From the course: Project Management Foundations: Risk

Uncertainty of requirements and technology

From the course: Project Management Foundations: Risk

Uncertainty of requirements and technology

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- Author and speaker Simon Sinek said, "We crave explanations for most everything, but innovation and progress happen when we allow ourselves to embrace uncertainty." Delivering a project definitely involves embracing uncertainty. Project uncertainty is common in requirements because they're often unclear or can be interpreted in different ways. There are a few things you could do to address these areas of uncertainty. First leverage agile approaches. Agile project techniques are ideal when requirements are conceptual and ideas are being explored. Since agile delivers small features quickly, stakeholders refine requirements after using those small pieces of functionality. Agile is quick, flexible and allows for uncertainty especially with technical tools, giving users a chance to play with them sooner in the project life cycle. The agile process lets you go forward with a minimal risk profile, even when you don't have detailed business requirements. You create those requirements through trying and testing ideas. Next, deal with uncertain areas early. Let's say you're using new technology or you're dealing with a stakeholder group that doesn't provide detailed requirements. Address those areas early in your project cycle. It may be tempting to get early wins in areas you're more confident in, but waiting to address areas of uncertainty is risky. As you progress with your project, you might realize that technology use is inappropriate or that agreements on requirements never happen. If you address these issues later on, you risk spending time and money on a project whose base concepts won't work. After looking at uncertain areas early, plan for change events in advance. I worked on a project where we wanted to leverage new manufacturing equipment, but the vendor had plans to increase the capacity of the client's equipment. But no one knew when the higher capacity equipment would be available. We started the project with plans to use the lower capacity equipment. But before committing to that, we placed a review activity in our project schedule to check on the higher capacity machines availability. If it became available, we'd change our plans and use the enhanced equipment. We planned to use their new equipment and take advantage of an opportunity, a positive risk that could be leveraged by being flexible and dealing with some uncertainty. And finally, from the easier said than done category, don't rush. Spend time refining requirements with your stakeholders. This isn't easy. I've never been told to deliver a project, but to take my time doing so. But that might be just what's needed for successful project delivery in some cases. Taking extra time to compile detailed questions about the project requirements, and getting answers to those questions, can reduce uncertainty and risk. Follow these tips and you're likely to do what Simon Sinek suggested, making innovation and progress happen even in the presence of uncertainty.

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