12.6 Enterprise Project Execution and Governance Part 6

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uh,

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talking again about risks and issues. So for those of you that don't know, I

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I kind of very quickly went over this part. So a risk of anything that could have a negative impact on a project. So Hurricane somebody quitting things of that nature an issue

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is either one of two things, and one's better than the other,

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a risk that's been realized. We thought this might happen, or this could happen. And it did happen.

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Here's what we do about it or an issue is something that

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was never identified as a risk. You know, the unknown unknowns.

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And now it's happened and, oh, my gosh, now we gotta figure it out. So

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when issues happen that have implications on the project,

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the PSC is there to address those, especially the unknown unknown. So we didn't think this would happen. It actually did happen. Oh, my gosh,

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Who do we talk to you while you call the PSC? Because they're the ones that hopefully have the knowledge and experience to provide guidance in those situations.

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Um, you know, talking earlier about emergent versus delivered strategy. Well, hey, guess what?

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As problems become more complicated or complex,

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emergence strategy

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is

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part of our future. You can

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accepted or not accepted. It doesn't really matter. You know, reality kind of trumps

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your individual perspective.

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So when emerging issues happen

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during the project execution phase, your P S E. Is there to make sure the scope of state under control that their address that we're adapting our strategy within the project again, not the organization

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to meet those challenges.

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Um, there are They are they are the

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mediator when there's differences of opinion between various stakeholders, whether it's the project team and the business owner,

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the developer versus the business analyst, I mean, there's all kinds of examples of this. But when those conflicts happen,

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your P S e. Is there to reconcile those differences. And if they can't do that, if they are not effective at resolving disputes, then of course you have to ask. The question is, why do we have a PFC? That's one of their key rules.

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They want to make sure that

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the progress of the project is being successfully reported to

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the senior level. Whether it's the SC agency, government legislators, shareholders of the of the organization, all these different samples, But they're there to make sure that that project progress is being properly reported.

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Um, and then they want to take on some sort of responsibility for the unity of effort. So

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if your project has a huge organizational change management component, which a lot of these enterprise projects will,

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you're PSC is really there to help facilitate that and take on the responsibility to alleviate the project manager, especially if the product manager is not Ah,

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you know, an integral part of the business. They're being brought in as a contractor or a consultant. They don't know the ins and outs of that stuff. That's not really

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their role. So those external facing responsibilities then fall on the PSC to help facilitate success for the project manager.

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So as a group, those were things that they do

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individually. What that means is that each individual within the PSC has to understand the strategic implications

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of what the project is. What's that about? What's it doing? They need to appreciate the significance of it again. You know, if you're a senior executive or middle management executive, you're not gonna be willing to go to meetings and make decisions about something that you don't think is important.

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So you

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need to recruit members or educate members that they need to be

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cognisant of the significance of the project

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and represent the interests of the stakeholders. Be interested in the initiative in the outcomes being pursued in the project. Again,

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you're dedicating a lot of time and effort to this. If

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the outputs don't act or the outcomes

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don't meet anybody's needs, that's not good. So the PSC should really be interested in that. And they should

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pretend as though they were the consumer or the end user of

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the output of this project.

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They have an advocacy role.

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They

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are part of the public face of the project,

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and they are advocating for the project outcomes to external stakeholders

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within the organization as well as outside the organization. This PSC is very much

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in the know from a day to day standpoint and also empowered to communicate on behalf of the project and the project team.

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Um, you know, have that high level broad understanding of

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project management,

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uh, the issues that are happening within the project so they can explain that to stakeholders

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or senior management and the approach that the project team has adopted based on the recommendations in the feedback from the PSC

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to address those issues.

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So in practice, that means that

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the PSC members ensure the outputs meet the requirements that is, you know,

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common sense, but also one of the thing that's most often overlooked.

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If the project team is spending time and effort doing something, it needs to match to the requirements of one of the business users. Balance conflicting priorities. Balance conflicting Resource is over. Resource allocation. Be part of the solution to those challenges because the PM is not gonna be able to do that

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by themselves. They're gonna have to

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be able to access more senior leadership in order to be able to execute that,

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provide guidance,

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consider consider ideas and issues raised. Make decisions. The PSC is a decision making body. If you are unable or unwilling to make a decision and own it, you have no business being on a PSC, especially for Enterprise Project

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Communicate.

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I've almost never heard anybody tell me

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that

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I've communicated too much or that somebody else's. I'm so tired of hearing from them. They communicate so much, and I'm just so bored of it. No

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you almost always hear the opposite, but you never hear that community over Communication is a problem.

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So as part of the PSC, individually, you to be constantly communicating, communicating, communicating.

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And then you also need to review the project of the frog or the progress of the project.

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You are there to keep the PM honest, for better, for worse. And I don't think that PM's air necessarily a bag of people. But you're you hired the PM Ideally, you supervised the PM ideally, and you want to make sure that the progress that they're reporting is accurate and meats

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your needs. And then here's to the schedule of the project. And if not, there's an explanation for the very instant someone zone.

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So you're the first line supervisor

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of the enterprise project manager when you're in a PSC rule.

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And the scary thing for a lot of people in the P. M. Field is that

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motel most is probably an over generalization. A lot of PSC members

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don't know that,

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so

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in some ways you're kind of telling on yourself a little bit. You need to communicate that to these new PSC members so that they understand that you. They need to hold you accountable for the execution of the project and be a part of

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both your supervisory layer to make sure that you're being held accountable, but also part of the

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problem solving layer, so that you could bring them

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problems that you are unable to resolve as the project manager and to get some kind of resolution