This is a true story. The company name
has been changed.
The situation
Acme Corporation was well under way in
implementing their new ERP package. The project was on schedule and running
smoothly.
Then, the Acme Corporation’s owners
announced that they were putting the company up for sale. The core project team
was suddenly unavailable for three or four weeks. They were busy working on
reports, answering questions for the potential buyers, and supporting the due
diligence efforts. As project team
members, they were supposed to be finalizing design, completing procedures, and
preparing training materials.
The accounting staff in the branch
offices was also doing work related to the sale. They were kept busy answering
questions from potential buyers, touring them through the facilities, and
answering questions from customers. As extended project team members, they were
supposed to be gathering, verifying and mapping data for entry into the new
system.
At the branches, they also speculated…was
the project cancelled, should they stop gathering data for the new system?
The project manager and project sponsor
had not imagined that there was any possibility of a sale of the company, so there
was no provision in the project plan for such an event.
When the extent of the project delay
was assessed, the project was about three to four weeks behind schedule.
Analysis and recommendation
What did the project manager do? She
worked with the core implementation team to evaluate the available
alternatives.
The options considered were:
(a)
Add resources;
(b)
Move the deadline;
(c)
Change scope.
Adding resources would not help at this
stage of the project. Anyone qualified to help the core team would have reduced
the accounting staff in one of the branch offices, which would also delay the
project. So, with that option eliminated, they looked at changing the scope
and/or deadline.
The team felt strongly about keeping
the deadline as planned. The deadline had been carefully chosen, with thought
given to budget time, vacation schedules, year-end accounting and reporting
needs, and impact on amount of data to be entered in the new system.
The project manager and core team’s
decision was to reduce the scope of the project. There were several items in
the scope of the project that, although important to the company, could be
removed without impacting daily processing on the “go-live” date. These items
were identified for deferral to a follow-up phase.
Approval and communication
The project manager and core
implementation team presented their plan for changes to the project sponsor.
The sponsor approved moving scope from
the current phase to a newly defined follow-on phase. The sponsor made
arrangements for the core team to continue with the follow on phase after the
current “go-live” date.
The project sponsor announced to the
accounting staff in the branches that the project was continuing, and advising
them of the changes made to the plan.
Epilogue
The project (now phase 1) did “go-live”
on the planned date. The work deferred did get completed in the new second
phase.
This project management tale took place
due to a sale of the company.
However, the analysis of the solution
is appropriate for any situation where the project has been delayed and a
decision has to be made regarding how to get back on track.
Copyright
2015 Debbie Gallagher
