How to Avoid Project Disputes With These Key Project Plan Techniques

A Presentation of: SAP BW Consulting, Inc. lonnie.Ayers@SAPBWConsulting.com

Have you ever had a client want a discount – after the project was done?

Have you had a client question whether someone was truly working 40 hours a week on his project?

Having run quite a few projects over the years, and being an outside observer on a project where this is happening as you read this, I can tell you, these things happen, but there really is a simple way to avoid most or all of these issues

What’s Needed?

Use the Project Plan

Sounds simple enough, but surprisingly, I still run across projects where the only sign of a project plan (as opposed to a project management plan per the PMBOK) is a spreadsheet.

Or worse, I run across a project plan that simply isn’t correct in one or more dimensions of planning.

Project Planning Software

If your project has any level of complexity and what SAP project doesn’t, you need a heavy duty project planning tool.

My preference is MS Project Enterprise Edition.

I know there are other cloud based tools, but due to the many security issues encountered on virtually every corporate project, I find them useless.

Don’t use excel as a project planning tool.

It only appears to do a good enough job. It actually hides far more information than it reveals.

Level of Detail Required

Plan your project to a sufficient level of detail such that almost all the activity that occurs on your project is in the project plan and make sure the task are granular enough.

Make sure ALL resources are on your resource sheet, including all customer and implementation team members.

Setting Up Resources

If you are using remote resources, especially off-shore, make sure you have every single person assigned to your project – by name – on your resource sheet.

Make sure every task is properly resourced.

That means take the time to assign the names from all members of the implementation team - both customer and implementor, to the lowest level of tasks as possible.

Record Task Completions

Make it a rule that everyone records the actual time and date they start and finish a project task.

If you simply record them as 100% complete at random points in time, you don’t know where the project is progress wise

You have very little to no correlation between signed time and expense sheets and project task.

Change Management

Actively follow the proper change management procedure.

That means that as soon as you become aware of a change, evaluate its impact on the project, cost it, and if it is not possible to kill it, get it approved and then, having established a baseline (you did baseline your project, didn’t you), incorporate the change in the project and and observe and report on the new estimated completion date.

Communicating the Details

You absolutely MUST make sure your customer and the complete project team are aware of the new dates.

Use the MS Project SAP Solution Manager integration to ensure all the required tasks and team members are actually reflected in the plan and solution manager.

You will be amazed at the number of details you forget or don’t have documentation on if you don’t do this.

This alone will eliminate most of your disputes on a project.

Track Those Deliverables

Do keep track of ALL deliverables in your project plan.

If you have properly set up the Project Enterprise version and the associated share point server and resource management environment, this now far easier than it was previously.

Having those deliverables in project planning tool, which can easily number in the 1,000s, should also provide you with ability to cover the ever present need to match invoices.

Invoices are often not done to a detailed enough level to satisfy a customer who may not really appreciate or even be able to track all the deliverables it takes to get from one stage to another.

One Key Question

Finally, learn to ask the following question-if it ain’t on my plan, why are you doing it.

Conclusion

Hopefully, you will never have a project where disputes arise.

However, with a reported 75% of all BI projects on the road to failure and good percentage of ERP projects overall on the same trail, a dispute may be in your future.

Use these tried and proven techniques, which, by the way, aren’t in any way SAP specific, to not just avoid issues but as well, know when and if your project will actually finish.

Additional Resources

Need more proven SAP specific project management advice.

We offer a series of tutorials you might find useful.

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Lonnie D. Ayers, PMP, SCM President, SAP BW Consulting, Inc. Tel: 812-340-5581 E-Mail: Lonnie.Ayers@SAPBWConsulting.com