How to conduct a project health check.

Perhaps you have reviewed the leading indicators of trouble (see here – [Part1], [Part2], and [Part3] with project execution and you want to conduct a health check – in that case you want to know, how do I conduct this in a way that does not spook the project team, but does get me an honest appraisal of where the project is in terms of sign of health or ill-health.

Better still, if your project is going very well, either in the early stages of planning or execution. However, you are not sure how well it is really going and would like to do a health check just to confirm that all is well.

Or perhaps you have a lot of the leading indicators appearing in your project and you want to do a health check urgently, but without spooking the team because they might not be as open as you need to get the most out of the health check – a little like the patient who tells the doctor that they only have a couple of drinks at the weekend – this does not really help anyone, unless it is the truth.

So let’s get started.

Conducting a Health Check

The best of all scenarios is that you make conducting a project health check (PHC from now on) part of the normal execution routine for all projects. If this is not the case, then you have a number of choices:

1. Request all project managers to have an independent party conduct a standardised PHC (we will talk to the detail of this a little later).
2. Do an informal PHC yourself, but in the standardised way.
3. Build the process into your project metrics and associated reporting – this way we can automate the PHC process.

For the time being, this cover the mostly likely ways that we will execute the PHC.

Method 1: Independent PHC.

The sequence of events here should be:

1. Project Sponsor or senior executive requests an independent PHC.
2. Independent party selected and engaged.
3. PHC Lead is fully briefed on the intent of the project and on the process to be followed for the PHC.
4. PHC is scheduled.
5. All parties are requested to complete their “assignments/reports/interviews” within a prescribed time.
6. Data is analysed and findings drafted.
7. Further analysis/data gathering/interviews are conducted to gather additional data about early findings.  Note:At this point, it is essential that the data being gather has been collected from a number of sources asking similar questions but from differing perspectives – the commonality, or conflicts in the response will be informative in its own right.
8. Enhanced data set is analysed and report is drafted with findings.
9. Report reviewed and analysed to establish what performance attributes of the project are less than desired.
10. Depending on the depth of the PHC, and the findings, it may well be possible to agree an action plan and implement it immediately, with the associated measures for success.

However, if there are significant signs of trouble, then there will be extra work, namely:

1. If you found sufficient evidence of trouble, then you need to get the project leadership team together and agree a path forward – your evidence is a project scuttlebutt, and now you will need a deep dive to be conducted on all aspects of concern, with a view to altering the execution model (team, scope, strategy, reporting …) where required.
2. Take the time to agree the intervention (step 17) in detail and get everybody to commit to this – this cannot be a charade, as that would only waste everyone’s time.
3. Ensure a clear scope and timeline are agreed – you are in effect gathering the remaining scope of work and reviewing/developing the full deliverables for execution as if you were at the Planning Stage once again. Make sure you value this new beginning.
4. PHC process is automated into the reporting metrics and process for the project

The purpose of the PHC must always be focused upon improving the performance of the project team – it needs to be based on assembling the quantitative and qualitative metrics that can be agreed as being a true reflection of the current status of the project. These are then used to access the health of the execution model and associated team and systems. Areas of sub optimal performance are then addressed and monitored for improved performance. The clarity of the process cannot be allowed to be hijacked by personal preferences of individuals or fear of how the data might be interpreted by “the grown ups” – this is a professional business and should be treated as such.

There are pros and cons of this approach.

The pros are:

• Independent view – the party that executed the PHC has not bias.
• Singular focus – the review seeks out the facts and only the facts.
• Time bound assessment – you get an answer within a fixed timeframe.
• Clear report out.

The cons on the other side are:

• You may spook the project team into giving the glossy version as opposed to the raw version of real project progress.
• Takes several weeks during which the project is still moving – either closer to trouble or further away from trouble.
• Is only as good as the information provided to the independent party.

As with any undertaking, the scope, deliverables and timeline of the PHC need to be clearly outlined before the independent party is engaged.

Method 2: Do an informal PHC yourself, but in the standardised way.

If you are in a situation where there is no history of routine project audits or PHCs, then it may spook people if you announce that you want to conduct one. This in turn can drive the truth underground and you will find it even more difficult to gain an accurate understanding of the true project status. In this case, it may be more beneficial to conduct a stealthy review by yourself – but don’t underestimate either the time that it will take or the level of suspicion that you may generate if you are a little too zealous in your attempt.

The sequence of events here should be:

Stage 1 – Preparation.

1. Brief yourself fully on the latest versions of:
   1. Project Charter/Brief.
   2. Business Justification.
   3. Scope documents.
   4. WBS.
   5. Schedule.
   6. Latest reports including the risk, issues and change logs/registers.
2. Get the leading indicators of trouble checklist and highlight areas that you have concern over.
3. Review all the items from step 1 to see if there are any trends.
4. Summarise findings at this stage – do you sense that there is a worrying trend? If so, then you need to focus on specific areas for Stage 2.
5. Summarise a list of outstanding queries

Stage 2 – Interaction with team.  

1. Meet with the Project Manager and tell them that you wish to interact informally with the team.
2. Take your list of outstanding queries and develop a broad contact base to collect information from – focus heavily on the team executing the tasks.
3. Look for conflicting information.
4. Look for suggestions for improvement.
5. Look for cohesiveness of the team.
6. Look for alignment to the business reasons for the project.
7. Take some time out and analyse the data.
8. Meet back up with the project manager and discuss any areas of concern.
9. If required, further analysis/data gathering/interviews should be conducted to gather more data about early findings – don’t over analyse, as if there are not clear sign of trouble, then the project may just need some optimisation as opposed to some major intervention.
10. Formulate your finding into a clear structure.

Stage 3 – Taking action with the findings.  

1. If you have found that the project does not have any of the leading indicators of trouble, then you should report this back to the project manager and tell them the positives that you found, along with any improvement suggestions.
2. If you found sufficient evidence of trouble, then you need to get the project leadership team together and agree a path forward – your evidence is a project scuttlebutt, and now you will need a deep dive to be conducted on all aspects of concern, with a view to altering the execution model (team, scope, strategy, reporting …) where required.
3. Take the time to agree the intervention (step 17) in detail and get everybody to commit to this – this cannot be a charade, as that would only waste everyone’s time.
4. Ensure a clear scope and timeline are agreed – you are in effect gathering the remaining scope of work and reviewing/developing the full deliverables for execution as if you were at the Planning Stage once again. Make sure you value this new beginning.

That’s it – long, but you cannot start something without following through to the end.

What are the pros and cons of this approach – here you go:

The pros:

1. You get to put your hand in the wound and feel what it is like.
2. You get a qualitative sense as well as just pure data.
3. You can move fast.
4. You get a definitive answer to an important question – are we in trouble?

The cons:

1. It takes a lot of your time.
2. It can lead to a lot of tension (but much less than if the projects slips into a deeper state of trouble).

Method 3: Build the process into your project metrics and associated reporting – this way we can automate the PHC process.   

This is really only for those who have either been burnt badly by a project that went very wrong, or an organisation that really believes in the competitive advantage that can be gained from good pragmatic project management – if you do not fall into either of these groups, then you probably need to be burnt before you will adopt this method, the best of all options.

1. Get the list of leading indicators from the earlier posts.
2. Gather all the metrics for the project.
3. Compare the two – if there is a lack of metrics that do not allow you to access the health of the project, then fix it.
4. Agree the reports and frequency.
5. Analysis and question reports in details.
6. Conduct ad-hoc and routine health checks.
7. Follow a stage gate approach.

This might sound like project management 101 and that is because it is. The only problem, is that very few people do this when they are running project – it seems, it takes too much time! I am not going to do a pros and cons, because you either believe in or you don’t – you decide.

Now that we have conducted the PHC, we are either sitting comfortably or we have a bigger problem to fix.

Would love to hear your thoughts.