Workshop Day 2

One of the more important elements of project management is to identify, assess and prioritise the potential risks to the activities, resources, schedules and other aspects of the project. Once the risks have been identified and evaluated, the risk management process assists the Project Manager in minimising, mitigating, monitoring and controlling the probability and impact of these events.

Projects can experience positive and negative impacts from risks, although we generally tend to focus on the potential negative impacts. Importantly, a project might be affected by known and unknown risks – where an unknown risk is an event that impacts the project but had not been identified previously.

Risk breakdown structure

PMBOK includes the following Risk Breakdown Structure (RBS) figure, which …lists the categories and sub-categories within which risks may arise for a typical project.

Consequences and likelihood

• Consequence (Impact)
  • How severe could the outcomes be if the risk event occurred?
• Likelihood (Probability)
  • What’s the chance of the risk occurring?

Building the register

This is best done in a group, like your Work Breakdown Structure. Since you are unlikely to be aware of all the potential risks for all the activities, it’s important to include your key stakeholders in the development of your risk register.

• Hold a meeting to discuss the risks – encourage your meeting participants to be as creative as they can with the statement “what could go wrong?”
• Capture all the ideas as ‘potential risks’ – don’t dismiss anything at this stage.
• Go through the brainstormed ideas and evaluate whether they are actual risks – you will likely remove some of the more creative ones from the list.
• Assess the Likelihood and Consequence of each one as a group – do not allow either of these to be downplayed by members of the group. Understand that biases might be at play, and people might have an unconscious bias about the likelihood or consequence of an action.
• Once rated, conduct an activity to deal with the risks – most often this will be mitigation strategies.

The organisation has four possible responses to a risk:

1. Avoid
   • Used for high likelihood and consequence events; requires replanning to avoid the risk entirely.
2. Transfer
   • For low likelihood but high consequence events; requires finding another party to take the risk, like and insurer or contractor for specific services.
3. Mitigate/Reduce
   • For high likelihood but low consequence events; identification of actions that can reduce the probability through active management, communication, etc.
4. Accept
   • Only for low likelihood and consequence events; doesn’t require any additional actions.

A Note on Reviewing Risks

As indicated in the lifecycle graphic, risk management is a process that underpins all four phases of a project. That means you need to build in ongoing risk reviews and maintain your risk register as a live document throughout the implementation and closure phases.

1.1.8 Activity: Start the risk process

Using your Project, develop a list of six potential risks, use at least a couple of the categories above. In the following table, evaluate their Consequence/Likelihood and decide on a course of action to mitigate them.

Managing expectations and scope creep

As the Project Manager, it is your role to manage the expectations of your stakeholders and manage the deliverable scope of your project. Communication and engagement are the key for this, but it’s important to remember that communication is a two-way street:

  

While you might think your message is clear, the receiver will interpret your message and decode it based on their internal view – they might hear what they want to hear, and not what you said to them at all!

It is vital to continually check their understanding of your message, to provide it in different forms and be explicit about what is and is not part of your project – and exactly when that will or will not occur.

Building the team

Project roles	Responsibilities
Sponsor	Assist with clearly defining the project outcomes. Review and approve the project scope. Executive level support focusing on outcomes and organisational impact. Provide the project team with the time and resources required to deliver the project. Conduct appropriate reviews of project progress. Meet with the project team as requested. Remove any organisational roadblocks. Ensure ongoing organisational support throughout delivery.
Manager	Develop and seek approval for the project scope and detailed project plan. Establish and motivate the project team to perform their allocated tasks. Control the allocation of resources and use of funds to achieve the project. Keep all stakeholders, and the sponsor, informed and happy with progress. Analyse and manage project risks and identified issues. Finalise the delivery of the project and organise the acceptance and handover to the operational area. Evaluate the project and capture the lessons learnt for the organisation.
Team	Provide advice and support to the project manager throughout the development, implementation and closure of the project. Complete their assigned tasks to achieve the planned outcomes of the project. Liaise with appropriate stakeholders and flag any issues for resolution. Ensure deliverables meet the quality requirements outlined in the plan, and raise issues as required. Provide frank feedback in the evaluation process.

• Identify and select
• Introduce and induct
• Roles and responsibilities
• Common understanding

All managers of people need to ensure that their team members understand their roles and responsibilities – projects are no different. Early engagement of team members, which allows them to participate in the project planning phase, is a great way to establish and inform your team. Where this is not possible, you need to ensure your induction processes and documentation cover these requirements adequately.

1.1.9 Activity: Stating their roles

Consider the information in your project plan – how can you use these resources to ensure your staff understand the purpose of the project and their roles and responsibilities delivering it?

As well as ensuring individuals understand their roles and responsibilities, it’s important to get the team working together as quickly as possible. You could use Tuckman’s team development model to help move your team to the Performing stage – which is where you need them to be.

Team dynamics

1.1.9 Activity: The Challenge

Participate in “The Challenge” and as the group debrief occurs, record your insights below

Tuckman’s team development model

Team dynamics can make or break the success of a project. Remember that:

• Each step builds on the previous one
• Each step prepares for the performing stage
• Skipping any step negatively impacts performing
• With every new challenge, the process repeats
• Teams can move back and forth between stages.

	Task	Behavior
Forming	Establish base kevek expectations Identify similarities Agreeing on common goals	Making contact & bonding Developing trust Members dependent
Storming	Identifying power & control issues Gaining skills in communication Identifying resources	Expressing differences of ideas, feelings, & opinions Reacting to leadership Members independent or counter-dependent
Norming	Members agree about roles & processes for problem solving	Decisions are made through negotiation & consensus building
Performing	Achieve effective & satisfying results Members find solutions using appropriate controls	Members work collaboraively Members care about each other The group establishes a unique identity Members are interdependent
Adjourning	Plan for next ask/project/year, Task/project completion	Recognise & celebrate successes Move on to next project/team etc

Descriptions and actions for each stage as they relate to each other

^{Adapted from Tuckman’s Team Development Model}

1.1.9 Activity: Team dynamics and my current (work) project

From a team dynamic perspective, what does this mean for the Project Manager and for project success?

1.1.9 Activity: Getting the skills

Review your Project and list the specialist skills you might require to deliver your project. How would you bring those skills into your team? Consider consultants, other staff in the organisation, training etc.

Execution and monitoring

While it’s important to develop a robust project plan, the key to managing a project is the control and monitoring of its implementation. This is when the hard work begins; as issues arise, risks are realised, delays creep in, team members become challenging, stakeholders become problematic and the project deliverables are realised.

As mentioned in the planning phase, the project team should define and develop a range of documents that are used to assist the delivery of the project. These include:

Project report to appropriate governance bodies	As well as keeping your governing body up to date, this report is used to escalate issues and seek executive support for resolving issues, risks, unforeseen budget impacts, communications and anything else that is affecting your ability to deliver on time and budget.
Project Issues Register	Used to capture any identified issues that might impact on the delivery within time, budget and identified quality. These issues could be identified by the team, or by other stakeholders. It’s a monitoring tool to help manage potential problems and their resolution. It is also part of your change management, identifying lack of, or reduced, support from areas of the business.
Project Risk Register	The Risk Register should be regularly reviewed to capture any newly identified risks, and their mitigation strategies. It should also be maintained to remove risks once they are no longer relevant to the project. Maintaining an awareness of risks and their strategies will ensure you are prepared to act should a risk occur.
Project Budget	The Project Manager needs to actively manage the budget and expenditure of the project. Some organisations might not be set up to easily capture and identify project expenditure. Regardless of this, the Project Manager must find a way to regularly capture all outgoing costs against the budgeted figures, so they can take appropriate action in the case of unexpected costs or overspending.
Project Gantt Chart	The Gantt Chart is a simple way to capture the progress of the project against the identified tasks, deliverables and milestones. The team can use this document to easily understand the impacts of delays, and their flow on effect to the remaining tasks and deadlines. It is particularly important to monitor this in relation to communications and key messages, so you can provide appropriate updates to stakeholders if delays occur.
Content calendar/schedule for communications	As noted above, this needs to be managed alongside the Gantt Chart to ensure alignment of communications and outcomes. The content calendar also ensures communications are developed in a timely manner, and you are deconflicting messages so you do not overwhelm stakeholders if and when things change.
Change/Variation Log	If you are using a Change/Variation Request process as part of your scope management then this would be used to manage and review that process, ensuring you understand the impact on any ‘scope creep’.

Your organisation may have their own systems in place to manage these processes – reporting dashboards from key systems, systems to capture and report on issues and risks, traffic light financial reporting, etc. As a project manager, you must ensure you maintain complete awareness of all deliverables, and any issues that might impact their successful delivery – remembering that success should be the on-time, on-budget and within scope delivery of the project.

1.1.9 Activity: How will you monitor?

Using your Project, develop a basic outline of how you will monitor your project. Show that you have thought about the deliverables, milestones, budget, resources, risks and issues.

1.1.9 Activity: What to do?

Scenario One

You’re a month out from the deadline of your first major milestone and a team member has just informed you that the external contractor has contacted them about a significant issue. The key personnel for the contractor has resigned; as a result, they will not be able to complete the work in the required three weeks – they anticipate it will be six weeks before another staff member can come up to speed and complete the task. What do you do? How could this have been avoided?

Scenario Two

You are three months into the implementation of your nine month project and you have just been advised that a major organisational change project has slipped six months in delivery. This means the delivery of the new system, and month of organisation-wide training is now scheduled to occur over your delivery dates. It also means that two key staff who were going to be available for the last three months of your project, to help writing procedures and an online training module, will no longer be available. What are your options? Should you change your project?

Scenario Three

Your Project Sponsor, a member of the Executive Team, has been telling you that there is great support from all members of the Executive for your project. But, a colleague from another part of the business has just told you they overheard the Director of Operations telling one of his reports that the project is pointless and will never be completed if he has anything to say about it. Since Operations are a significant stakeholder in your project, you need to make sure they are supportive and engaged with the change. What should you do? Could this have been avoided?

The project does not end when the final deliverable is complete – unless your final deliverable is the closure of the project. Far too often, organisations fail to complete the important handover, analysis and learnings processes that should be part of any good project.

As well as remembering to celebrate your achievements and communicate the closure with your stakeholders, there are a few other processes to complete at the end of every project.

Finalising the work

Analysis and acceptance

Before you can clearly state that you have delivered all the project outcomes and objectives, you need to analyse whether you have met your measurable goals. This is usually done through the development of a report that clearly outlines how you have met the requirements outlined in the project scope.

Some of this may have been completed along the way, if there were earlier deliverables in the project that have already been accepted by the business. If this has not been done, this report can be used as a means of seeking acceptance from the client that the project has delivered all deliverables within the requirements outlined.

Where the client is not satisfied with a deliverable, this must be resolved prior to closing the project.

Handover

All required documentation, paperwork, contracts, warranties etc. should have been handed over to the appropriate section in the business as part of the deliverables. However, sometimes these aspects are overlooked, or remain the responsibility of the project until such time as all deliverables are complete.

Prior to the closure of the project, it is essential that all ongoing functions, documentation, assets and staff are appropriately transitioned into the relevant business-as-usual section of the organisation. To ensure this is done correctly, consider who will be the ongoing point of contact for stakeholders, and whether they have everything they need to answer questions about why decisions were made and who they can seek support from.

1.1.10 Activity: Handover to the business

You have to pull together the documents and other paperwork for a handover to the business owner. What will you include? What is essential for them to have to hand? What else needs to be done?

1.1.10 Activity: Thank you and celebration

Your project has been running for 11 months, with a project team that has subject matter experts from across the business, a working group and a team of change champions. In your group, come up with some suggestions on how you will close out your project, thank everyone and celebrate your success.

Evaluating the project

Every project should be evaluated against the initial plan – how well did you perform against what you planned to deliver? Questions you might consider in this include:

• Did you achieve the Outcome(s)?
• Did you achieve the SMART Goal(s)?
• Did you meet your milestones on time?
• Did you deliver on budget?
• Did your deliverables meet the quality requirements?
• Were you prepared for any risks or issues that arose? If not, why not?
• Were your communications effective or were their issues with people misunderstanding or not being prepared for activities?
• Did the team perform their roles well – as individuals and a team?

Lessons learned

Another aspect of the evaluation is conducting a detailed analysis of the lessons learned during the project. It’s often best to consider this document while you are delivering the project, so you don’t have to try to rediscover all your earlier lessons at the end.

The lessons learned should consider everything that did not go exactly to plan; whether there was a way to prevent the ‘lesson’; and how you solved any problems that arose. Importantly, it should also include elements of your planning, team and processes that worked well, and that other project teams could use in future.

Once all your deliverables and final documentation have been accepted by your client, you can close out your project.

Activity: Effective evaluation

You’re about to conduct the evaluation on your project. What information would you use? Who needs to be involved? Who needs to know the outcome?

What	Who	Who needs the report?

Activity: How did you go?

You are completing the evaluation for your Office Relocation Project. While the staff were in their new office by the required date, it took three weeks longer than expected to complete the “make good” on the old offices – which incurred additional rental costs.

As well as this, there were 4-6 week delays in completing the setup of the new AV in the meeting rooms, because of timing conflicts with the contractors. There were also a number of plumbing issues in the new kitchen areas which took about a month to completely resolve.

These delays did not increase the project costs, but there were three minor WHS incidents because of the AV cabling/equipment occurring around employees, and a major slipping incident in one of the kitchenettes.

How would you capture these outcomes? What might you learn from them to share with others? Create the other details you require.

Reflection and Plan