Читать книгу Project Management For Dummies - Stanley E. Portny - Страница 22

Even with clearly defined requirements, engaged stakeholders, a competent and experienced project team, and sufficient time and budget, you’ll find that projects rarely go exactly as you planned. This isn’t to say that you’ll never come close to your original plan. We are confident that you will, but there will likely be some deviation at some point throughout your project. This is perfectly fine; it is even expected.

Your success as a project manager won’t (at least, it shouldn’t!) be measured by your ability to deliver to the exact plan that you laid out at the outset of your project. This isn’t realistic and, frankly, the purpose of your project isn’t to demonstrate that you can stick to a plan. Your project’s purpose is to deliver value, in the form of your intended outcomes, whatever they may be, as defined by your stakeholders.

Your ability to react and respond to unexpected events and conditions, to demonstrate your adaptability and resiliency, will help you weather the storm and right the ship when things start to go astray from your original project plan.

Just as no two projects follow the exact same course, rarely are the circumstances around two projects ever identical. If you routinely manage projects to configure, test, and deliver the same software application, your work breakdown structure (WBS) might be very similar, but each of these projects will likely be performed for different clients, or at different times, or with a different project team. At different times of the year, the exact same project may be subject to different resource constraints. For example, you may have more difficulty lining up consistent resources in the summer months when people often go on vacation. You may have similar difficulty during the holidays in December and into the new year.

With different clients come different requirements and expectations. Where one client may want to be hands-off and largely uninvolved until you’re ready to deliver the final product, other clients may want daily meetings to review progress and participate in technical design sessions. All of this boils down to the need to be adaptable when designing your project development approach.

Tailoring is the process of designing your approach based on the context of each project, each set of objectives, each group of stakeholders, and so on. Acknowledging that every project is unique will force you to keep an open mind as you determine the proper approach to each one.

Tailoring is an iterative process. You may kick off your project with a solid approach, but don’t assume that approach will remain optimal through project closure. As your project progresses, external factors can change that might warrant or even necessitate a revised approach.