Technology
projects are heavily dependent on expert resources from the IT team and the
business. Managing people whose work is critical to the success of the project
is essential and managing their time can be challenging.
This
case study is a situation where a business expert was proving to be unable to
deliver to the timeline.
Case study
The
project was development of custom reports. When engaging resources for the
work, the project manager did the usual things to ensure availability of the
resource: for example, arranged for dedicated team members, and obtained
commitments from their managers that they would be free to concentrate on the
project. For those who were not vendors, the project manager arranged for the
individuals’ jobs to be filled by other workers so the project team could
concentrate on the project work.
The situation
The
development work proceeded but there were challenges and issues along the way
(perhaps a case study for another time).
Due to the development issues, there were quite a large number of problems
found in the testing phase.
However,
just as problematic, it was taking a very long time for the business expert
doing the testing to identify the issues on the reports, and to re-test as
defects were corrected. As time went on,
it became clear that the tester was a significant bottleneck in the process.
The
project manager discussed the pace with the tester, who confirmed that he was
concentrating on the testing tasks, and had not been pulled away to work on
other non-project work. The tester claimed that it was just a temporary delay
due to learning curve on what needed to be done, and that he would have no
problem catching up.
Unfortunately,
the tester’s prediction of increasing speed did not come true. The testing
continued to take much longer than planned.
In addition, the tester claimed, and his manager agreed, that no one but
himself was qualified to examine the reports and determine whether they were
right or wrong.
Evaluation of the problem
The
project manager decided to see for herself what was causing the delay, so she arranged
to sit in the tester’s office while he worked. She did some other work, but by sitting
close by was able to observe the tester’s process.
What
she observed was that there were many time-consuming steps to complete the
tester’s work. He printed the legacy
report; then printed the new report. Then, he went through every line and
checked every heading, description, and number for accuracy. Then, when he found a difference between the
legacy and new report, he had to determine whether the difference was
acceptable. If it was not acceptable, he had to log the defect in the tracking
software.
The
project manager realized that much of the work could actually be done by
others. The only part of the work that the business expert tester really had to
do for himself was to evaluate whether a difference was acceptable or not.
New approach
The
project manager arranged to add two junior staff to the project. They were
assigned to print the legacy and new reports, compare every heading,
description, and number, and mark differences with highlighters and tape flags
for review.
The
business expert was now able to focus on the one thing that no one but himself
could do. He focused on evaluation of the differences between the legacy and
new reports, and decided whether the difference was acceptable or a
defect.
The
project manager also arranged for someone else to log the defects for the
tester, so he could concentrate on just the evaluation.
Conclusion
The
project manager’s observation was essential to resolving the work bottleneck.
Each report was taking two to four hours to test, but the portion that only the
business expert could do was really only fifteen to thirty minutes.
By
re-allocating much of the work to other resources, the business expert was
freed up to complete the evaluation for many more reports.
Although
their participation is critical to a project’s success, business experts can
become a bottleneck on a project. In order to ensure the proper participation
of the expert while also eliminating the bottleneck, it was necessary for the
project manager to evaluate the work and break it down into its component
parts. Then many of the steps could be completed by others, freeing up the expert
to focus on the task for which he had the expertise.
