Delivering Projects on Time and Within Budget

Delivering projects on time and within budget is a concern that every business has ahead of initiating a new project. There are no guaranteed recipes for projects to be delivered on time and within budget but there are key result areas that Cardinal focuses on to ensure a higher degree of success with any project. These may differ based on the nature and size of a project, but the principles always apply:

• ⁠Define the Project Deliverables and the Project Exclusions. If we are not able to clearly articulate where we’re going, it’s very difficult to manage and lead how we will get there. With most projects, scope creep is one of the many factors that can derail a project delivery and add costs to the project plan. It is imperative to be equally clear about what we are not doing as we are about what we will be doing. Both of these carry the same weight in terms of importance and control.

• Create a Benefits Realisation Plan that outlines the key business benefits for the project and show how these benefits tie back to the business strategy. Also comment on how these benefits will create sustained value for the business after it is successfully implemented.

• Appoint an Empowered Project Sponsor who carries a clear mandate from the executive team to lead the organisational change and make executive decisions that maintains the focus, keeps the project within scope, and is able to make decisions when conflict arises between business resources or project resources. This person must be personally vested in the goals of the project and fully understand the purpose and its alignment to the business strategy. They must be a leader with strong business and technical understanding of the project environment as well as a good mediator. Do not default this role to the incumbent manager or most senior person if they do no qualify for the job.

• Choose a competent Project Manager who has experience with the context of the project scope. Experience to the industry, systems, and people functioning within a specific type of environment will add a sense of understanding and empathy with end users that will play a critical role in making project decisions and, most importantly, planning.

• Carefully select a Dedicated Project Team of individuals that are enthused by the scope of the project and the desired end state. They must be motivated, self-driven individuals who enjoy change and want to be part of the future state of your business, thus maintaining focus on the key deliverables. These team members will be a pleasure for the Project Manager because they will strive for results without the project plan having to remind them why they are on the project.

• Choose a Project Management Methodology that works for your business and one that is supported by the maturity of your project environment. If you have an established enterprise Project Management Office (PMO) that already controls your projects standards and best practices, that would be a big plus. If you do not, make sure the project approach, the project planning, and the level of accountability for the scope of work is clearly understood and set out in the plan. One way of better controlling any project is to have shorter workable sub-plans and milestone deliveries that demonstrate that the team is making progress in the right direction and the output is aligned. It will also allow you to correct any situation that is not aligned to the scope sooner.

• Set Realistic Timelines. Don’t start a project with the end date already committed to a client or the executive team and then attempt to make the scope work fit into the pre-selected date. This will always result in delays or quality compromises on the project. If you have a date in mind, first discuss it with the team of experts and work out if it is possible to get to a minimal viable product (MVP) and, if the first review clearly determines that it’s impossible to achieve the scope of work within the agreed timelines, then rather go back to stakeholders and correct expectations.

• Test Early and Test Often. If possible, schedule testing as early as possible, especially if you broke up the plan into smaller parts. Create a culture of failing fast and failing forward so that you are able to raise the quality bar by doing more testing and quality management.

• Communicate, Communicate, Communicate - make sure all the right communications structures are in place, from stand-ups, to weekly touch-bases, project management meetings, change control boards, and project board meetings so that accountability for project delivery is encouraged and maintained for the duration of the project.

• Create a Learning Environment within the project team to educate and train project resources on new technologies, new processes, new ways of doing business, and the new opportunities that the project will introduce into the business. Each project is an ecosystem of amazing learning experiences that are often not leveraged to the benefit of project team members, especially business users. If Project Team members can come out of a project with a new skill set or enhanced skill set that supports the future landscape, you end up future-proofing your business while implementing the new project.