Project Execution Plan: How PEPs Prevent Project Failures

Why Do Projects Fail?

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In their weblog put up, “31 Pivotal Project Management Statistics for 2021,” TeamStage, a venture administration assume tank composed of venture managers, stories that 70% of all initiatives fail.

They go on to checklist one other set of alarming statistics:

• 42% of corporations don’t perceive the necessity or significance of venture administration
• 55% of venture managers cite price range overrun as the highest motive for venture failures
• the venture administration occupation was set to develop by greater than 6 trillion USD by the top of 2020
• 62% of profitable initiatives had supportive sponsors

In my opinion, the highest motive for a lot of the failures that I’ve encountered on initiatives is the dearth of a strong venture execution plan. No matter the varsity of thought used to handle a venture, it’s extremely necessary to make use of a venture execution plan (or PEP) so as to cowl the entire work and contextual parts which might be a part of a venture. In some industries, it’s really a requirement for patrons to do enterprise with you.

The Sections Of The Project Execution Plan

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PEPs have to be thorough but simple sufficient to navigate or individuals is not going to use them. I usually divide mine into 4 top-level sections:

1. Scope and Purpose

These plans give the top-level view as to the aim of the venture, in addition to the checklist of scoped deliverables, key supply dates, and a process on processing modifications that all the time appear to happen on initiatives, even those with so-called mature half numbers. This is the one part the place you usually will need to have sign-off to not solely green-light the venture, but additionally agreed scope and supply targets which then change into the baseline for administration by the venture staff.

2. Financials

In this part, the detailed venture price range (or P&L) will likely be included together with the detailed prices which have been calculated previous to venture green-lighting. Guidance relating to the methods wherein scope gadgets or part components thereof will likely be offered in accordance with company directives, trade norms, and regulatory necessities. Customer monetary milestones or progress billings will likely be listed together with the supporting documentation required for invoicing and cost in order to permit for correct calculation and monitoring of the venture money stream.

3. Communications

The human points of the venture will likely be lined on this part and can endeavor to checklist the entire stakeholders (inner and exterior) who may have a possible influence on the venture. This will embody an organizational chart of the venture staff. Marketing and IT plans are an integral a part of this as they contribute to the venture’s visibility in addition to required IT infrastructure to handle the venture.

4. Risk and Quality

I group the chance and high quality sections in the identical class as they cowl all parts of the venture scope whereas additionally reporting necessary data relating to venture progress which may have a direct influence on the venture’s group. They will even present helpful data for venture reporting despite the fact that venture stories are issued for every of the plans within the PEP.

4 Benefits From Creating And Following A Robust PEP

The most profitable initiatives I’ve labored on have all contained a strong venture execution plan which our groups adopted. By structuring the initiatives on this approach, we discovered many apparent and never so apparent direct advantages:

1. Facilitates More Effective Meetings

We discovered that the PEP really offered us with a structured guideline of areas for which conferences have been naturally scheduled and extra effectively performed as they particularly focused sections of the venture that wanted to be up to date on a periodic foundation. Project stories have been then issued on the agreed templates which saved us time when presenting to stakeholders.

2. Reference Document for the Current Project

At any given time throughout the lifetime of the venture, the PEP offered thorough data and detailed directions on every a part of the venture. This made consultations by venture staff members, on-boarding of recent venture staff members, in addition to consultations by stakeholders a lot simpler.

3. Provides Information to the Project Governance Authorities

Projects with greater threat profiles or with larger ranges of visibility are likely to have a venture governance construction composed of prime administration in addition to different choose stakeholders. Although they require and in addition obtain periodic updates within the type of venture stories and stage gate opinions, the PEP is the excellent doc which can retailer all of this knowledge in a single place. In this manner, it’s doable to cut back the period of time the governance board spends on reviewing every venture.

4. Lessons Learned

There are many advantages of conducting classes realized occasions and I extremely suggest that they’re carried out a number of occasions throughout the execution of the venture. This not solely helps the present venture staff to higher perceive points in execution or threat occasions that manifested themselves, but additionally gives an necessary asset for future venture groups to think about when bidding new/like initiatives or when analyzing methods to higher price range their organizational constructions.

Conclusion

Project execution plans are nonetheless preventing for his or her simply place within the venture administration universe and I can see the various ways in which they will help corporations obtain higher outcomes on their venture portfolios.

If we subscribe to the notion that venture failures are the norm, then we have to discover a widespread strategy to meet this problem head on as a particular strategy to legitimize the significance of the venture administration occupation.