Every project begins with promise and potential, but sometimes, despite the best intentions, things go awry. Whether due to poor planning, miscommunication, or shifting priorities, mismanaged projects can quickly spiral out of control, jeopardizing timelines, budgets, and overall motivation.
At Enlight Engineering, we have had many such experiences.
Most often, mismanaging a project happens when our client’s primary expertise isn’t software development, so they are not experienced enough in leading such projects. However, it can also happen when there is a lack of project management expertise in general. Either way, these mistakes cost a lot. The good thing is – at least this is where you can save money. You just need someone who knows how.
In this blog post, we'll walk you through our methodology using a real-life example to illustrate each step of the process. This will help you understand the consequences of having a poorly managed project, and how it can be put back on track through some of the best practices that actually work.
Typical symptoms of a poorly initiated project
Imagine a scenario where a project is already in motion when we're brought in to assess the situation. Typically, the problems we encounter in such situations include:
- Lack of clear business priorities and communication with the team.
- Undefined project scope, leading to confusion and scope creep.
- Key milestones not communicated or tracked effectively.
- Absence of an established Way of Working (WoW) or project management best practices.
- Vaguely defined roles, responsibilities, and key stakeholders.
These symptoms are signs of deeper issues within the project's management and execution and addressing them requires a structured approach.
A Six-Step process of getting a project back on track
Rescuing a mismanaged project requires a systematic approach, proactive stakeholder engagement, and a commitment to continuous improvement. At Enlight Engineering, we adhere to a six-step process to bring projects back under control:
- Problem definition: We start by defining the issues at hand, creating a clear roadmap for analysis.
- Analysis: This involves a deep dive into gathering information, identifying root causes, and assessing the complexity and risks associated with the problem.
The analysis usually includes:
- Assessing the problem's complexity, possible consequences (risks), and importance.
- Breaking down the problem into fragments and scaling it down to the number of simplest problems.
- Looking for the root causes of the problem and putting focus on the most impactful causes of the problem.
- Risk analysis
- Determining the set of traits that the solution should fulfil.
- Check whether we have already addressed similar problems, if so, then consider how to apply the acquired know-how.
- Creating the solution (Synthesis): Here, we combine our findings from the analysis phase to develop potential solutions and draft an implementation plan.
- Implementation: With a solid plan in place, we proceed to apply the chosen solution, managing change and addressing resistance from along the way.
Resistance to the solution is inevitable and natural. The important thing is to identify stakeholders and keep them informed and involved from the very beginning of the problem definition stage.
- Monitoring and improvement: Continuous monitoring allows us to track progress, identify deviations, and make necessary adjustments to ensure ongoing success. Also, regular retrospectives, root cause identification, and process improvements are necessary to prevent the appearance of the same issues in the future.
- Lessons learned and best practices: Finally, we take the time to reflect on our experience, documenting lessons learned and best practices to inform future projects.
Having a good company culture means learning from a project – collecting best practices and nurturing gained know-how.
This is how Enlight Engineering prevents new projects from suffering the same issues, increases efficiency, and becomes more competitive on the market.
Let’s take a look at the real-life example.
Here is how we applied this approach to a real-life scenario:
We were brought in to rescue a software development project in the linear motion and actuation industry that was behind schedule and over budget. Our client’s primary activity was not software development, meaning that they were not as familiar with the best software project practices. This gave us much freedom to organize the work independently, but much of the project success relied on us.
Upon initial assessment, we identified several key issues:
- Lack of clear communication channels between stakeholders.
- Undefined project scope, leading to frequent changes and delays.
- Bad project management practices, which resulted in poor coordination and oversight.
Every stakeholder has their own needs and priorities.
However, their Sales Representative wanted to have a fast time to market which included a stable product with a minimum set of market-ready functionalities, while their Head of Product development requested cost control. Additionally, modular design open for customizations was needed.
As for the processes within software development project, stakeholders expected the following:
- Project status monthly reports – general status, progress, budget, issues, and risks. Requested by Head of Product Development
- Precisely defined product purpose and objectives; Clear and prioritized requirements and usage scenarios explained. Requested by the Development Team.
- Well-established Quality Control and Test Management; Task Management and Bug Tracking. Requested by the Tech Lead.
- Scope with clearly defined MVP and release plan (timeline, milestones, and deliverables). Requested by Tech Lead and Head of Product Development.
Choosing the right Way of Working is the skeleton of a project.
The solution was rolled out gradually, with a focus on stakeholder engagement and buy-in. We started by aligning stakeholders on the project's objectives and the proposed changes. Then, we implemented incremental changes to the existing Way of Working (WoW), such as:
- Introducing regular communication channels, including weekly status meetings and daily stand-ups.
- Implementing a project management tool to track progress and manage tasks.
- Establishing clear roles and responsibilities for all team members.
Through regular steering meetings and ongoing feedback loops, we monitored progress, addressed issues, and refined our approach as needed. We also conducted regular retrospectives to identify areas for improvement and make adjustments to our processes.
Every project challenge brings new knowledge.
From this experience, we gleaned valuable insights and best practices that we could apply to future projects such as the importance of clear communication and stakeholder engagement from the outset, the value of continuous improvement, and the need for project management tools to track progress and manage tasks.
Our efforts yielded significant achievements, including a sharper focus on MVP requirements, continuous improvement through retrospective sessions, and the establishment of a documented WoW applicable across the organization.
No project is ever perfect.
However, challenges remained, such as the inability to fully realize certain stakeholder requirements due to constraints like product design limitations and resource constraints for implementing automated testing.
Acknowledge that perfection may not be attainable but continuous improvement is. Embrace a mindset of always seeking to refine processes, learn from mistakes, and adapt to changing circumstances.
Conclusion
Rescuing a mismanaged project is no easy feat, but with the right approach and commitment, it can be done. By following a structured methodology and learning from each experience, we learned that organizing a project is much easier and that the entire team, including stakeholders, is more satisfied and motivated to bring the project to success.
