.
Here at Luminate, we have put together some further sure-fire ways to make sure that your team avoids the dreaded value creep.
1. Don’t make plans for the long game. Aim for shorter duration projects which have been found time and time again to be more successful. This is even more the case where there is a potential of faster realisation of benefits. Ultimately, short-duration projects keep stakeholders’ interest and support high. A loss of interest in the project, and there’s a high chance that the team will begin to experience fatigue and burnout.
2. Break the project into manageable chunks. This is particularly important if the project is unavoidably longer than desired. By setting smaller milestones, support and enthusiasm can be kept high when meeting each milestone, with the satisfaction of completion seen as attainable. This can also help to keep the focus on delivering customer value as early as possible in the project.
3. Use value to position the project outcome. Those aforementioned manageable chunks will be much more efficient and effective if they are measured and prioritised according to the business requirements and the merits of success afforded to each chunk.
Every project is unique, and every project’s objective will be different. This brings us back in a full circle to making sure that the criteria of success have been defined from the beginning. Whether that success is relative to net revenue or reduced stock level, or in general terms such as a happier workforce or gaining a competitive advantage, you need to revisit and re-establish the success criteria.
4. And finally, allow your team to refresh. Don’t burn them out by continuously overworking them. You want your team to work with you and you want them to WANT to work with you. Nothing quite calls the failing of a project, like the failing of team spirit.
Overall, your project can be successful. Even if you are in the throes of value creep, it’s not too late to turn it around and revive the project. Our experienced team have seen this time and time again, and we can help you to successfully navigate your project back on the right track.
