Volume 1, No. 5
“Helping You Accelerate Your High-Tech Development Projects”
Welcome to the ANGOTTI PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT e-mail newsletter!
The goal of this newsletter is to help you accelerate your development projects by sharing some of the many tips, techniques and strategies we’ve honed during our two decades of providing high-tech consulting services.
This issue discusses the part that another significant, and often overlooked, part of a project – having plans for the possibility of unknown factors that “pop up” during a project. These “unk-unks”, or unknown-unknowns, can sabotage even the best of project plans.
THE KNOWN-KNOWN
To help understand planning for the unknown, a distinction must be made between “known” and “unknown” risks. A standard plan accounts for numerous risks that are known at the beginning of a project. An example is the time to complete a particular task, or its associated costs. The plan attempts to lower risks by focusing on the PROCESS that a project undergoes while moving to completion.
Risk Management is another way to help to manage known risks through a formal process. Here, known risks are focused on in a rational manner during the execution of the project. An example might be the use of brand new software to develop a product. Problems with such software might seriously impact completion.
Both of these subjects were covered in earlier newsletters.
UNK-UNKS
Unknown-Unknowns, that I often refer to these as “unk-unks”, are the risks associated with factors that are unknown when the plan, or risk management program, was started. These can appear at any time during the execution of the project. A Project Manager can create a process or strategy to deal with such possibilities. This involves some sort of formal check for the occurrence of such events, and adding them to the risk management and project plan process as they arise.
WHAT WORKS FOR UNK-UNKS?
The fundamental process that works for these types of risks is to develop “Early Detection Systems” so that a response may created at the earliest possible time to minimize their impact.
Some methods that I have found to be useful are:
1. Have a method to E-Mail High Priority Items to all team members so one person does not have to spot and react to problems that are picked up during execution.
2. Employ lots of “management by walking (or talking) about”. Touch base with team members frequently. This is best done in person, but can be done by phone when this is not practical. Carefully listen to the team members. Often the members are not necessarily aware of the implications of a problem that is detected.
3. Drive to “Testing Early”. This will allow the team to pick up hidden problems earlier. The purpose is to flush out such problems as soon as possible. An initial plan is created that has high risk and critical areas undergoing test before one third of the overall development plan, or less, is completed. This calls for real judgement on the part of the team during the planning phase.
4. Assign a 10% to 15% contingency to schedules and costs to create project buffers to allow for these unknown risks. This can be a real challenge for management in many environments, since many organizations are loath to set aside such time. They consider it a built in excuse to slip. Similarly, the use of “Critical Chain” project scheduling has been said to help even more.
5. Have a “Third Party” attend or even facilitate Design and Process Reviews. These are experienced outsiders that are brought in to assist. They have a wider, and less entrenched, view into the project status to help detect problems earlier.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN AN UNK-UNK IS DETECTED?
First, any item that is detected is placed on the Risk Management plan. A critical decision is whether the risk is significant enough to
warrant a change in the plan. This is certainly not the time to “throw the plan out the window” as can frequently happen when a very high risk item is detected. It is a time to update it. Again, here is where experience and good judgement comes in to measure the significance of the risk and create the plan to compensate for it.
KEEP TRACK OF DETECTED RISKS
A final note is to be sure that the project-tracking methods note the occurrence of this event for later reference. These can be important “lessons learned” for future projects.