Question

The project manager should anticipate the affects the changes could have on the overall project, and prepare to compensate for any shortcomings. Have you experienced this sort of ripple affect on any projects?

Answer 1

Yes, we have experienced ripple effects on one of our projects. As part of our project, we were supposed to build a mobile application for patients. Each deliverable required approval from key stakeholders including the project sponsor. Further, we had a strict change order request in place to control scope creek.

Once the project implementation started, a risk plan was formulated by project manager but it overlooked a key risk - " Absence of stakeholder" i.e. it failed to define how the project would move forward if key approvals were delayed. During the business requirements phase a lot of changes to initial scope were made, however, project sponsor had resigned from the client side. Due to this, there was a delay of 2-3 weeks in the getting approval on business requirements of the project. The client was unable to give us a replacement approver for this duration and we had not mentioned any mitigation plan for this risk earlier. Due to serial delays at business requirements phase, design phase was delayed by 5-6 weeks. The requirements had considerably changed and our estimated time for the design was not sufficient to meet the timelines decided.

Finally, our project manager decided to redo the entire project timeline incorporating delays that were expected. Overall the entire project was delayed by 4 months.