If this session is warmed-up with few creativity exercises and
well-facilitated, the group should have no problems generating more than
enough obstacles, challenges, problems, mistakes that inhibit PM. I would
urge you to drop the _Good_ as that is a prejudicial value and will act as
an inhibitor for brainstorming.
Is the project small enough to complete in the time allotted?
Do the people have the skills necessary to complete the project on time?
If no, how will they get the training?
Does the project have the necessary resources available to complete the
task?
Who is the chief opponent? (There always is one otherwise the project
would have already been done.)
How has the obstacles, challenges, problems, mistakes the project is
supposed to correct been handled in the prior to the project?
Why this project for this
customer/team/group/department/division/organization, now? (This is the
primary question for all projects. It addresses priority,
audience/market, environment, and time and requires specific answers
that provide the reasoning for the project in the first place.)
Who will act as sponsor for solution? Do they have the authority to be
the project sponsor?
What are the fundamental constraints that are threats to the project. (It
is usually a stong pair combination between Time, Space, and Financing.
If these three are acting in concert with each other, then the project is
more than likely going to fail in gaining support (wider audience/market)
while inside the organization.
What is the degree of change that the project will place on, project
members? Organizational behavior? Consumer/customer behavior? (Note
consumer and customer are not synonymous.)
What are the metrics used to determine success of the project? Is Time or
quality the primary measuring stick?
How long will it take the project members to begin functioning as a
team/group? What can we do to facilitate the process?
What modes of decision-making will be used? Democratic (Majority Rules)
Concensus (Minority Rules) Authoritarian (Reasoned Decision by project
manager) Autocratic (Arbitrary Decision by project manager)?
What are the intrinsic motivators for the project members?
What are the extrinsic motivators for the project members?
There are more, yet all of the answers to all of the questions can act as
obstructions to PM.
In fact, there will be infinitely more obstructions/details as the project
gets sliced and diced into manageable chunks.
As I think about it now, I would ask this group to brainstorm two
questions.
What are the obstacles/problems/challenges/mistakes in PM?
What are the set of behaviors that contribute to PM?
I suspect that you will hear communication and leadership as the
buzzwords. Get them to define what these critical elements are.
Hint: It is my experience that groups resist strong leadership while
clamoring for it. A paradox.
Hint: When business talks about communication, what they are really saying
is "If _we_ communicate better, you will agree with _me_."
You might ask them what their communication strategy is for this project.
Team meetings are good but specifics here will be helpful.
Final questions, when we get behind on deadlines, how are we going to get
caught up?
How are we going to maintain interpersonal relationships between the
project members? Also, an essential question.
Good Luck.
______________________
Great Optimism,
Dutch Driver
Abilene, TX
Hm. Telephone: 915.698.7217
mailto:
ddriver@cs1.mcm.edu