Best Practices of 2009 - Rescoping Project Plans

It has been a very tough year for project work across the board. Maybe you started out the year with a clean slate and a few projects to complete. But, as the year wore on, you found yourself rescoping your project plan, and the completion of those projects is delayed. If you have been around awhile you rescoped your plan in response to market conditions as they impact the business sector you work in. You were able to stay on plan and execute. If you have not been working during a recession before, then you may have reacted to market impacts while you rescoped your project plan. You got off track with your project plan, and struggled to get back onto the plan for execution.

So, its the end of the year and many, many C-level guys and managers are preaching doom and gloom for 2009. No matter what happens, your will need to manager your projects for results. You want to ensure project success, even if you have market constraints impacting your project plans.

What positive actions can you take to rescope your project plans for 2009?

1. Accept that you have to do more with less, and reallocate resources via the triple constraint. Become the turn-around Project Manager.

2. Retain experienced staff by offering job security while taking wage cuts. Make sure you lead this effort by a substantive pay cut as well.

3. Recruit new hires at lower wages, for longer project lifecycles. Make sure you do not take a large salary increase against your project payroll.

4. Review vendor contracts and relationships with prospective vendors to lower acquisition costs for products needed to support the project. Retain vendors who can renegotiate financial terms, and release those that cannot (keep in mind the cost of any penalties).

5. Review and revalidate project requirements with stakeholders. Some project requirements are mission critical, perhaps other requirements can be postponed to later phases of the project plan's master schedule. Reprioritize requirements in the Change Management Plan, Risk Management Plan, Impact Analyses, Change Control Board to avoid any out of balance ripple effects.

I am sure there are many other ways to leverage project success during a recession. If you have examples, please feel free to post them here.

Happy holiday wishes for you and your family and the very best wishes for your projects in 2009!