You Know Your Project Is In Trouble When...

It must be getting close to summer. I cleaned the BBQ on Sunday and had the first BBQ of the year. You know summer is on the way when the BBQ gets its annual deep clean. Which led to me thinking, you know your project is heading towards trouble when… what? Here’s some things that come top of mind for me.

• You miss a key deadline, no one notices and no one chases you up on it

• Attendance at Governance or Steering Groups is patchy

• The last 3 tasks have all taken the project team longer than estimated

• Someone suggests it’s time for a re-baseline

• Project decisions that have been made are requested to be re-litigated

• The Sponsor asks you “if we did X, what would the impact on the project be?” - hint, X has already been decided

• You’re left out of key conversations about your project

• You’re informed of decisions, rather than actively involved in the decision making

• You haven’t had any questions about the project from any stakeholders over the last 2 weeks

• You don’t get straight answers from your project team

• Your project team go silent on you

• There are 300 unread messages in your inbox

• You’re not sleeping well

• You’re focusing too much on the urgent instead of the important

• You don’t feel like there are enough hours in the day

• You haven’t had a laugh with the project team in the last week

• The Sponsor asks you to change the RAG status of your project

What things happen on your projects that make you think it’s heading toward trouble?