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Home / 2 What Major Information Would You Expect to Find in a Project Review? (Page 559)

2 What Major Information Would You Expect to Find in a Project Review? (Page 559)

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Mail-Implementation Reviews

Making Certain That What You Delivered Really Works

Post-Implementation Reviews - Making Sure That What You Delivered Actually Works

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Take time to reflect on your past to improve for the time to come.

"Completing a project" is not the same thing as ending the project management process. Simply finishing doesn't ensure that the organization benefits from the project's outcome.

For case, after completing a year-long project to establish a new quality direction process for your organization, you want to brand sure that what you set out to practise was actually accomplished. Your objective wasn't to just evangelize a process – but rather, to deliver the process that addresses the specific business need y'all intended to come across. This is the real measure of success.

To brand the most of the benefits that the project can evangelize, however, you also need to cheque to run across if further improvements will deliver still greater benefit.

Yous likewise demand to ensure that the lessons learned during the project are not forgotten. You can more effectively design and execute future projects when yous take advantage of lessons learned through the experience of previous projects.

So how tin can you properly measure a project'southward success, and work toward continuous improvement? This is where the procedure of Post-Implementation Review (PIR) is helpful. It helps you lot answer the post-obit fundamental questions:

  • Did the project fully solve the trouble that it was designed to address?
  • Can we take things further, and evangelize fifty-fifty bigger benefits?
  • What lessons did we acquire that nosotros can employ to future projects?

The PIR Process

The key to a successful PIR is recognizing that the time spent on the project is just a modest part of an ongoing timeline.

For people and organizations that will be working on similar projects in the future, it makes sense to learn as many lessons as possible, so that mistakes are not repeated in hereafter projects.

And for organizations benefiting from the projection, information technology makes sense to ensure that all desired benefits take been realized, and to empathise what additional benefits tin be achieved.

When to Review

A skilful time to start thinking nigh the Post Implementation Review is when members of the project team retrieve the most – before long after the projection has been delivered, and when most of the problems take been ironed out. Starting time to listing ideas and observations while they are still fresh in people's minds.

However, to adequately assess the quality of the implementation and consummate this process, you'll demand to look long enough for the changes caused by the projection to truly accept result.

In that location will probably exist a menstruation of adjustment before you tin finally review the solution as it was intended to operate: you'll probable demand to overcome some of the usual resistance to change, hold people's easily while they operate new systems, and eliminate technical issues that didn't emerge when deliverables were tested. You should therefore typically let a few weeks, or even a few months, before doing the full PIR. Where possible, allow for at to the lowest degree one, full, successful bicycle of business before reviewing lessons learned.

What to Review

Here are some tips for conducting the PIR:

  • Ask for openness – Emphasize the importance of existence open and honest in your assessment, and brand sure that people aren't in any manner punished for being open.
  • Be objective – Describe what has happened in objective terms, and then focus on improvements.
  • Document success – Document practices and procedures that led to project successes, and make recommendations for applying them to similar futurity projects.
  • Look with hindsight – Pay attention to the "unknowns" (now known!) that may have increased implementation risks. Develop a way of looking out for these in future projects.
  • Be future-focused – Remember, the purpose is to focus on the future, not to assign blame for what happened in the by. This is not the time to focus on any i person or team.
  • Look at both positives and negatives – Identify positive as well every bit negative lessons.

When conducting the review, include the following activities:

  • Conduct a gap analysis.
    • Review the project lease to evaluate how closely the projection results match the original objectives.
    • Review the expected deliverables (including documentation) and ensure either that these have been delivered to an acceptable level of quality, or that an acceptable substitute is in place.
    • If there are gaps, how will these exist closed?
  • Decide whether the project goals were achieved.
    • Is the deliverable functioning every bit expected?
    • Are mistake rates low enough, and is it fit for purpose?
    • Is it functioning well, and in a way that will suit smoothly to future operating demands?
    • Are users adequately trained and supported? And are at that place sufficiently enough confident, skilled people in place?
    • Are the necessary controls and systems in identify, and are they working properly?
    • What routine activities are needed to support the project'southward success?
    • If there are problems hither, how volition these be addressed?
    • How does the end result compare with the original project plan, in terms of quality, schedule and upkeep?
  • Make up one's mind the satisfaction of stakeholders.
    • Were the finish users' needs met?
    • Is the project sponsor satisfied?
    • What are the effects on the client or end user?
    • If fundamental individuals aren't satisfied, how should this be addressed?
  • Decide the project's costs and benefits.
    • What were the terminal costs?
    • What will it cost to operate the solution?
    • What will it cost to support the solution in the future?
    • How do the costs compare with the benefits achieved?
    • If the projection hasn't delivered a sufficiently big return, how tin can this be improved?
  • Place areas for farther development.
    • Have all of the expected benefits been accomplished? If not, what is needed to achieve them?
    • Are there opportunities for further training and coaching that will maximize results?
    • Could you brand further changes, which would deliver even more than value?
    • Are there any other boosted benefits that can be achieved?
  • Place lessons learned.
    • How well were the project's deliverables assessed, and how well were timescales and costs assessed?
    • What went incorrect, why did these things go wrong, and how could these problems be avoided adjacent fourth dimension?
    • What went well, and needs to exist learned from?
  • Report findings and recommendations.
    • What have yous learned from this review?
    • Exercise you demand corrective activity to get the benefits y'all want?
    • What lessons have y'all learned that need to exist carried forward to hereafter projects?
    • Does this projection naturally pb on to time to come projects, which will build on the success and benefits already accomplished?

How to Review

As you lot perform the post-implementation review, certain methods and practices will help you obtain the all-time possible information:

  • Define the scope of the review beforehand -The last matter yous want to do is to create a political problem. Given the number of people often involved in a project, it'south easy to injure someone'southward feelings when reviewing the projection'south success. Analyze your objectives for the review, and make your intentions clear – this will better ensure that people share their experiences openly and honestly. So make absolutely sure that you stick to these intentions, and that people'southward egos aren't unnecessarily hobbling by the process!
  • Review key documents – Gather together the key project documents. This will assistance you assess the project planning process, besides equally the bodily benefits achieved through the project.
  • Consider using independent reviewers – Where possible, employ outside people in your review process to get an objective, unclouded view of the project. Some people recommend using but independent people in the review, all the same, y'all can learn a lot from the perspectives of those who were directly involved in the project – this is why the best strategy is probably to have a balance.
  • Use appropriate data collection – Collect information in the near advisable manner, for case, by using interviews and surveys. Also, test the deliverable yourself, to make sure you become firsthand information.
  • Deliver advisable reports – Study your findings, and publicize the results. Remember that the PIR is designed to help projection managers conduct more effective projects in the future, too every bit to measure and optimize the benefits of the specific projection being reviewed.
  • Present recommendations – Present the detailed recommendations to the organization and the project leaders, too every bit to customers and other stakeholders. Include as many people equally necessary so that you lot keep – and utilise – the all-time-practice information in the future.

As you program your PIR, be aware of the costs and benefits of the review process itself. Interviewing stakeholders and customers, testing the solution, and documenting the results are time-consuming activities. Make sure the time and resources dedicated to the review are consistent with the project scope and its output, and that the potential benefits of conducting the review are worth the attempt put in.

Cardinal Points

A Post-Implementation Review (PIR) is conducted after completing a project. Its purpose is to evaluate whether project objectives were met, to determine how finer the projection was run, to learn lessons for the time to come, and to ensure that the organization gets the greatest possible benefit from the project.

Afterwards a long project, the last affair many project teams want to do is relive the procedure and look for means to ameliorate. However, a forward-looking review can discover many tips and strategies for improvement.

By conducting a thorough and timely PIR, you'll identify key lessons learned – and you tin can then apply those lessons to the planning and management of future projects.

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Source: https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newPPM_74.htm

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