Sometimes, no matter how well prepared you are,
there is this dreaded feeling
that your project's going off the rails.
Well, in this video,
I'm going to share with you how to get your project
back on track and to close it off successfully.
Side note, stick around to the end
because I'm going to share with you how you can get your
hands on an amazing checklist
on how to ensure your projects don't fail.
Hi, if you're new here, welcome.
My name is Adriana Girdler,
and you have landed
on the best practical project management channel
out there in YouTube world, in my personal opinion.
Now, if you want to learn
how to get your projects back on track,
let's get to it.
Determine the cause of derailment.
Your first step in this
is to really do a deep dive
to understand what's going on
and why this derailment is happening.
So you want to take a look at first understanding
is your derailment in your control or out of your control?
Are there external factors like politics, business climate,
the environment?
Is something going on that you just don't have control over
that's causing your derailment?
Are there internal factors?
Did some key people leave from your project
and now you're left in the dust
trying to figure out what to do?
Did senior executives change the direction on you
or the strategy that's aligned to your project?
So that becomes really important.
Understand where the derailment is coming from.
Your second thing you're going to do
to really do this deep dive
is you're going to bring your team together
to assess this derailment.
And you want to ask some questions,
like, Why did this occur? When did this happen?
And really go into a deeper dive
brainstorming with your team
once you understand the external internal factors
that are impacting this derailment.
Review and revise the project path.
So now that you understand
what exactly is occurring with this derailment,
you now have to look at the plan, you have to go deeper,
you have to take a look at your project schedule.
Is there anything that has to change
to shift to get out of the derailment
and get you back on track?
Are there any additional tasks
that you're going to have to add, delete, change, redirect?
You also want to take a look at your budget.
Is there anything from a budget perspective
that's going to help you ensure
that you can get things back on track?
The key here is you want to take a look at your project
plan, go back to your charter.
How many times have we said that's the living document?
You want to know more about charters?
Go check out some other videos that I have,
Adriana Girdler Charter,
and you can get some good information on it.
But just reevaluate that charter,
take a look at everything
and make sure that what it is that you're doing
you've called out is now either still aligned
or you have to change and shift
to get your project back on track.
Meet with key stakeholders outside of your project team.
Remember, stakeholders are everyone who touches the project
and your own team members are stakeholders.
But you've already did your deep dive with them
coming up with everything that you need
to help revise your plan.
The next critical thing you have to do
is you have to meet with those stakeholders
outside of your project team.
Those are your sponsors, your steering committee,
senior executives.
It could be the department customer,
whoever is getting the end deliverable.
You want to bring them up to speed.
You want to have them be aware of the changes, the impact,
and how you're going to bring everything back on track
and what help you need from them.
Because I promise you,
if things are derailing and they're external factors
that are out of your control, you are going to need help.
And even if they're internal factors as well,
you're going to need some assistance now from those higher
up who are in charge of budget
and who are in charge of the strategy
and who can give you what you need
to remove your roadblock
so you can get things back on track.
Monitor and control.
Now that you're getting your project back on track,
you're going to have to do a lot more due diligence
with monitoring and control.
And if you've been following my videos
or my Slay Project Management Ways of Working,
you know exactly how important that step is.
It's one of the frameworks to project management.
So I know you've been doing it
if you've been following the Slay Ways of Working,
however, you're going to have to do more of it.
So what are some things that you can really do
just to be on top of things?
So you just had things get off of the rails,
and you want to make sure that what you're doing
is going to be back on track.
So you want to consider doing another risk assessment
on your project.
Doing another risk session
is something that's going to be really powerful
and see if there's any new things
based on what you changed, tweaked, deleted.
That maybe there's some new risks that are popping up
that you need to put contingency and mitigation plans.
You want to be really on your project schedule and timeline
with your project team
and let them know why you're doing this,
"Hey guys, we just had this derailment,
so let's now ensure
instead of every two weeks updating our WBS action plan,
we're going to do it now every week,
and I need to ensure that anytime
there's anything you think is going to derail,
notify me immediately."
So you're really a little more on high alert
than you normally would be.
Don't fret, that's not going to stay like that forever.
You just want to be on track right now
until you get things back on track
and things are chugging away again.
Then you can back off the monitoring and controlling
and just do your standard monitoring and controlling,
which is your timeline, schedule,
your meetings with executives, things of that nature,
and allowing people to do what they do well,
which is subject matter experts
executing on these subject matter expertise
that they've been assigned to do.
Collect lessons learned.
Lessons learned are not for the end of a project.
Lessons learned can be done
throughout the project lifecycle,
particularly at points and times like these,
when your project derails.
Why did it derail? Have an understanding of it.
I promise you, the more you can learn,
not only for the current project you're working on,
but future projects,
is only going to make you
a better, and really, an awesome project manager.
So when you do your lessons learned,
actually, I have a video.
If you go to the search bar and Adriana Girdler YouTube,
Lessons Learned or Lessons Learned, AAR,
I think it's Lessons Learned, do Lessons learned.
I have a video totally dedicated on that,
that teaches you how to do a lessons learned,
as I like to call them, After Action Reviews or AARs.
This is going to be really powerful for you
and it's just going to give you some additional information
that you can now share with your team
to ensure that they also know
how everyone's going to be proceeding
to ensure that this doesn't happen again
to the best of your ability.
Now that you know how to get your projects back on track,
I'm so happy for you, yay,
'cause I promise you, you'll experience it.
What are some other things you need to know?
You need to know this.
You want tp make sure that your project's don't struggle
and what are some other things that you need to be aware of?
And guess what? It's free for you, my gift to you.
I so appreciate you being here learning from me,
and there's some extra cool stuff for you
that you definitely wanna go and get.
Where can you get it?
It's in the link below under this video.
Until the next video, see you later.