International Project Management: Leadership in Complex Environments
It’s time to get started. Two areas will be examined—learning from the past and measurement.
Examine Past Efforts At International Or Complex Projects
Before starting anything new you should look at the track record of your organization in its past international projects. Otherwise, you may be doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past. Begin by talking to people in headquarters as well as at other locations to find out what projects have been worked on the past. You can give as the reason that you are trying to prevent future problems. You may also indicate that you are looking to find people who have past project experience.
Here are some specific things to look for:
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People who participated in past projects;
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Media relations announcements about the project and results;
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Documentation about the project generated in the project;
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Articles about what resulted from the project.
As you identify sources, you might be able to answer questions such as the following:
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What was the final outcome of the project?
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What happened to the people who led the project?
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How was the project announced at the start and when it ended?
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If the project was killed, why was it killed? What was said publicly?
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Was there any effort to gather experience and lessons learned?
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If people could do the project over again, what would they have done differently?
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How was the project measured and tracked?
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What changes occurred during the project? Why did these come about?
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What were the initial budget and schedule for the project? What were the final figures?
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Were subsequent follow-on projects carried out?
Develop A Score Card For International Projects
It is clear that you need to be able to sit back from time to time and measure the progress of the international project. You want to do this in an organized manner. Experience shows that a score card can be valuable here. Figure 1.3 contains such a score card. This is a fairly extensive version so you may want to cut it down.
What is being measured by the score card?
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Standard measurements of performance—budget, schedule, effort;
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Team member and employee involvement—joint tasks, collaboration in defining and updating tasks;
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Issue tracking and management.
Issues will be addressed throughout the book. An issue can be a problem or an opportunity. Only substantial issues that impact the project are tracked. For each issue you will analyze and track it using an issues database to be presented later. Data elements include date that the issue was identified, status of the issue (open, closed, tabled), date closed, type of the issue, description, etc. This data can then be used for the issues-related items in the score card.
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