Project in Exception

[PMP#466817]

Project is in exception for one or more reasons of having exceeded agreed tolerance of time, cost, scope, risk, benefit, quality.

Functional requirements have not been defined to a level allowing development to start.

Infrastructure design has not been approved to allow the relevant equipment to be ordered and deployed.

Both of these result in infrastructure and software development resource waiting for work and protracted project timescales.

What recommended course of action would you suggest?

[dmitry21csm]

To answer this it would be good to know what role we are talking about. If it is from project manager's perspective (say you had been assigned to this project and found it in such condition) it would be good to know how little time do you have to return things back on track. If there is no time left at all then you may try to request for the project re-start (by explaining all the actual challenges and your view on how to overcome them during your second attempt). Re-start could probably gain you some benefits (e.g. replacing the supplier/vendor or working out the requirements in more details).

Depending on which team you're playing for – the customer's or the vendor's one – your rescue plan may vary.

P.S. I hope it is not too late for the comment and your project is OK.

[dhaughey]

I recently took over a project from another PM that was in exception in a similar way to your project. The project had run over budget without delivering a completed product. The first question was whether to kill the project or find the budget to continue. It came down to this choice; everything else was irrelevant until a decision was made. Once an agreement to carry on to a viable product was made, it was time to create a new plan and approach for the project.

In four steps:

1. Gain stakeholder agreement to continue or close the project
2. Engage your team
3. Create a new plan for the project
4. Work the plan

Hope this helps.

Duncan