In the working environment everyone hates surprises, especially during an important project. However, all too often it is necessary to make decisions when the full picture isn’t clear and there is limited understanding of the impact the decision will have. This can happen in companies of any size, even where they have project management experience. And it is often due to project interdependencies. A dependent task can delay progress, or the project team were unaware that a dependency existed, or any number of other issues related to interdependencies.
What is project interdependency management
Most projects depend on other initiatives or projects in order to deliver those things that are necessary for their successful implementation. In addition, most also contribute some enabling capabilities to other projects. All of this enabling needs to coordinate in order to minimise schedule slippage, prevent duplication of effort and reduce solution conflict in order for there to be optimisation of overall portfolio performance. Interdependency Management uses a performance-based approach when it comes to this coordination.
Project interdependency management practice (PIM) is processes, techniques, and tools combined. It helps the project manager to identify, analyse, validate, track, report and advise on external linkages for the project. It doesn’t look at linkages that the project manager has relative control over, internal linkages, for example like the coordination of deliverables between the different teams working on a project. These external linkages are referred to as “interdependencies.”
These project interdependencies are those capabilities that are needed for a project to be delivered successfully, and this means that they can have an effect on the success of a complete portfolio. They refer to the subset of overall risks to the project, being categorised as either “dependencies” or “contributions.” Dependencies are things that are required from external sources if there is to be successful delivery. Contributions are what the project requires to deliver to sources that are external.
Why you need to consider task dependencies
When it comes to your project, it is essential that you consider every aspect in order to produce the outcomes that you need. Your project dependencies are not less important than any other aspect of the project and need just as much (if not more in some cases) consideration.
When you ignore them, you do so at the risk of your project collapsing. After all, they have the potential to push you beyond your budget, over your timeframe and cause issues with your resources. All these could result in an inability to achieve the desired outcome from your project.
Standard PIM processes can help you to ensure that project interdependencies are managed with structure and objectivity. Identifying any areas where there are issues, and then putting in place plans on how these might be dealt with can really help you. This can ensure that you are dealing with them rather than ignoring them or putting them on a back burner in the hope that they might correct themselves. Having good strategies in place will make it much easier for you to deal with your project interdependencies.
