Stuff happens

When you are managing change, stuff happens. The important thing is not to become too reactive, we must manage the issues and not let them manage us. In order to manage issues, consider this definition:

 A project issue is an identified problem or concern that needs to be addressed either immediately or in the course of the project, in order to successfully deliver the business objectives.

If it does not prevent successful delivery of your objectives, it may not be your issue! Also, you do not have to deal with every issue immediately. Always identify priorities and the "last responsible moment" by which an issue must be addressed. For issue management to be effective the following principles should be adopted on your project:

• All project team members and stakeholders must be able to raise issues, there should be no constraints in this process. Sometimes, people are hesitant because they are not sure if an issue is important. To deal with this consider introducing the concept of raising an "early warning" of potential issues, and put a management process around these.
• Rapid and appropriate action is usually critical to the successful management of issues.
• All issues should be assigned an owner, who is held accountable for resolution.
• Issues must be escalated quickly, if they cannot be adequately resolved at the project level. If in doubt engage your programme / senior manager asap.
• The issue management process must be formally defined in commercial agreements for products and services required by the project.
• Issues often result in scope change. It is important that when this occurs the change process is followed rigourously, otherwise poorly considered scope may be instructed.
• Issues are frequently first identified as risks that subsequently materialise. In this context they can be considered as failures of the risk management process.
• Never allow an issue to divert the team away from work that still can be progressed to quality. Compartmentalise the issue, assess the risk and impact, then focus a sub-set of the team on its resolution. Keep others focussed on delivery.

Keep an eye on these KPIs, to help ensure these processes are working. They are also useful measures to provide to your project board:

• Number of issues without owners
• Number of issues open for multiple reporting periods
• Percentage of issues due to failings in risk management
• Average time to close issues
• Average cost to close issues