Calendar of Events

Starting a new project is a little like starting a new relationship. It’s fresh and exciting, new perspectives are invigorating, and expectations feel reasonable and attainable. While choices get made and decisions are articulated quickly enough, everyone feels more-or-less on the same page and there is a general consensus of purpose, need and imperative.

Fast forward to the end of the project, and experiences can be very, very different. Expectations have almost always evolved significantly, and have often ratcheted up to unrealistic and unattainable levels. Challenges and risk have been experienced, compromises have been made, targets have been missed and costs have been incurred that no one saw coming. Resources change, commitments evolve and contracts may be extended, revised and augmented.

All of that is true, arguably necessary and entirely normal. No project fully delivers on its plan exactly as intended. This is normal reality.

No matter how much of a relief getting to the end of the project might be after all of this, one final challenge awaits you. You are going to need to explain yourself. More importantly, you are going to need to explain the project and how it got to here.

At best, that’s a normal close-out. At worst, it looks like an audit. But eventually, there is going to be a reckoning of how what was expected at the outset transformed into what got delivered at the end. For all you sponsors might have been with you along the way and supportive of
your choices, you’re now going to have to explain them to an audience that wasn’t along for the ride and is bringing the cold, indifferent lens of objective fact to whatever happened. When that happens, you’re going to need to be prepared.

If you are facing the closure of the project—in the near term or off in the future—and you are concerned about how to close out the project in a way that is reasonable, clear and defensible, then this is a webinar that you won’t want to miss.

Presenters: Mark Mullaly