The untold cases from the professional project managers (Episode 2)
The below content was provided from Amr Kassem and Ali Adib, the 2 kind and professional project managers. We would like to say thank you to all the contributors for such valuable insights provided 😄.
Amr Kassem:
About the interviewee: Amr is a professional IT project manager, who started out as a developer (ITWorx INC.), moving on the Business Analysis area (in SunLife Financial and Underwriters Laborities), and finally working in the Project Management area of the industry.
A couple of years ago, we had a client implementation that was looking like an impossible task. The client had asked for a delivery milestone that was less than 15 weeks away, when:
- The SOW had not been signed yet
- Our typical implementation of this module was 18–20 weeks long 👀
My challenge was two-fold:
- Implement this client’s project, based on our off-the-shelf module
- Set a new record for how quickly an implementation should go
My major risks were:
- Client would introduce changes that would throw a wrench in the schedule
- The delivery would be so fast, that we’ll deliver a system that no one will know how to use, by the time we launch
- Platform issues could case schedule delays — this was a medium risk
What I did
To mitigate the first risk,
A good amount of expectation management was set with the project’s main sponsor.
Since they were the ones who had the final say, I sincerely, and openly, said on one of our first meetings that our schedule is tight, and there is no room for changes.
If the date was the most important aspect, we’ll keep that, and any issues/changes/updates will need to be pushed for phase 2, that we agreed would take place shortly after the initial launch.
After all, they had a paper-based process now. ‘Any system you give us, will be better than anything we have today’… those were my client’s exact words.
To mitigate the second risk,
A separate training environment was setup that has nothing to do with our implementation environment.
Weekly training sessions were booked for the client team to see the system in action, ask questions and we gave them to opportunity to actually drive a few times.
The implementation itself was very fast-paced, but laser focused.
This is because of the initial agreement we had; date comes first, everything else second as long as they’re not showstoppers. I held my end on the showstoppers, the client held their end on the changes.
Luck was on our side as well, the implementation was rather smooth with a few hiccups, but nothing that our timeline did not allow us to fix.
Launch was successful with the client, and they were so happy that they came back and bought 4 more modules to implement, 2 for their own department, and two others for another department. 😄
Ali Adib
About the interviewee: Ali has been a project manager for more than 10 years, for organizations such as Building Blocks Inc. and IGWD Co. He is currently a PM and a Consultant with leadership experience. (Visit Ali Linkedin Here).
I remember this one cloud migration project that we were struggling to complete.
The IT consultant was delaying sending me the proposal, because:
- They were too busy with other clients
- They did not know enough about one of the products we were asking for and had to do some extra research on their end.
At the same time, our internal users were in desperate need of a functional and smooth new cloud system for their data and file sharing.
I, the project manager, was under heavy pressure from the management to deliver as soon as possible.
Last but not least, our budget and the IT vendor’s proposal did not align 100% 💸.
Basically, nothing was going quite according to the plan! Our initial scope, budget and timeline were all being threatened by the situation.
After all, it took some negotiating with vendors and consultants, various meetings between me and the management and a couple more with both the management and vendors to get the project back on track.
We delivered a little behind schedule, nothing detrimental thankfully. We stayed within the budget by negotiating with vendors and consultants, and by adjusting the scope a little bit.
If I go back in time, I will do a couple of things differently.
First,
I will educate the management about the project and the scope further.
Although the challenge was that they did not have time to meet and understand the scope and the products better. But if I could go back, I would push further to make that happen, to the best of my ability:
- I will make sure to go through the broad details of the scope, such as what platforms and services we are going to use and showing them a demo.
- I would then give them a temporary account to play around with the platforms for a couple weeks,
- And I would hold a follow-up meeting to answer any of their questions.
Second,
I would ask the management to spend a little bit more time on sending memos out to our internal users and informing them that the product delivery may take longer that they expected.
Some of the expectations were not realistic and more communication from the top could be helpful.
Last,
I would push more for meeting with the management to update on the progress and receive their input in every step of the process.
Given the scope and timeline of this specific project, weekly one or two hour meetings could have been ideal.
In those meetings I will also gather their feedback about the progress and reflect on it in the next meeting.
All project managers, of course, understand that my wish list above is hard to achieve, given how busy teams and leaders are and how many priorities they are dealing with at a given time.
But I can say this: trying doesn’t hurt! I would try.
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