Craig Brown writes about one thing you should track when joining the project team late. No surprise here – you should look for, name and address risks. That’s exactly what experienced project manager will do when you drop him in the middle of chaos (called the project in some circles): look which direction his ass will be kicked from.
A little surprise comes when you analyze methods of risk analysis Craig describes. They’re definitely far away from what you can find in structured methodologies, like MSF. It’s more like a quick reconnaissance with small commando than a regular operation which includes planning, execution and a division of marines. Asking, listening and thinking. Risk management in a pill.
That approach isn’t specific for people who join projects on late stage only. I also catch myself (and not myself only) using the approach either when I talk with project managers from my team or when I report projects’ status. The first thing I think about is what can go really wrong. OK, we’re two weeks behind the schedule already, but what about that darn hardware which is going to be delivered 6 weeks after planned date? That’s the main pain in the neck for today, so let’s try to solve that one or at least minimize it to the level where no one is going to get Medieval on our asses.
Risk management is the most natural way to judge the status of the project. Although it should be done in a structured way on a regular basis, it’s almost never a bad idea to do some guerilla risk management when the situation isn’t typical or you aren’t involved directly in the project.
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