35 Things to Check for a Healthy Project.
Have you ever wondered whether there is a more formal approach to evaluating the how well a project is doing? Have you often wondered why you have been the last to know that there are serious concerns amongst your development team? Have you ever been asked to undertake a review of a project and report to the steering committee or senior management?
Well there is a neat way to do this and it’s called the project health check. I first came across this in an excellent book called the Project Work Out
As a Project Manager it is useful to check the health of a project at various stages in its development. As a minimum it is worth undertaking a health checkpoint at kick-off and as one reaches about 80% completion of a stage, e.g. development. The health check is a useful tool for the Project Manager to complete and communicate to stakeholders any concerns he or she may have.
In addition, I have found it useful to collect aggregate scores from a development team as to how they view the health of a project at particular stage in the projects lifecycle.
The basic health check template is provided on a separate CD that accompanies the book and I have modified it to suit the types of project I typically deal with. In my modified version I have retained the seven criteria:
• Project Plan
• Resources
• Ownership
• Justifiable Case
• Expertise
• Clear Specification
• Top level Support
This is a useful and comprehensive checklist and is easy to remember when faced with your development team because it forms the acronym PROJECT. I sometimes modify the five embedded questions to suit my clients and the specific nature of the project. This provides a essential check list of 35 parameters and scoring these will produce a radar chart that is easily communicated to management or steering committees.
The Excel spreadsheet is easily accessible and can be modified to suit. I have included a TV style screen to present warnings etc., and for each of the 35 parameters I include notes against the scoring to show why that parameter is scored that way. In addition, I include a note to record the proposed fixes under the 7 main headings, planning, resources, etc., along with specific notes area for the client to include his or her own thoughts or send a message to the client. Try to keep this all to one page and you will ensure that each project health check will be quickly assimilated and form the basis for an approval or call to action.
Project Lesson 3: Check your project health at the beginning and 80% through each stage.
