Should You Create an Exception Plan for Your Project?

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An Exception Plan is a pre-agreed fallback approach to implement if a project gets into trouble. It’s more than a mitigation plan to address a single risk. An exception plan supplies an alternative project plan to recover from unacceptable conditions, such as exceeding the accepted tolerances for schedule delays or budget overruns. 

First, let’s look at the different definitions for Exception Plan. In PRINCE2, an exception plan is applied when a phase will exceed its cost or schedule commitment. Other methodologies use exception plans (or exception documentation) to show when overall project constraints are at risk. 

The exception plan in this article focuses on increasing the efficiency of responding to a troubled project. The plan includes course correction actions that have been pre-approved by management. In other words, an alternative plan to recover the project is ready to go. That means you can immediately implement the exception plan when project parameters are going to be exceeded. This pre-agreed exception plan saves time and money.

Here are some tips for when an exception plan might make sense and what the plan might propose:

Alternative project options are workable. Exception plans are useful only when you have flexibility in scope, schedule, or budget. Exception plans often propose cuts to scope or changes to the original approved timeline. For example, the plan could cut non-essential deliverables to bring an over-budget project back in line. In this case, management must be comfortable with and approve these changes ahead of time.

Alternate risks are acceptable. An exception plan walks a fine line between delivering value and adding risk. For instance, you might reduce quality management tasks to save time and money. This choice is practical if enough quality management activities remain after the task reduction. Even then, cutting quality management adds risk, which must be acceptable to stakeholders. For another example, the plan could propose decreasing organizational change management activities. Once again, the increased risk of implementation issues needs to be acceptable to management and project stakeholders.

Exception plans for agile projects are different. Issues with agile show up as delivery shortfalls, such as committed features that are late — or not delivered at all. Exception planning for agile projects usually focuses on engaging more experienced people to help get things back on track. Completing features in the backlog increases the business value of the project. However, management needs to be OK with the cost of these additional skilled resources.

The plan increases project management support. A project that is outside acceptable parameters presents project management challenges. Often, a project suffers due to a lack of technical or in-depth project management skills. The exception plan needs to address that shortage. However, an exception plan that increases the burden on the PM isn’t helpful. In other words, adding more management control deliverables without adding staff to create them makes things worse, not better. So, exception plans also need to include increased project management support. Management must commit to providing the additional project management resources as well as other changes from the exception plan. 

Do you have questions or suggestions about how to use an exception plan with a project? If so, join the conversation in the comments section.

For more about project planning, check out my Project Management Foundations course.

Coming up:

October 2022 will be a busy month. My updated Project Management Foundations course is due to go live. And you can see me in several LinkedIn Office Hours live broadcasts.

October 12, 2022  11AM MT- Project Baselines: Basics and Best Practices

Once management approves a project, the project manager baselines the project. What is a baseline? What do you capture in a baseline? What happens when you create a baseline in Project? What are best practices for making baselines more helpful to managing projects effectively?

In this interactive Office Hours presentation, Bonnie Biafore and Ira Brown will share best practices at all stages of baselining.

Link to event   https://www.linkedin.com/video/event/urn:li:ugcPost:6978438578267664385/

 

Oct 17, 2022  11AM MT- Leading with Curiosity 

Questions and answers are inputs into any system or project, and they drive the output — whether the system is making dinner or launching a new product. The more diverse the inputs, the more innovative the output! Asking the right questions from the outset is crucial to setting up a system or project for success and achieving the best outcomes. To turbocharge results, you need to go beyond the usual questions like “What is the goal for the endeavor?” and “What is the best strategy for achieving that goal?” You and your team need to be curious and creative throughout the endeavor. In this Office Hours session, Natalie Nixon and Bonnie Biafore will explore what it means for a cognitively and experientially diverse team to be curious and creative and what you, as a leader can do to support that effort.

https://www.linkedin.com/video/event/urn:li:ugcPost:6979155332908400640/

 

Oct 27, 2022- Sometimes, the hardest part of innovation isn’t coming up with the great idea. It’s implementing it. Across the organization.

 

If you are trying to lead your organization in thinking (or doing) differently, you need to balance inspiration and operations. In this engaging and interactive conversation, LinkedIn Instructors Bonnie Biafore (Project Management Foundations) and Robbie Kellman Baxter (Become an Entrepreneur Inside a Company) will share best practices in scaling your great idea throughout your organization.

 

https://www.linkedin.com/video/event/urn:li:ugcPost:6978746469797244928/

How Agile Supports Change

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Photo by Ian Flores on Unsplash

Agile methodologies are designed to handle change easily, which is why they’re called -er- agile! Most aspects of agile work can change without causing problems. But a couple of things are best left alone. Here’s what you can and shouldn’t change when working in an agile environment: 

Priority.  At the beginning of each sprint, the team reviews and re-prioritizes the stories in the backlog.  So you can change priority at the beginning of every sprint.  When stories are completed, stakeholders learn from using the functions that were produced. That can lead to re-prioritization of what’s in the backlog. The same goes when new business challenges arise and benefits of functions are understood. One constraint on re-prioritization is that the priority changes must comply with technical practicalities and logical business sequences. For example, you can’t build a balance sheet until you can process revenue and expenses!

Schedule. When you review the functional backlog, you can adjust the schedule by moving functions the business needs or wants into upcoming sprints. You need accurate estimates of effort to reschedule work. Developers learn as they produce functions, so they can estimate effort more accurately as the project progresses.

Scope. New scope ideas often crop up after a few functions are produced. Scope changes are expected with agile approaches. However, scope changes often involve trade-offs. For example, you might negotiate budget and time. And you might drop existing scope to make room for new and important functions.

Deadlines. In agile projects, people are usually assigned for a pre-determined amount of time. For that reason, scope becomes the variable. As you talk with the team about scope changes or reprioritizations, you can adjust sprints to change deadlines for specific functions. The overall project deadline can even be changed — if the whole team is still available.

What Doesn’t Change in Agile

Don’t count on changing cadence or personnel! Building your agile team and setting a sprint schedule — and sticking to them — are important for the success of an agile project. A big benefit of agile is what is learned along the way. Changing the people on the team upsets that learning and reduces the benefits you achieve. Changing the sprint cadence can also be disruptive. Schedules are built around focused sprint meetings and activities. Changing the schedule can throw the team off their rhythm and mess up existing estimates and sprint plans.

For more on agile, check out the Become an Agile Project Manager learning path.

Do you have any stories about how you’ve changed aspects of your agile projects? What worked? What didn’t? Share with us in the comments section.

Coming Up

My updated Project Management Foundations course is so close! I reviewed all the movies, so we’re down to a few last corrections. I clarified things that were confusing or unclear in the 2019 edition. Feeling good about this latest update.

October will be a big month of Office Hours. Keep a lookout for announcements as I nail down the details with my co-hosts.

When Business Value Doesn’t Meet Expectations

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It might seem like a hopeless situation when business value doesn’t meet expectations. Here are a few things to look at for potential opportunities for improvement.

Revisit your estimates. Compare the estimates used to justify the project to the business results. Opportunities may arise from this, including:

  • Business activities included in project justification aren’t being executed. Investigate whether you can launch these activities to generate business value.
  • Assumptions might have been inaccurate. You might achieve business benefit improvements by bringing those assumptions to fruition. For example, the project assumed internal resources would run a new system, but expensive contractors were assigned instead. Switching to internal resources could generate a positive return for the business.
  • Estimates might have been inaccurate. Understanding those inaccuracies can help create better estimates in the future. 

Cut underperforming elements. For example, in a building, you can convert extra ground floor conference rooms to leased retail space. You can apply this concept to IT as well. Consider cutting IT components that aren’t generating benefits. 

Re-examine your deliverables and training. Evaluate whether people are using your project deliverables as intended. If they aren’t, they might not have received adequate training. Find the root cause for the disconnect between intent and actual usage. Update and deliver new training to improve results. In addition, redesigning deliverables might help improve outcomes.

Trim maintenance or licensing expenses. Most project deliverables have ongoing operational costs, such as maintenance, software, other product licensing, and help support. Look for opportunities to trim the costs of these services. Although this cost cutting might reduce the efficiency and quality of your deliverables, changes that result in benefits that exceed costs is worthwhile. 

Look for secondary benefits. Business cases don’t address secondary benefits because they are hard to estimate. However, now that deliverables are in place, you can get measurement data. For example, a product might not sell as much as expected. Yet, discussing that product with customers might generate sales of other products. Also, project outcomes could free up employee time. That time might provide the opportunity to pursue other beneficial projects.

While it’s never good when a benefits shortfall occurs, don’t give up! These are a few of the possibilities you can explore to end your benefits shortfall.

What other actions might you take to bring business value back on track? Share with us in the comments section.

Coming Up:

September 15th Office Hours with Chris Croft, Doug Rose, and Bonnie Biafore

Project managers experienced a 70% change in the top 10 skills in the industry since 2015. Few teams can function without a project manager in seat to help them adapt to the whirlwind changes of the past few years. Join us to learn the top trending project management skills today and tactical tips to ensure you have the skillset for what’s next.

I’m almost done updating Project Management Foundations. In a few months, you can look for the updated edition, which includes some info on PMBoK7 and other changes.

Are You Ready to Close Your Project?

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You have delivered every component of your project, and your project team has started to disperse. It’s time for project closure, right? Not so fast! Here are other critical steps to take before closing your project. 

  • Confirm that business value is being generated. A project shouldn’t close until the business acknowledges value. However, some projects won’t generate business value for several months, for example, until new products sell. In other instances, cost savings trickle down over time.  keep a project open to track outcomes. This helps the project team understand if there are shortcomings in the project deliverables. Addressing those shortcomings educates team members so they can improve their skills for future projects.
  • Verify allocated costs. Check to see whether costs are still showing up in your project accounts. If they are, further work might be required, such as confirming final contractor payments. It could also mean someone is incorrectly allocating costs to your project. Correct these errors before closure so your project costs aren’t inflated.
  • Determine if your sponsor is still engaged. If your sponsor continues to call meetings and discuss the project, it’s too soon to close the project. Work with your sponsor and review any outcomes they believe are missing.  If the sponsor pushes for items beyond the scope of the project, seek to understand their point of view. Try to convince them to allow you to close the completed project and launch a new one. This new project would have its own business case to create the extra outcomes your sponsor desires.
  • Confirm stakeholders are using project deliverables without help. Business value should be generated without assistance by the project team. Otherwise, the cost of helping stakeholders may negate the value achieved. Before closing a project, ensure your deliverables are being used as intended. All stakeholders should independently use your deliverables in a consistent manner. If not, revisit your training and make corrections.

If you perform other steps before closing a project, tell us about what you do in the comments section.

For more about closing a project, check out my Project Management Foundations course.

Coming up:

I have an Office Hours in the works for September with Doug Rose and Chris Croft, two of my (many) idols in the LinkedIn Learning instructor community. Look for more info soon!

I’m almost done updating Project Management Foundations. In a few months, you can look for the updated edition, which includes some info on PMBoK7 and other changes.