COMPLETING THE ANALYSIS

After examining all four areas in detail you should start to develop a plan that will enable the task to deliver to an acceptable timescale . Generally this consists of either damage limitation or project replanning.

Damage limitation simply means that the task cannot be put back on track. When this happens you must get together the steering group of the project as quickly as possible. You need to explain what has gone wrong, what they are going to do and how they are going to do it to ensure that it doesn't happen again. The plan that you present to the steering group will be a compromise plan. You need to balance the length of time to prepare a detailed plan against the speed of bringing together the steering group. The plan presented needs to give the steering group confidence that the damage to the project is the smallest possible given the circumstances.

When you believe that the task can be replanned you must believe that the project can be put back on track. This is the preferred situation although you need to be sure that the project can be recovered. You also need to seek the opinion of the steering group. Where something has gone seriously wrong you must always inform the steering group. However, unlike in the damage limitation scenario you can probably spend some time pulling together a suitable plan. You can then present that plan at the next steering group. Wherever possible you should try to offer some protection to the task team. This is beneficial, not simply from the perspective of protecting the team, but also because it shows the other team members that they are able to rely on you to protect them even when things go wrong.

One of the questions that the steering group will always ask is whether the task team involved should be replaced . This should have been considered to some extent during the analysis phase but it is worth while analysing the issue in its own right. Often replacing the team is a good idea.

When a new team is brought into a failing project the team members will normally be very enthusiastic. They will feel that the organization has chosen them to come to its rescue. This is very motivating. A new team will also bring a new way of looking at the task. They will not suffer from the preconceptions that the existing team will have. Instead they will start with new ideas and new ways of tackling the task.

The difficulty with bringing in a new team is its effect on others in the project team. Those who were in the original team will still remain in contact with the rest of the project team and they will have a detrimental effect. The original team will tell others that they have been badly treated and that it was all management's fault. However, for you the worst result of this is the original team telling others that it'll happen to them. There is little you can do to stop the original team gossiping but the new team can use their extensive links to explain accurately what is going on.