Bend your year for a bit?

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Yes, it's November. The leaves have fallen. The Halloween candy has been ingested (resulting in a sugar high and subsequent crash). The malls are now playing Christmas music.

As project managers, we're all thinking about one thing: year end.

Let's face it, many projects will be coming to an end on or before Dec. 31. Generally, there are a whole heapin', steamin' pile of maintenance things to do, which tend to get bundled into their own year-end project. There are also numerous project constraints, such as increased time off by those project resources you seem to need the most. If your business environment is highly IT driven, then there is probably a "freeze" where no new programs can be implemented (so year-end processing won't be messed up).

Do you know what YOU need to do to prepare for year end? Well, let's do what Santa does. Let's make a list and check it twice. (Believe me when I say that project managers generally wind up on naughty or nice lists due to this time of year.)

1. Do you know what needs to be done by year-end? Is it written down? If you polled many of your resources about what they need to have done by year-end, what would they all tell you? Once you have everybody's input, does it align with the organization's mission?
2. Do you have a risk management plan? OK, every project should have a risk management plan, but let people know what can go wrong for the company if an important year-end project deadline is missed. Will customers be upset? Will fines and penalties begin accruing? Will critical data be lost or compromised?
3. What are the year-end priorities? Based on your answers to the first two questions above, what are the absolutely have-to-get-done items vs. the gee-it-would-be-nice-if-this-got-done by year end?  Treat your year-end initiatives like a reality show. Who gets voted off first and who gets to survive?
4. What resources are available to help you get done by year-end? This involves both people and budget dollars. If there are things that have to be done, do you have the people to work on them?  How well can they focus on them? Do you need to contract assistance to help get this project done?
5. What happens to your non-critical projects? Do you shelve them while everyone is working on year-end stuff? Do you keep them running on a bare minimum?
6. Have you laid out specific time constraints? Are there tasks to complete no earlier than Dec. 15?  Are there people gone the last week of the year? (I know, I know... people have personal lives around the holidays... crazy talk, isn't it?)
7. Last, but not least, do you have means of holding people (including yourself) accountable for getting everything done at the right time? How are you tracking it all?

So enjoy some egg nog, hang the mistletoe, throw in the Blenders Christmas and Carpe Factum!