The Problem

A leading medical device manufacturer needed to deploy an upgraded customer relationship management application.  The two work teams working on this project – one on-shore and one off-shore – were managed independently and had individual project responsibilities. Neither team had any idea how long their work would take, but both were responsible for delivering their work together so that functional testing of the combined application could be conducted. More importantly, the project’s stakeholders wanted to know when this project was going to finish and when ROI could begin being realized.

The Solution

It was nearly impossible to ‘guess’ when this final testing effort could begin, so the teams were brought together for a Risk-Based Planning workshop to plan their deliverables and work effort. Praxis facilitated the teams’ discussion of deliverable constraints, potential risks and mitigation strategies. During the workshop a Level 3 project schedule was created and agreed upon by all project members and key stakeholders.

Praxis ran multiple simulations of their project plan to produce an estimated completion time for the project, depending on whether some or all of the risks identified were realized and/or mitigated.  Together, we developed a network diagram that outlined the project’s scope, showing each team’s activities and their relationships with the other team’s work effort. This diagram also listed deliverables and duration-based estimates for the completion time.

The Result

As a result of two days spent in a Risk-Based Planning® workshop, the project teams were united. They had a clear idea of the work effort that was needed, and an understanding of the potential risks.  The workshop revealed that their project could be completed in as few as 51 weeks or as many as 55 weeks.  The project management team now had data that would help them recognize risks early on and enable them to mitigate them more effectively.

Most importantly, this workshop produced a set of data that was real and thoughtful, and enabled the project team to have valuable discussions with their stakeholders which kept them engaged in their project’s approach.