Sandhya has extensive experience in Program & Project Leadership. In addition to helping her clients in several major industries with managing their projects, she plays that role each and every day for her own two businesses where she needs to concurrently manage the development and deployment of several products and services.
She has been utilizing Traditional and Agile project management methodologies utilizing Scrum as well as Kanban frameworks. She has also developed a proprietary scaled waterfall methodology (currently pre-patent).
Sandhya's work within Program & Project Management has involved:
She has been utilizing Traditional and Agile project management methodologies utilizing Scrum as well as Kanban frameworks. She has also developed a proprietary scaled waterfall methodology (currently pre-patent).
Sandhya's work within Program & Project Management has involved:
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Here is some helpful information synthesized from Sandhya's knowledge and experience to help other aspiring Program & Project Managers.
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Feel free to reach out if you would like Sandhya to present some learning to your team or conduct a customized wisdom-workshop session for your group.
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Program & Project Management Tools, Techniques and Methodologies
5 Key Aspects of Effective Requirements Elicitation Process
Requirements elicitation is an important if not the key part of any project. If we don’t understand what is needed and what it is that we need to achieve then planning to get there becomes a moot point. But many organizations and project teams do not give this key functionality its due importance and ensure that due diligence is conducted to ensure comprehensive understanding of needs. Watch on to learn more...
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#RequirementElicitation #ProjectManagement #BusinessAnalysis
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Program/Project Stakeholder Management Plan- Why is it important? What it should contain?
Having a detailed Program/Project Stakeholder Management plan shows preparedness of the program/project team to appropriately engage various levels of stakeholder interests. It helps to address leadership angst, particularly towards highly visible or complex programs/projects. Program/Project Stakeholder Management Plan- Why is it important? What should it contain? Watch on to learn more...
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#ProgramManagement #ProjectManagement #StakeholderEngagement #BusinessAnalysis
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How to “strategize” your Project Delivery methodology?
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Strategic projects require a Scaled Project Framework methodology. By doing this approach we can strategically evaluate solution alternatives. This modified methodology incorporates the People-Process-Technology triangle.
Here are five key steps that ensure you are incorporating strategic evaluation in your Project delivery methodology…
Once these above steps are conducted, it will provide a greater understanding into the underlying problem that needs to be tackled- it could be a new technology selection, it could be a support update or it could be revamping of a crucial enterprise application.
You can then propose a strategic solution alternative that will address maximum gaps and pain points along with any list of Requirements that you have elicited from the client-sponsor to arrive at a solution that will achieve the desired outcome.
Ultimately technology needs to enable people and this is done through a process, so when we strategically consider the People-Process-Technology triangle within our usual Project delivery methodology, we provide a technology solution that truly empowers and enables our clients.
#PeopleProcessTechnologyTriangle #StrategicProjectManagement #SandhyaBhat
Here are five key steps that ensure you are incorporating strategic evaluation in your Project delivery methodology…
- Identify key stakeholders.
- Have a clear definition of what you want to accomplish, i.e. the desired outcome.
- Conduct workshops with relevant teams and users to ensure you understand their current work processes and their key pain-points.
- Document the current cross-functional maps which indicate all the groups involved along with call-outs for gaps, risks and pain-points.
- Provide a set of proposed process- stacks, pyramids and maps which include call outs to indicate mitigation strategies for each of the above identified call-outs for gaps, risks and pain-points.
Once these above steps are conducted, it will provide a greater understanding into the underlying problem that needs to be tackled- it could be a new technology selection, it could be a support update or it could be revamping of a crucial enterprise application.
You can then propose a strategic solution alternative that will address maximum gaps and pain points along with any list of Requirements that you have elicited from the client-sponsor to arrive at a solution that will achieve the desired outcome.
Ultimately technology needs to enable people and this is done through a process, so when we strategically consider the People-Process-Technology triangle within our usual Project delivery methodology, we provide a technology solution that truly empowers and enables our clients.
#PeopleProcessTechnologyTriangle #StrategicProjectManagement #SandhyaBhat
Are you worried that your project is failing? Here are a few steps you can take to rescue your project...
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Regardless of the project scope, managing a project to successful completion is always a challenge. But it is even more challenging when we need to get a failing project back on track.
Here are five things you can do to revive a failing or distressed project and bring it to a successful completion.
1. Accept that the project is failing
This is an important step, but not all project managers are ready and willing to accept that their projects are not as successful as they want it to be. Admitting that the project has serious problems is key to starting a rescue mission by taking immediate and necessary corrective actions.
2. Suspend the project for a while
This is an opportunity wherein the integrity of a failing project can be restored. While this might affect project completion timelines, it is always advisable to pause a failing project than waste money, time and resources by continuing without concrete remediation action-plan.
3. Assess the extent of “project damage”
Initiate a project audit to determine, how much that project has deviated from it original scope. This helps to determine how much of project integrity must be restored. A project audit must be completed by the project manager. Key project resources and relevant stakeholders must also be engaged on an as-needed basis. The goal of the audit is not to fix the project per se, but to determine the causes of why it is failing, based on important factors such as budget, schedule and quality.
4. Assess the required effort to complete the failing project
Project auditing comes with the process of assessing required effort to complete a failing project. Intuitive estimation helps in case of small and low impact projects. For larger, complex projects be sure to consider all types of tangible and intangible impact. Include cost, resource requirements-availability, release timeline, missed benefits, loss of profitability, project team reputation, client-acceptance and such other criteria in your equation.
5. Validate integrity of the failing project
There is one question that must be answered with a resounding yes, and that is: is it still worthy to continue with the project? There is always a possibility that the failing project may no longer be a priority for the organization, particularly when it has already exhausted all its allotted resources. Only when it is determined that the project is still relevant and needed, should it be restarted.
Once you have completed these steps, restart the project with firm remediation action plan, tight project plan and strong project governance to ensure previously identified issues are avoided or resolved. This will help to ensure a successful completion.
#RescueDistressedProjects #ProjectManagement #SandhyaBhat
Here are five things you can do to revive a failing or distressed project and bring it to a successful completion.
1. Accept that the project is failing
This is an important step, but not all project managers are ready and willing to accept that their projects are not as successful as they want it to be. Admitting that the project has serious problems is key to starting a rescue mission by taking immediate and necessary corrective actions.
2. Suspend the project for a while
This is an opportunity wherein the integrity of a failing project can be restored. While this might affect project completion timelines, it is always advisable to pause a failing project than waste money, time and resources by continuing without concrete remediation action-plan.
3. Assess the extent of “project damage”
Initiate a project audit to determine, how much that project has deviated from it original scope. This helps to determine how much of project integrity must be restored. A project audit must be completed by the project manager. Key project resources and relevant stakeholders must also be engaged on an as-needed basis. The goal of the audit is not to fix the project per se, but to determine the causes of why it is failing, based on important factors such as budget, schedule and quality.
4. Assess the required effort to complete the failing project
Project auditing comes with the process of assessing required effort to complete a failing project. Intuitive estimation helps in case of small and low impact projects. For larger, complex projects be sure to consider all types of tangible and intangible impact. Include cost, resource requirements-availability, release timeline, missed benefits, loss of profitability, project team reputation, client-acceptance and such other criteria in your equation.
5. Validate integrity of the failing project
There is one question that must be answered with a resounding yes, and that is: is it still worthy to continue with the project? There is always a possibility that the failing project may no longer be a priority for the organization, particularly when it has already exhausted all its allotted resources. Only when it is determined that the project is still relevant and needed, should it be restarted.
Once you have completed these steps, restart the project with firm remediation action plan, tight project plan and strong project governance to ensure previously identified issues are avoided or resolved. This will help to ensure a successful completion.
#RescueDistressedProjects #ProjectManagement #SandhyaBhat
Scaled Project Management Frameworks
What are they? Why are they important?
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In order to better understand the importance of Scaled Project Management Frameworks, let us first understand a little bit about how they came into being…
Most projects, in the service industry or manufacturing follow standard project methodology- traditional/classical Waterfall which is recommended by the Project Management Institute (PMI). Of course, this is a time tested methodology and depending on details of the industry, this classical approach has been modified in many ways. Then of course there is the Agile way of working…
Probably the most famous methodology that is known within the Agile framework is Scrum. It was made particularly popular by the web and application development groups that needed to react to and incorporate client requirements and feedback in a fast-responsive, iterative approach even while the product (or application) development was underway. But classical Scrum mainly works well for software development.
When it comes to other development efforts, it fails miserably in its effectiveness. The very essential component- “Agility” leads to scope creep, budget overshoots ultimately leading to out-of-control project metrics and dissatisfied clients!!
This led to several scaled frameworks. These came into existence to bridge the gap between classical methodologies mainly Waterfall and Agile to better, more effectively incorporate the best of both these approaches. Scaled frameworks allow for the firm sequencing of steps which ensures that key sign offs happen at crucial stages to encourage stakeholder commitment while allowing for the flexibility of Agile ways of working to incorporate changing client requirements even after a solution has been designed and a development effort is underway.
Scaled Project Frameworks (SPFs) offer a streamlined and effective way of working to service a fluid environment with constantly evolving project work demands. Kanban and Lean-Agile are two of the most used Scaled Project Frameworks (SPFs).
Lean- Scrum heavily utilizes lean principles to enhance Agile-Scrum way of working. Lean-Scrum reduces wasteful steps and processes to increase overall process (methodology) efficiency.
Lean- Kanban on the other hand utilizes efficient Lean methods along with visual signage (Kanban hallmark) and other agile principles.
And then there is the Scaled Waterfall: where we incorporate agile way of incremental working (instead of the traditional phased approach) along with Lean efficiency principles that reduce wasteful steps and ensure high activity-coherence and optimal quality of deliverables.
As we evolve into complex work environments where project mandate changes constantly because of changing user needs, government regulations or simply changing market-feedback analytics, Scaled Project Frameworks will start becoming more of a norm rather than a novel way of Project Management.
#ScaledProjectManagementFramework #LeanKanban #LeanAgile
