Successful project delivery entails a lot more than managing time or budget overruns. Seeing a project to successful completion requires a thorough monitoring of its entire lifecycle, meticulous planning for each deliverable and complete alignment of all stakeholders involved in the process. As such, working with cross-functional teams brings with itself many challenges that hinder the smooth progress of a project towards completion.
From my experience of working as a Project Delivery Manager, I have developed a first-hand understanding of these problems and processes that can be followed to navigate these obstacles. In this blog, I’m going to discuss the common problems that project teams often face, be it with 10 employees or 200, and processes I have uncovered in my journey to overcome these challenges.
Common Project Delivery Obstacles
A recent study in the Harvard Business Review estimates that nearly 70% of IT projects suffer from painstaking delays. As such, friction in project management leads to a series of challenges that compromise the project outcome. Mentioned below are some of the most common challenges that project teams face :
High Bug Count
Frequent occurrences of software bugs lead to increased developmental costs, slow down the development velocity and compromise the team’s ability to work on further improvements. Besides, they add up to the technical debt and lead to a fragile codebase that is difficult to maintain over time. Altogether, this adds to the dismay of the end-user, compromising the success of the product.
Dissatisfied Clients
Low project delivery outcomes or lesser than expected results can lead to client retention issues with clients disappointed over repeated change requests, bug fixes and overall friction in receiving project deliverables. This also comes in the way of building strong relationships with clients through an established place of trust.
Project Overruns
Improper planning, lapses in communication between team members, and inefficient resource allocation can lead to time and budget overruns in projects. This, in turn, leads to dissatisfied clients and overworked team members, without any sense of progress.
Burnt-Out Resources
Extended work hours with project deliverables scattered all over the place can lead to team members feeling exhausted and overwhelmed. This compromises on their efficiency and reflects on overall project quality. Besides, the constant loop of bug fixes and change requests keeps team members from focussing on newer innovation strategies.
Lapses in Communication
Misunderstandings between team members and all stakeholders stems from lack of clarity on the path ahead. This is usually the result of tense work environments, approaching deadlines, constant bug fixes and more. Besides, any team member’s challenges going unheard reflect on the overall direction of the project delivery.
Compromised Institutional Expertise
As a result of staying trapped in constant bug fixes, change requests, and escalation emails, project delivery teams may miss out on opportunities to look beyond the immediate issue at hand. This affects the institutional expertise of an organization by limiting its ability to explore new ways of dealing with problems.
Proposed Processes : The One-stop Answer For Project Delivery Obstacles
Discussed below are solutions I find useful in my day-to-day work as a project delivery manager to smoothly ensure successful project completion, by transforming these obstacles into opportunities for growth and improvement.
Let us take a look at the 5 stages of Sprint, that will help you address long-standing issues at your organization and drive success through frictionless project delivery –
Sprint Planning
This is the initial phase of each sprint. The product owner and the development team collaborate to select items from the product backlog to be worked on during the sprint. The team defines the goals for the sprint, estimates the effort required for each task, and creates a plan for accomplishing these tasks.
Sprint Execution
During this phase, the development team works on the tasks they committed to during the sprint planning. They break down the tasks into smaller units and complete them incrementally. Daily stand-up meetings are held to discuss progress, obstacles, and adjustments.
Sprint Testing
Quality assurance is an integral part of Agile development. As development work progresses, testing is conducted to ensure that the functionality being developed meets the specified requirements and works as expected. This phase includes both automated and manual testing.
Sprint Review
At the end of each sprint, a review is conducted. The development team demonstrates the completed work to stakeholders, including the product owner and other relevant parties. Feedback is collected, and the product owner determines whether the sprint goals have been met. Adjustments are then made based on the feedback received.
Support Period
This phase might not always be part of every sprint cycle, but it is important for ongoing maintenance and support. On completion of the sprint, the product is released or deployed. During the support period, the team addresses any issues that arise and provides maintenance and support to users if needed.
Final Thoughts
It’s important to note that Scrum and Agile methodologies emphasize flexibility and adaptation. While these stages provide a structured framework, they can be adjusted to fit the specific needs and dynamics of a project or team. The iterative nature of sprints allows for continuous improvement and the ability to incorporate feedback into each subsequent iteration.
