Managing Troubled Projects: 3-Step Plan & Escalation Plan - Essay Sample

Introduction

A troubled project has an overrun scope, and the communication among the project team members is troubled. Managing troubled projects with success requires special attention, great leadership, and good management. This paper is a detailed escalation plan that can be used to deal with a troubled project. It discusses the best practices that escalation plans should contain. Before diving into that, there is a three-step plan for recovering a troubled project. The first is finding the missing deliverables; the second is anticipating an uncomfortable conversation and the last engaging the shareholders and all the stakeholders in a meeting to clarify the path forward.

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Now the escalation plan for a troubled project. Though escalation may be hard sometimes for the project manager, it is the best shot at recovering a troubled project. A good escalation plan should have an escalation matrix, adequately defined, and agreed upon, that contains escalation points and paths for various escalation levels and areas; this is decided upon during the initial stages of the project. The stakeholders should be well informed of the escalation process. Create a culture within the project members where the team members believe escalating issues timely is the correct thing to do. Another thing is avoiding the Cry-wolf scenario; this is a situation where there is a frequent and unnecessary escalation of issues. When escalating, the problem should be addressed only to the right stakeholder.

The escalated issue should contain accurate data, enough background information, the severity of the problem and suggested approaches to solving the issue. Escalation should be documented; this should include all the correct data points, and all the necessary actions associated with owners should be marked. The escalation should have a two-level up depending on the severity of the issue. If the first escalation has failed, there should be the courage to escalate it to the next level to make higher. All directions should be used to get the required attention if vertical escalation fails. If there is no response to the escalation, strong measures should be taken, like terminating the project. This is the escalation plan; what it should contain.

References

Kerzner, H. (2019). Using the project management maturity model: strategic planning for project management. John Wiley & Sons. https://books.google.co.ke/books?hl=en&lr=&id=4vyGDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR11&dq=Using+the+project+management+maturity+model:+strategic+planning+for+project+management.+John+Wiley+%26+Sons&ots=UaFfGZ80nR&sig=CxVr5VkxFL-31w1axwPAuGQ01iM&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Using%20the%20project%20management%20maturity%20model%3A%20strategic%20planning%20for%20project%20management.%20John%20Wiley%20%26%20Sons&f=false

Wysocki, R. K. (2011). Effective project management: traditional, agile, extreme. John Wiley & Sons. https://books.google.co.ke/books?hl=en&lr=&id=nhw2V6-bTNEC&oi=fnd&pg=PP9&dq=Effective+project+management:+traditional,+agile,+extreme.+John+Wiley+%26+Sons.&ots=8AtNm7oDS5&sig=Fx1TwG7KZQd0zO7eOeKyNOk7Dik&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Effective%20project%20management%3A%20traditional%2C%20agile%2C%20extreme.%20John%20Wiley%20%26%20Sons.&f=false