Write a three-page summary a project that was not completed successfully. Include the reasons why you think this project failed. Also, include project lessons learned and record how lessons learned were used to inform projects. How does this compare to wh

FinishingtheProjectandRealizingtheBenefits xArticleSoftwareProjectFailureLessonsLearned

 Write a three-page summary a project that was not completed successfully. Include the reasons why you think this project failed. Also, include project lessons learned and record how lessons learned were used to inform projects. How does this compare to what was discussed in this unit? Be sure to use APA format and cite your work. Your summary should be at least three pages in length and will include a title and reference page which are not included in the page count. 

Search the Online Library and find a project that was not completed successfully. Write a three-page summary of the project, including the reasons why you think this project failed. Also, include project lessons learned and record how lessons learned were used to inform projects. How does this compare to what was discussed in this unit?

Be sure to use APA format and cite your work. Your summary should be at least three pages in length and will include a title and reference page which are not included in the page count.

Validate scope is “the process of formalizing acceptance of the completed project deliverables.”1 Stakeholders validate that scope is complete with interim deliverables throughout the project and with final deliverables near the end. When the stakeholders formally accept the final project deliverables, the project finishes the executing stage and proceeds into the closing and realizing stages. To illustrate, imagine you have contracted with a construction company to build a new home. Before you close on the house, you want to make sure the house has been properly finished. Therefore, the common practice is to have a “walk through” where as a customer you literally walk through the house with a representative from the building company. The representative points out features and describes how things work. You try light switches, look at the finish, and consider all of the things you wanted (and agreed to pay for) in the house. Often, a few little things are not yet finished, and these can form a “punch list” of items to complete. If the punch list is small enough, as a customer you agree to formally take possession of the house subject to the contractor finishing the punch list items. Once you formally agree the work is complete and agree to take possession, the house becomes an accepted deliverable. However, if there are major concerns and/or a long punch list, you may decide not to formally accept the house until certain things are complete. Most projects are like this: The customer only formally accepts the deliverables once he or she is convinced they will work as planned. At that point, the buyer provides the seller with a formal written acceptance, and the project transitions from the executing stage to the closing stage. Project managers need to ensure that all work on their project has been successfully completed. They can refer back to the charter, scope statement, WBS, schedule, and all communications plans to verify that everything they said they would do is actually done. Many organizations also use project closeout checklists that itemize typical project activities and/or deliverables. These can be used to assign responsibility to each item concerning project closeout.

Close Procurements: Close procurements is “the process of completing each procurement.” In some organizations, particularly government organizations, a formal procurement audit is conducted on large projects. This is to ensure that tax money is spent correctly. While the formality may be less on smaller and nongovernmental projects, the concept of a procurement audit is still valid. Someone in the parent organization (often not the project manager) verifies that proper methods were used for all purchasing and that all contracts have been successfully completed. Actually closing the contracts includes confirming that all deliverables were accepted, all money has been properly distributed and accounted for, and all property has been returned.

Terminate Projects Early: Ideally, all projects continue until successful conclusion, with all deliverables meeting specifications and pleasing customers. However, this is not always the case. Sometimes, a project is terminated before its normal completion. Early termination can be by mutual agreement between the contractor and buyer, because one of the parties has defaulted (for cause), or for convenience of the buyer.

MUTUAL AGREEMENTS: On some projects, by close-out, not all of the deliverables are yet completed. Remaining deliverables need to be integrated into another project, stopped altogether, or continued as a lesser project or a further phase of the finishing project. If both parties agree to stop the project before its planned completion, a negotiated settlement may take place. If some of the deliverables or documentation is not completed, the project manager may need to negotiate with the customer. Perhaps the customer would rather have most of the capability now rather than all of it later. The project team may have made a larger-than-expected breakthrough in one area and can negotiate with the customer to deliver more in that area and less in another. Ideally both parties agree what deliverables or partial deliverables go to the buyer, what compensation goes to the seller, and any outstanding issues are resolved. If agreement cannot be reached by direct negotiations, either courts or alternative dispute resolution can be used to reach a settlement. Perhaps it is in all parties’ best interest to finish the project as is and part as friends.

TERMINATIONS FOR DEFAULT: Terminations for default often result from a problem with the project’s cost, schedule, or performance. A buyer can also decide to terminate a project early because he or she has lost confidence in the contractor who is performing the project. Good project management practices consistently applied throughout the project can lessen the chance of early termination for cause by managing stakeholder expectations and by delivering what customers want on spec, on time, and on budget.

TERMINATIONS FOR CONVENIENCE OF BUYER: Projects can also be cancelled for the convenience of the buyer. This can happen through no fault of the contractor. Some- times, the buyer faces unexpected difficulties or changing priorities. If a customer’s needs change, it might decide that the resources assigned to a project could be more profitably applied to a different project. If a customer decides to terminate a project for convenience, it invokes a contract clause. This clause normally stipulates that the contractor is reimbursed for the money it has spent up to that point and the customer takes owner- ship of the deliverables in whatever form they currently exist. Project managers can pursue two avenues to possibly head off early termination. First, a project manager who has been serious about managing stakeholder relationships may be able to find other stakeholders in the customer organization or elsewhere who can provide some funds to keep the project viable—even if it has to be reduced. Second, the project manager can look internally to find ways of continuing with the project, but at lower cost. Project managers serve as the strongest advocates for their projects throughout the project’s life. Considering that most projects face many challenges, this unwavering sup- port is often critical to project success. However, when a project is no longer needed or no longer viable, project managers owe honest and timely communication to their parent organization. Project managers need to present the facts of project progress and make recommendations for early termination if they feel it is warranted. If a decision is made to terminate a project early, the project manager owes it to his or her team to communicate quickly and honestly. Let the team know as soon as possible and tell them exactly why the decision was made. Care must be taken to ensure that no unjust blame is placed. It is absolutely unethical to have reputations and careers suffer for a termination where the impacted party was not at fault. Once a decision is made and communicated to terminate a project early, much of the remaining work is similar to that for a project that finishes as planned.

Close Project: Closing a project entails finalizing all activities needed to finish the project. The remainder of this chapter details what a project team does when finishing a project on time. Customers are asked both to accept the project deliverables and to provide feedback. Lessons learned are captured and shared. Contracts are closed. Participants are reassigned and rewarded. Reports are created and archived. Success is celebrated, and the project team ensures that customers receive the ongoing support they need to successfully use the project deliverables. A few key challenges arise at the end of projects. One is to keep the right workers engaged until project completion. Some of the final activities are administrative. Often, new projects are starting up that are more exciting.

Write Transition Plan: A project manager may decide to create a transition plan to help the customer success- fully use the project deliverables. Project transition plans are a sort of instruction manual on how the customer should use the project deliverables once the project team has completed its work. The reason a project is performed is that some person or organization wants to be able to use the resulting deliverables. Some project deliverables are created by one group and turned over to another group. Sometimes the group performing the project also uses the results. In either case, a transition plan can ensure that all responsibilities are considered and all deliverables—whether complete or not—are given with appropriate documentation to the people who will use them. If any activities remain incomplete when the deliverables are transitioned, they should be itemized, and responsibility for each should be clearly identified. For example, if a home buyer wanted to close on a house before everything is complete, a punch list of remaining items would be determined, and the contractor would agree to complete them. A brief transition plan is shown in the Project Management in Action feature at the end of this chapter. A transition plan helps to ensure:

· Quality problems are avoided during the transition.

· The project deliverables transition into their service or operational role.

· The needed maintenance, upgrades, and training take place.

Knowledge Management The fourth area identified in using the balanced score card approach to controlling and improving projects is growth and innovation. Knowledge management should occur throughout the project life, but it may be most apparent as a project comes to a close. Project customers, whether internal or external to a company, can provide valuable feedback concerning both the project process and results. Ask them what they think!

CAPTURE LESSONS LEARNED: Lessons learned are the useful knowledge gained by project team members as they perform a project and then reflect on both the process of doing the work and the results that transpired. Lessons can include what worked well that the project team members think should be copied and/or adapted for use on future work. Lessons can also include areas for which a different method may yield better results. Lessons can also be captured at milestones and at the end of a project. On long-duration projects, it is often better to capture lessons frequently because people may not remember clearly what happened months previously. Therefore, most project managers capture lessons learned early and often. A project manager may wish to capture lessons learned first from the core project team and then from all of the stakeholders. The first step in capturing project-end lessons learned is for the project manager to send an e-mail asking the participants to identify major project issues. Then, the actual meeting begins with each participant writing his or her top issues on a flip chart or other work space where everyone can see them. Once all participants have listed their top issues, the entire group can vote on the top 5 (or perhaps top 10 on a large project). Then the project manager can go through one top issue at a time by asking leading questions to determine what went wrong and how it might be avoided in future projects. Likewise, the participants can list significant successes on the project and discuss what caused each. They can then ask what practices can be used to re-create similar successes on future projects.

DISSEMINATE AND USE LESSONS LEARNED: The process of capturing and discussing lessons learned is valuable learning for the participants. However, for the remainder of the organization to capitalize on those lessons, a method must be established for documenting and sharing the lessons. More organizations effectively collect lessons learned than effectively disseminate and use them. One problem is deciding how to store the les- sons so all workers in a company can easily access them. Some companies have created databases, shared folders, or wikis for this purpose. Many companies that do a good job with lessons learned have one person assigned to “own” the lessons learned database. Every project team that collects lessons then sends the new lessons to this “owner,” who compares the new lessons with existing lessons and decides whether to modify, combine, or add the lessons. In this manner, the database only grows when unique and useful new lessons are added. Another idea used by some companies is to have the per- son who submitted each lesson list her cell phone number and e-mail so another person considering the lesson can contact her to ask questions. Coding each lesson by type of project, stage in project life cycle, issue it concerns, and so on helps future project teams when they search for new lessons to apply. Many organizations find that it is helpful to have a limited number of categories and have each lesson stored according to the category in which it best fits. The ten PMBOK® Guide knowledge areas can be a useful starting point when determining useful categories. Another problem is that most people are busy and do not seek lessons learned just for fun. One way to overcome this is for sponsors to only sign charters if lessons from other recently completed projects are included. That forces project teams to consider what lessons they can use. Some lessons learned are more effectively transferred by informal means such as conversations, unscheduled meetings, or having a project team member also serve as a team member on another project. An organization that seriously uses a register to ensure all items on both have been addressed. They can review the communications plan to check that all documentation was created. The customer feedback and scope verification should also be reviewed to verify that the customers thought everything was accomplished.

The 10 knowledge areas, paraphrased from the PMBOK® Guide, are as follows:

1. Integration management—“processes and activities to identify, define, combine, unify, and coordinate the various processes and project management activities”

2. Scope management—“processes to ensure that the project includes all the work required, and only the work required, to complete the project successfully”

3. Time management—“processes to manage timely completion of the project”

4. Cost management—“processes involved in planning, estimating, budgeting, financing, funding, managing, and controlling costs so that the project can be completed within the approved budget”

5. Quality management—“processes and activities of the performing organization that determine quality policies, objectives, and responsibilities so that the project will satisfy the needs for which it was undertaken”

6. Human resources management—“processes that organize, manage, and lead the project team”

7. Communications management—“processes to ensure timely and appropriate planning, collection, creation, distribution, storage, retrieval, management, control, monitoring, and ultimate disposition of project information

8. Risk management—“processes of conducting risk management planning, identification, analysis, response planning, and control…to increase the likelihood and impact of positive events and decrease the likelihood and impact of negative events in the project”

9. Procurement management—“processes to purchase or acquire products, services, or results from outside the project team”

10. Stakeholder management—“processes to identify the people, groups, or organizations, that could impact or be impacted by the project, analyze their expectations and impact, and develop strategies for engaging them and managing conflicting interests

The five process groups, paraphrased from the PMBOK® Guide, are as follows:

1. Initiating —“define a project or a new phase by obtaining authorization”

2. Planning —“establish the project scope, refine objectives and define actions to attain objectives”

3. Executing—“complete the work defined to satisfy project specifications”

4. Monitoring and controlling—“track, review, and regulate progress and performance, identify changes required, and initiate changes”

5. Closing—“finalize all activities to formally close project or phase”

Create the Closeout Report: Many organizations have formal procedures for closeout reports and archiving project records. The closeout report usually includes a summary status of the project that can be gleaned from progress reports. The closeout report also normally includes lessons learned. Finally, the closeout report often contains a review of the project’s original justification. Did the project accomplish what it was originally approved to do? This is an important question because many projects change along the line. The exact timing, costs, and deliverables may have changed, but did the project still accomplish its goals? Finally, the project manager needs to ensure that the records are in a workable format and stored in a manner that will allow others in the organization access for lessons learned, financial audits, or other uses.

Information below may be useful

PROJECT ROLES

EXECUTIVE ROLES

ASSOCIATE ROLES

MANAGERIAL ROLES

Steering team

Core team member

Project manager

Sponsor

Subject matter expert

Functional Manager

Chief projects officer

Facilitator

Senior customer representative

A steering or leadership team for an organization is often the top leader (CEO or other officer) and his or her direct reports. From a project standpoint, the important role for this team is to select, prioritize, and resource projects in accordance with the organization’s strategic planning and to ensure that accurate progress is reported and necessary adjustments are made.

Sponsor is “the person or group that provides resources and support for the project and is accountable for enabling success. The sponsor’s role includes: taking an active role in chartering the project, reviewing progress reports, playing a behind-the-scenes role in mentoring, and assisting the project manager throughout the project life.

Chief projects officer’s (sometimes called a project management office (PMO) defined as “an organizational structure that standardizes the project related governance processes and facilitates the sharing of resources, methodologies, tools and techniques) role ranges from supporting project managers, to controlling them by requiring compliance to directive in actually managing projects.

Project Manager assigned by the performing organization to lead the team that is responsible for achieving the project objectives. Is normally directly accountable for the project results, schedule, and budget. Is also the main communicator, responsible for the planning and execution of the project, and works on the project from start to finish.

Functional Managers determine how the work of the project is to be accomplished, often supervise that work, and often negotiate with the project manager regarding which workers are assigned to the project.

Facilitator helps the project manager with the process of running meetings and making decisions.

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