PMIWDC

Location

There is no charge for attending this event, but preregistration is required.

1 PDU is available for PMPs. You must arrive no later than 12:15 pm to earn the PDU.

As companies downsize during the current economic crisis, fewer PMs will be managing more projects, including projects in trouble that had been led by departed employees. For these troubled projects, new PMs will be asked by management to reduce financial losses, correct technical errors and deliver the products or services originally planned, if possible. After your nomination as PM, project team members will be looking for direction, clients will be expecting miracles, and management will be providing "oversight" in a helpful way.

While difficult, inherited projects can be successful, but are not easy to recover to the original cost-schedule-performance specifications. Significant changes must be made — but what are the limits before the new scope becomes too small to justify return on investment, or delays in the revised (but realistic) schedule erases first-to-market advantages?

How far should the PM and their team go before it makes sense to stop? What boundary conditions should be set in advance to define go/no-go decisions or actions? If needed, who should finally pull the plug — the PM, the client, or management?

The presentation will cover a phased approach to inheriting a new project, including:

1. Surveying current project status
2. Determining possible success paths
3. Defining circuit breakers that set boundaries for stopping or continuing work

Two brief case studies from the IT industry will be used as models: one showing difficulties, but eventual success; and the other showing difficulties, with eventual failure.

Lawrence Oliva, PMP

Lawrence Oliva, PMP, is a Sr. Program Manager with CH2M HILL, Inc. where he leads Federal and commercial IT projects. For more than 20 years he has managed multi-million dollar software development projects—including some he inherited—providing information transaction and e-commerce services. He was the Austin, Texas PMI Chapter President in 2000, and has served as a PMP prep class instructor in Austin and the Washington, DC area. Mr. Oliva also served as a WDC Chapter career mentor in 2007.