Project Health Checks

Best practice will always call for some form of project review. Many organisations used to limit these to 'Post Implementation Reviews'. (Some organisations still do). All too often these degenerated into witch hunts, despite frequent claims to the contrary.  There is nothing wrong with the concept of a post implementation review. Ideally, it should be the last of several reviews.

By undertaking reviews during the life of the project, it is possible to apply any learning towards improving the outcome of the project, rather than 'learning valuable lessons from the failure of the project'.  We call these health checks, as they are geared towards detecting problems, and taking corrective action in time to save the 'patient'.

The number of health checks and the scope of them will depend on a number of variables including the following project attributes:

• Size

• Criticality

• Nature / functions

• duration

• budget

At the very least, health checks determine if the project is complying with standards and procedures including the project methodology. They can also compare projects to 'best practice' or 'common practice' and look for common problems. 

Health checks need to be done by experienced people who are conversant with current project management techniques. Their experience will be essential in looking for common project problems, and working within standard methodologies.  We suggest using staff from your project office, project managers who are not currently assigned, or specialist consultants such as Island Consulting. 

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