This course will be a guide to leading your team’s pending project in assuming it has failed in a spectacular fashion – not just asking what could fail. This assertion of what has happened instead of what could happen will help the team visualize the hypothetical disaster more clearly to avoid it in reality. No, this is not another walk down the heavily-trafficked project preview road asking, “What could go wrong with our project?” It will be much more direct than that. Also, it’s not an exercise in risk analysis that assumes we’re going ahead ‘as is’ and asking “what is the risk if we do?”  We will talk about spotting potential problems in work process issues that can arise early in a project before people become too vested in it and start staking out their ‘turf’. Then we will show you how to structure a controlled (not chaotic) brainstorming session with key project team members before project kick-off and give you several specific questions to ask that will stimulate thought in this pre-project activity identifying what led to the death of the project. Once the team has identified the reasons for the project’s hypothetical death, the PM can work to avoid the potential problems or develop contingency plans just in case the worst case becomes reality.

Learning Objectives

At the successful conclusion of this course, you’ll be able to identify and discuss: 1. Describe specific steps that can increase their ability to identify future outcomes 2. Identify the dangers associated with assumed agreement between project members 3. Identify the clues that will indicate ‘Groupthink’ is occurring to the possible detriment of the project 4. Identify dangers inherent with project champions becoming ‘True Believers’ 5. Identify the advantages associated with having project Exit Champions 6. Collect data from brainstorming activities and prioritize it in a fast and effective manner