Organization Management

“The organization will evolve after the project rescue is completed. The project rescue team will move onto other initiatives, either inside or outside the organization. Additional skills may also need to be transferred. You also want to make sure that the project organization has an opportunity to recover from the workload of the rescue initiative. Here are the questions to ask at this time:

• Is the project team ready to handle the next project phase?
• What is the cost of retaining the rescue manager as a quality assurance resource on a part-time basis? How about other members of the rescue team?
• What training is required by members of the project team?
• Are additional mentors required?
• What new resources are needed?
• What additional skills are needed by members of the organization?
• How have we acknowledged the efforts of the project team?
• Have the project team members been given time off to recover from the difficult workload they endured?
• What is the attitude of the team members? Are they positive? Are they ready for more challenges?
• Have we been careful to avoid blaming members of the team for having to launch a project rescue in the first place?
• How is the performance review process perceived within the organization?
• Have all the commitments made to the team members been kept?
• Have we listened to the team members?”

Change Control

“Change control is needed throughout the project life cycle to maintain consistency in the project scope, objectives, and business requirements. Specific processes and tools need to be implemented at the start of the project to ensure that changes to any of these do not destroy the project’s progress. This is an opportunity to evaluate the change control processes established for the project rescue (which would have been stringent), how they were perceived, and how to improve them. The following questions should be considered as you evaluate the change control processes:

• Were the change control processes followed by everyone in the extended project team? Who were the holdouts?
• Were the processes too cumbersome? Can they be streamlined further?
• Did the processes stop work from being accepted that should have been done in the phase?
• How clear are the processes? What do people say about the change control form?
• How effective were the tools? Were they too costly? Were they accessible? How easy is it to get meaningful reports from them?”

The topics covered here are also addressed in the PMI's PMBOK® Guide 3rd Edition. Most of the questions addressing the area of Organization Management can be found in the chapter on Human Resource Management and change control is addressed in the section devoted to Integrated Change Control and referenced in each of the other chapters. For anyone looking for a cost effective way to get their PMP® certification, AceIt© offers a software package that is a proven PMP® Exam Preparation tool. To learn more about AceIt©, or to purchase AceIt©, click here.