How to get a failing project live in 7 weeks

Imagine that you are a project manager that works in a provider of an outsourcing service. You are told to takeover a project in the following state –

• Project started 10 months ago
• 7 weeks to go live
• The outsourced service must go live on a fixed date and cannot be delayed. As there is no plan B / contingency in place that can be used in case the go live is not achieved
• The project has a scope that has never been done before by the provider
• The scope involves the simultaneous go live of multiple products and services to a population of 2000 people (users)
• Provider does not have a project management implementation methodology so there is no recipe book for what has to be done, by whom and in what order for their outsourcing products
• Project is behind plan in spite the project not having a documented and approved plan
• Project team on the provider side is made up of new hires who had received no onboarding to the organisation or training on how to implement the products on the organisation but they are SMEs (e.g. they are chefs who know how to cook burgers but they have never cooked a Big Mac or Whopper)
• During the last 10 months, on the provider some project team members have left the team and company with minimal knowledge transfer to the new team members plus minimal project documentation (no plan, RAID log, lessons learnt, meeting minutes etc)
• Written promises were made by former project team members on the provider side to the client that are not part of the contracted service and there is no solution for how to for fill these promises
• No signed off requirements from the client. There are some documented requirements, but these have gaps in that are still requiring input from the client on how the gaps in requirements should be met or even if they must be met by the provider
• It is not clear what has been built / configured in the solutions due to a lack of documentation and team members on the provider side having left the team / company
• Contract is written in a way that means that the provider must provide a service that they do not have the knowledge or ability to deliver or maintain. So, an external consultancy has to be contracted by the provider to deliver the service 7 weeks before go live. These external consultants must be onboarded and given system access
• Culture of the provider is that only 10% of projects ever go live on time so there is no sense of urgency to go live as the in general employees of the provider will not be rewarded or punished for failing to go live on time
• Integration between the solutions is not working and this must be fixed before the testing can take place
• Client cannot provide the required data in the correct format on the agreed date to populate the solutions for testing

What do you do?

A worked example of what the new PM could do so to achieve the impossible.

With these 3 points there is nothing you can do as the new PM with only 7 weeks to go. Basic risk management by the client would have been to have a plan B in place (with support from the provider) 10 months ago. So this is really just a lessons learnt for the client and a question that the provider should ask the client at the start of the project – “what is your plan B in case we cannot go live on time?”

Now, forget about doing things perfectly. You as the PM are in damage limitation mode where you are looking to put in place whatever is required so the outsourced service can meet the minimum requirements on the go live date.

• The project has a scope that has never been done before by the provider
• The scope involves the simultaneous go live of multiple products and services to a population of 2000 people
• Project team on the provider side is made up of new hires who had received no onboarding to the organisation or training on how to implement the products on the organisation but they are SMEs (e.g. they are chefs who know how to cook burgers but they have never cooked a Big Mac or Whopper)

This means that the team members on the provider side are key. You as PM need to find the most experienced team members who have a mindset where the impossible can be done.

This is also where all the skills and experiences you have as a leader need to be put into action. The team you are now leading where the team that started the project 10 months ago and their actions resulted in the project being where it is now. Which is a bad state. But that is not what you as the leader need to waste time on. It is about how you can lead the team towards greatness and get the project live on time.

Plus as there is no standard way of implementing multiple products at the same time you as the PM can do what you believe is best and no one can second guess you or tell you that you are doing it wrong as it has never been done before.

It is fun when a PM gets to create new ways of working and in doing things that have never been done before! It can be boring to only follow a recipe book!

• Project is behind plan in spite the project not having a documented and approved plan

Make a plan for the next 7 weeks and forget about a plan for the entire project as you do not have the time to re-plan the past.

• Project team on the provider side is made up of new hires who had received no onboarding to the organisation or training on how to implement the products
• During the last 10 months, on the provider some project team members have left the team and company with minimal knowledge transfer to the new team members plus minimal project documentation (no plan, RAID log, lessons learnt, meeting minutes etc)

Minimal that the PM can do here unless there are more experienced resources available that the resource managers will release to the project. So here the PM needs to identify more experienced people and either get them on the project team or have them as “phone a friend” or advisors to the newer members of the organisation. The management team decided to populate a project team to deliver the scope that has never been done before. So, the PM is walking into a political minefield and there are only 7 weeks available, so the PM must make do with who they have.

PM to create the plan for the next 7 weeks plus the RAID log as the project will be managed more easily at the individual action, issue and risk level. All meetings to be recorded with Microsoft Teams if there is a product / how to demonstration / testing and all meetings to be minuted so the RAID log can be populated and kept up to date.

• Written promises were made by former project team members on the provider side to the client that are not part of the contracted service and there is no solution for how to for fill these promises

Here the PM can escalate the decisions to the managers of the people who made them and request that they provide the solutions or cancel the promises made by their employees. This is again a political minefield and there are only 7 weeks left. Therefore, the PM must ask if what has been promised is needed on day 1 of go live or is it something that can be discussed and investigated after go live. Hopefully, it is not for day 1 so this gives time to find a solution or to have management cancel the false promises made.

• No signed off requirements from the client. There are some documented requirements, but these have gaps in that are still requiring input from the client on how the gaps in requirements should be met or even if they must be met by the provider

As PM you need to get clarity on the requirements ASAP so do everything possible to get the requirements signed off and / or for the client to understand what has been built and if this is wrong then it will have to be fixed after go live.

• It is not clear what has been built / configured in the solutions due to a lack of documentation and team members on the provider side having left the team / company

Have solution / system experts go through the configuration of the solutions so to confirm what has been done so far and then what is outstanding. The outstanding tasks then become the plan and items in the RAID log.

• Contract is written in a way that means that the provider must provide a service that they do not have the knowledge or ability to deliver or maintain. So, an external consultancy has to be contracted by the provider to deliver the service 7 weeks before go live. These external consultants must be onboarded and given system access

Provider must absorb the cost of the poorly written contract and hopefully the legal department will update the standard contract for other clients, so this mistake does not happen again.

The onboarding of external consultants is hard as PMs are not line managers so do not have the internal authority or abilities to setup new employees on the internal systems etc. The quickest solution is to give the external consultants company laptops, but this can still take weeks due to internal bureaucracy. Here the PM just must keep pushing whoever must perform the sending of laptops, system onboarding, system access, payment of external consultants etc of new employees.

• Culture of the provider is that only 10% of projects ever go live on time so there is no sense of urgency to go live as the in general employees of the provider will not be rewarded or punished for failing to go live on time

Here as the PM you are going to have to go into “dictator mode” and push the team and the organisation to do something that they are not used doing. Obviously, this is within reason and in the bounds of treating everyone with respect and professionalism. Here the PM is asking the team “how can we work together to meet the go live date?” and “how can I help you achieve your tasks by the set date?”

Also the PM should do what they can to ensure that the team members are recognised and rewarded for their exceptional work.

The clear risk to the new PM that is stepping into the project 7 weeks before the go live is that they are at risk of being fired if they do not achieve the go live plus they are also at risk of being fired if they do achieve the go live!

The organisation could have selected any PM in the company (or an external contractor) to lead the project from the start or takeover the project at anytime. In this case the management team decided that at 7 weeks before the go live the PM that had been leading the project for 10 months should be replaced. This means that the new PM is likely to be fired even if they achieve the go live date. As the new PM will have proved to the management team that they can make the impossible happen and therefore make the organisation and the management team look bad by doing something that had never been done before.

• Integration between the solutions is not working and this must be fixed before the testing can take place

PM to ask the team “what is the issue, how can it be fixed, who can fix it, what is needed to fix it, by when can it be fixed? etc”. Then the PM to make the identified solution a reality as quickly as possible.

• Client cannot provide the required data in the correct format on the agreed date to populate the solutions for testing

PM to assign team members to the client to hold their hand with the data collection and migration. This could be onsite visits or twice daily calls with screen sharing where the client to walk through the data collection requirements and processes. Ideally the provider has people who understand where the client’s data is (e.g. the database it is stored in) so they can tell the client what they need to do.

In conclusion, the new PM must first understand the current situation, then understand what is required and then work out with the team how to get to the end. Sounds simple but it is incredibly complex and challenging to do even if you had the fully 1 year to do the project instead of only 7 weeks. So as long as the minimal requirements for go live are met the PM and the team have still achieved the impossible.

I was the new PM in the above example. I achieved the impossible and I learnt a lot about my own abilities and how culture is a key determinant if the go live is achieved or not.

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