Project Status Assessment

Following is my list of hints you can use to ensure your projects or the projects you are assigned to lead, are well managed and run:


 * Work plans – does the team operate under work plans that are based on a proven methodology and estimated with a proven estimator? First, is there a detailed work plan showing deliverables, tasks, estimates, assumptions, schedules, and resources you can review? If there is not, this needs to be addressed as a top priority. Projects that try to operate without a detailed work plan run large risks of not meeting client expectations, and ultimately, not delivering on time, on budget, and on scope. Also, as a part of the detailed work plans are the key milestones and dependencies identified, documented, and understood by the team.
 * Time reporting – does the team do weekly time tracking against the aforementioned detailed work plans? Once a detailed work plan is in place, the next step is to actively track work efforts against the work plans. Periodically time tracking against planned tasks and deliverables is a must to ensure the plan is being followed. If time spent is tracking correctly and plans are good, then we will have available metrics such as:
 * the Cost Performance Indicator (CPI), which reports the value of days earned in the planned against days burned (spent),
 * the Schedule Performance Indicator (SPI), which reports the value of scheduled days earned against calendar days burned (spent)
 * If we are going to apply EVM principles, we will see that if either the CPI and/or the SPI are significantly under, or over, a value of 1.0, then you should be looking into the work plans, the estimates, the skills on the team, scope management, and/or the addition of unplanned tasks to the project.


 * Issue and risk logs – does the team document, communicate, and close issue and risks? Active identification and management of project issues and risks is also a key to success for successful project delivery. Actively updated and communicated issue and risk logs should be available to all project team members. Projects that do not actively manage (document, communicate, and close) issues and risks often have issues around scope management and also often start to miss on meeting planned work, planned deliverables, and estimates. You also need to ensure that all issues and risks are documented and managed with a defined set of issue and risk management processes that cover identifying, documenting, addressing, closing, and re-opening if needed, issues and risks.
 * Ability to calculate Estimates To Complete (ETC) – how many of the team leads, managers, and other executives think ETC = Original estimate minus time spent? ETCs are a critical measurement required to meet and address our project from the financial and control point of view. In response to the question above, an ETC is calculated by looking at the time spent on a task or deliverable and applying your best estimate on the effort required to complete that task or deliverable, the ETC. You need to ensure that all of the project managers, team leads, and even team members on your projects know how to accurately calculate and manage the ETCs for your tasks and deliverables.
 * Integration with vendors, subcontractor or Delivery Centers – if the project is interfaced with other parts, how well integrated are the teams, the plans, the estimates, and the deliverables? It is becoming increasingly important to ensure we are well coordinated. This coordination needs to start at the very beginning of the working, during planning. You need to make sure you have engaged the appropriate leadership and managers to coordinate the project efforts, the deliverables, the estimates, the transition points and handoffs, the resources and skills required, and finally the management of quality. Early engagement with other parts has proven to lead to quality, efficient, and effective delivery of projects. You also need to ensure you are using the resources appropriately, making sure the tasks, the deliverables, and the skills you are expecting are available, as required. Resource/staffing plan – does the team have a plan for the skills and resources that will be needed to successfully deliver the work plan? As our work increasingly calls for deeper and deeper specialization around process, technology, architecture, management, etc., a solid resource and staffing plan is critical to ensure you have planned for the skills you need and when you need those skills to successfully deliver. This also includes making sure any external resources you need to deliver from your client, from other third parties, are lined up and ready to participate when and as needed.
 * Team morale – are the people on the team happy working on this project and are they having fun? Often, during the push to deliver complex projects for our clients, we forget about our most critical asset, our people. You need to make sure you are using all the possible strategies to ensure you are creating sound project environments for our people, where they can succeed, learn, and advance their careers. It is also often a great practice to periodically sit down with the analysts, consultants, and managers, working on the project, to get their perspectives on the client, the projects, and any issues. You can also use these sessions to get suggestions on things that can be done to improve the project and/or the project environment.
 * Financial management – are the proper reporting, controls, and management in place to ensure you are delivering to our financial commitments? Ultimately, our commitments is double: we must deliver what we promised and we should do it in a profitable way. You need to make sure you start the work with a sound understanding of the financial aspects of the project. Later on you must keep the financials under control. You should che that the estimations are respected.
 * Contract management (if applicable) – are we actively understanding and managing to deliver against our contractual commitments? Many times, after it is signed, we put our contracts with our clients on to a shelf. This can often lead to missed expectations and problems. You need to make sure that all members of the projects team understand and manage to deliver any commitments we have documented and contracted to deliver. These commitments can include scope items, schedule milestones, client commitments, quality commitments, named resource commitments, and quality metrics. Failure to deliver these contractual commitments can lead to less than satisfied clients, and in some cases even financial penalties.
 * Quality – Do you have any quality control system and process improve system? Even if the presence of dedicated procedure for this do not guarantee the project, their absence usually is a point of attention.