Recovery Plan in Project Management: Michele Badie Expert Interview
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Michele Badie, CSM, PMP is one of the project manager influencers that we love to follow on LinkedIn. An expert program and project manager who specializes in recovering spiraling projects, we wanted to get her actionable tips on recovery plans in project management.
You can check out the 18-minute interview where Michele provides inspiration around trusting your expertise as a PM, along with specific tips about how to best deal with stakeholders and more in the video below. We also provided a summary of her interview below the full interview.
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Recovery Plan Interview with Michele Badie
Visor CEO and founder, Michael “Yaro” Yaroshefsky, interviews expert voices in project management for our podcast, “On The Roadmap.”
This week, Mike chatted with Michele Badie, an expert a recovering spiraling projects. Check out the full interview below and subscribe to our channel on YouTube to get alerts about future episodes.
Actionable Tips for Kicking Off a Successful Project
What do people not realize about project management?
Before going into the specifics of a recovery plan in project management, Michele provides an overview of what project management entails. She also unpacks some of the table stake information that a PM must obtain in order to set themselves up for success.
“Project management is the undercurrent force of organization that brings an idea from ideation to full fruition.” – Michele Badie
Successful Project Managers Do Their Due Diligence
While Michele is an expert at recovering spiraling projects, she implores project managers to document and have clarity before starting working on a project.
How project managers can set projects up for success:
- Understand the scope
- Identify what stakeholders want
- Understand the purpose of the project
- Bring the right people to the table and involving the right people
- Make sure it’s clear who is impacted by this project
Keep the End User in Mind:
Michele also emphasizes how critical it is for program and project managers to understand how the end-user utilizes the product or service. Furthermore, PMs must identify what impact this project will have on that end user.
“One key point that is sometimes overlooked is when you’re planning out a project is to keep the end user in mind. Who is this for? What do they need?” – Michele Badie
Ask the right questions at discovery to avoid going back to the drawing table if the project’s deliverable does not get embraced by the end user. Ultimately, the point of the project is so that end user embraces it and finds value in the end result.
How to Avoid Projects from Going Off Course
Before Michele provides tips in how to intervene once a project spirals out of control, she offers sage words of wisdom about how to avoid a project from doing so.
What is the most common and avoidable things that cause a project from going off course?
Michele emphasizes that clear and specific communication is at the heart of ensuring that projects stay on track. While many people feel that they might be effective communicators, “sometimes people unintentionally assume they have the answers based on their own experiences,” Michele reminds us. Avoiding assumption and really unpacking expectations with stakeholders and potential solutions with the teams involved is critical.
“A lack of communication is usually the baseline for the introduction of scope creep.” – Michele Badie
Michele suggests that PMs provide an analysis of the project that is aligned with expectations for the project by:
- Asking the right questions
- Avoid reluctance around asking questions
- Do not operate from a place of assumption
- Be clear on what’s happened on the past and archive and information
- Review all relevant documents and go back to involved people for clarity, if need be
Communicating with Empathy is Key
While Michele provides actionable tips for ensuring that project managers are aligning their project with the intended outcome and expectations of stakeholders, she also emphasizes the importance of empathy.
If a previous communication breakdown has transpired, resulting in a disconnect or disruption in the project, recognize that “life is lifing” (as Michele reminds us). Sometimes people get busy or other factors were at play. Avoid making pepole feel like they’re being scolded or that they don’t know what they’re doing. Practice good faith with your colleagues and acknowledge that a hinderance might have been at play that you don’t know about it.
“It is our responsibility to make sure it’s a psychologically safe place to share at all times. And to be able to usher in the information that we need so that the decisions we propose to stakeholders are concise and accurate.” – Michele Badie
Recover Plan Tips: How to Get Projects Back on Track
Recover Plan Tip #1: Review the Scope
Recover Plan Tip #2: Listen to the Opinions of All Stakeholders
Recover Plan Tip #3: Remember Your Power and Expertise
Lastly, Michele offers encouraging advice for project managers who are dealing with a project that went off the rails. “Remember you are in this role for a reason,” she implores. Whether you got a certification or have years of experience, lean into the fact that you are an expert.
“Trust yourself. Trust that you will uncover and discover what needs to happen.” – Michele Badie
Because you are in an ever-changing (and not evergreen) environment, adjust how you and your team oversee projects. Perhaps you need more agile approaches, or, conversely, more Waterfall methods. Whatever the diagnosis is, trust that you have the tools, training, and know-how to not only steer the project back on track, but also make future-looking changes to how your team approaches projects in the future.
Recover Plan Tip #4: Do not be afraid to ask questions
See the communication tips in the section above. Michele again hits home the importance of asking questions, avoiding assumptions, and documentation.
Conclusion: Soft Skills and Hard Skills Are Needed in a Project’s Recovery Plan
Interviewer (and CEO of Visor), Mike Yaroshefsky, hits home that executives are the people who bring in late-in-the-game requests to a project after work has started. He asks Michele tips for dealing with this type of scope creep.
Michele’s answer is similar to what she hits home throughout this interview: a large part of a project manager’s job is to built trust among stakeholders and listen to all the voices that need to be at the table.
Project managers who work on their soft skills (e.g., communication, building impact, bringing back the conversation to the impact on the end user) will build trust with those involved.
In addition, Michele emphasizes that program and project managers ought to trust that they have the experience, certifications, and/or know-how to navigate spiraling projects. Documentation, analysis, and defining the scope are just some of the hard-won skills that project managers bring to the table. Trust that if you are a project manager, your expertise is what this project needs to get back on track.
