Is Your Project Keeping You Awake at Night?

9 Tips for Curing Project Induced Insomnia

If you are like most business and technology leaders, you have probably lost a few hours of sleep over one or more critical projects during your career. Even when projects seem to be on track, your internal radar might be warning you that all might not be OK on the risk management front.

In my experience leading a $300 million IT portfolio for a Fortune 100 company, two things stood out during our transformation:

1. Virtually all projects had “green” status reports, while feedback suggested the contrary.

2. Daily fire drills indicated actual risk levels were much higher than those being reported.

Sound familiar? If so, where is a good place to start tackling the root causes of project risk? TSI has developed a Project Health-Check methodology to help you regain control.

Here are 9 key focal points for evaluating project risk in your organization today:

1. Sponsorship Required – Obtain the highest level of sponsorship possible (CXO Level). You are about to make some people uncomfortable; you’re going to need the support.
2. Divide and Conquer – Categorize your portfolio (e.g., tactical vs. strategic) and assign ownership to capable portfolio managers (PMs) responsible for mitigating risks.
3. Prioritize –Identify the top 20% of projects that are mission-critical. Prioritize these for quick “Fly-by” Health-checks and follow-up Deep Dives.
4. Set Health-check Guidelines – Assess potential risks across these four key dimensions:
   • Technology Risk: Scalability, user requirements, vendor support, and modern data/system security.
   • Business Risk (Includes people and process): Impact on operations, customer experience, and end-user buy-in.
   • Financial Risk: Failure to achieve the targeted ROI or budget overruns.
   • Legal Risk: Potential disputes or litigation with employees, vendors, or competitors.
5. Integrate – Embed the Health-check process into your Program Management Office (PMO) and align it with your phase gates.
6. Develop Reporting – Use easy-to-understand templates. Utilize stoplights and directional arrows to indicate risk on a summary page, supported by detailed action plans in the appendix.
7. Pilot Phase – Pilot this approach on a handful of projects to demonstrate immediate value and “proof of concept.”
8. Govern the Initiative – Convene an empowered decision-making body to address urgent developments and manage escalations.
9. Talent –Utilize experienced IT and business risk assessment personnel to assure fast and effective results.

A proactive Health-check process makes a massive difference in project outcomes—and in your ability to get a more restful night’s sleep. At TSI, we continue to provide this assistance to a wide range of clients across many different types of projects.

Check out our Project Health Assessment and contact us today to learn more.