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During my career in the automotive, I've had the chance to participate in many projects, some local, some international, most of them with big impact on the company and especially on the internal customers, the employee.
Although we don't like to admit it, most projects only achieve part of their potential; as a matter of fact, only 30% of all started projects are successfully closed. What are the reasons?
1. Projects are wrongly supported : managing complex projects is not the job of a fleet manager and can't be done on a confusing amount of XLS sheets. The correct tools and a professional project manager are a minimum requirement, not a luxury.
2. Resourcing : too many people working on too many projects, people who are not available when their input is most important: it probably sounds familiar, but it's better to postpone a project than starting it without a guarantee for resources.
3. Stakeholder involvement : your stakeholder too needs to be managed and fully integrated in the project. Too often, the stakeholder doesn't feel involved or thinks that she/he is not updated because everything goes well and consequently, doesn't play her/his role. Good communication management solves the issue.
4. Overly optimistic timelines : driven by the enthusiasm of a new project, team members underestimate the time required to accomplish their tasks. As a result, the entire project timeline is at risk. Make sure that you have proof to support the time estimates of each step of the project.
5. The use of percentages to express the "work done". Entering in an spreadsheet that a job is for 75% done, really doesn't mean anything. It's often arbitrary and supposes that team members have an extremely accurate idea about the work done and remaining. Much better is to describe what is done & what still needs to be done!
The first step is to know exactly what type of project you want to conduct and whether you need a professional project manager. Connector has developed a tool, in collaboration with CPC, our Project and Change Management partner, to determine the typology of your project in terms of Governance, Staffing and Application Guidelines.
