Project Going out of Control

[sampathnatarajan]

I am in a project which has plenty of tasks. I assigned those to individuals, which eventually went out of my control. I learnt that plenty of Project Managers grew up within my project. There was no scope creep. However, as the project was huge, it took several dimensions and more people started controlling it, where I had less importance. Where did I go wrong?

[send2balup]

I believe these are three main things we need to have a full control on the project:

1. Stakeholders Management: Where we define boundaries for each member of the project, be it external or internal, client or user etc.
2. Communications Management: Where we define communications between stakeholders, and also what content to shared with whom and when.
3. Changes/Risks/Issues Management: Every issue needs to be tracked for a solution and every possible risk needs to be documented with mitigation. Every change needs to be evaluated before implementation.

To me - Controlling Projects means - Controlling Issues, Changes, Risks and Stakeholders Expectations till we meet the project objectives.

Hope this helps.

[begeland]

Good reply and common problem. I had a huge government project that I had to control - more than 8,000 tasks total. I used several managers on the project to control their direct portions of the schedule (update it, be accountable for progress, and accountable for reporting on it each week during formal customer status meetings). It helped me keep control without being overwhelmed and forced them to be accountable - really truly accountable rather than just giving me a new revised % complete (which is usually incremented by 1-2% no matter what to show progress). That forced them to be accountable to me, our management and our client for progress reported. Amazing things happened. The juggernaut project stayed on task and on time and I maintained control.

Brad

[NickC]

Good responses!

Brad

Out of interest, at what stage of the project were 8,000 tasks identified?
I assume many tasks were identified as the project unfolded, but how did you go about planning a project of this scale?

Thanks

Nick

[sampathnatarajan]

Good answers. I lacked making people accountable to their areas. I am also eager to know, when you unfolded all the tasks? Upfront or as you started working on the project?

Thanks.