PM Network - March 2010

>TIP

Start planning for the recovery now. “Reshape staff and rehire the good resources laid off in the last two years,” says Florin Gheorghiu, PMP,

Enel Green Power, Bucharest, Romania.

China certainly ranks among the most ambitious. Backed with a massive government stimulus plan, the country announced it was targeting 8 percent growth in 2010.

“China’s economic stimulus package is geared towards solving some of its future infrastructure and logistics challenges. And it also has a favorable balance in terms of trade, given the current valuation of the yuan coupled with the growing domestic consumer demand that will ensure its export-oriented economy copes with the current financial crisis,” Mr. Parker says.

first steps

“For project managers, it may mean looking offshore for opportunities or assisting their clients to take advantage of

Let’s be optimistic. If, indeed, the economy recovers, that’s going to mean a lot of projects are going to be relaunched. Here are four things to do when your project is no longer stuck on hold:

1

Assess the project’s relevance.

2

“A lot of businesses might be working on different strategies, so a project that has been paused for a while might be totally irrelevant,” says Vijay Kanabar, PhD, PMP, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. “The scope and requirements may have changed so much that you may have to start from scratch.” Re-evaluate assumptions and restate goals.

“Review the initial project-planning documents and adjust them based on how the environment has changed,” advises Michelle LaBrosse, PMP, Cheetah Learning, Carson City, Nevada, USA. “Usually the people available to work on the project will have changed, the tools to complete the project may have changed, the strategic objectives of the organization may have changed, and there will be other projects new on the plate that must be integrated into the input or output of the resurrected project.”

3

Get stakeholders on board.

“Make sure the company has made a commitment to the cash-flow needs of the project to ensure that you can successfully complete it,” Ms. LaBrosse says. “This might require difficult conversations with the stakeholders responsible for funding the project.”

4

Embrace change.

Consider reframing the project as a series of sprints with short-term deliverables versus a massive undertaking with a long lead time, suggests Rafael Sabbagh, project manager and agile consultant, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Building in that kind of flexibility leaves room for frequent replanning in a changing environment. “That is even more evident in turbulent times,” he says, “as agile projects are more resilient to the economy’s ups and downs.”

opportunities in the Asia Pacific region. While it may be hard for some project managers to acknowledge, the coming decade will belong to China, and it would be wise to ensure you have a China strategy as part of your portfolio.” China may be in the spotlight, but it’s not the only one spending. Governments around the world seem determined to nurture any signs of growth with huge stimulus plans that are translating to huge projects, especially in infrastructure.

Governments will “probably run
projects meant to hire thousands of
unemployed—construction, highways,
public buildings, wastewater, etc.,” says
Florin Gheorghiu, PMP, general project
manager, Enel Green Power, Bucharest,
Romania. “These projects always attract
massive labor forces, and materials
move in a big horizontal quake, shaking
an entire piece of the economy, industry
by industry.”
Yet for all the positive signs, this
looks to be a fragile recovery. In mid-
2009, projects on the Arabian Peninsula
were moving at a rapid clip, for example:
Saudi Arabia had a massive railway project
in the works, Abu Dhabi was reviewing
bids for a major metro system project, and
Qatar was planning a railway project
worth an estimated US$25.3 billion.
Then Dubai World’s potential loan default
shocked already anxious global markets.

Although the general consensus seems to be that Dubai alone will bear the brunt of project cancelations and stalls, the new buzzword around the world seems to be restraint.

“Private companies will resume the frozen projects first and then will think twice when authorizing new projects because of the shareholders’ risk-averse inclination following the economic crisis,” says Mr. Gheorghiu.