Are you proactive… reactive…or active on your SAP Project
Invariably on any project we often hear from senior management to “Be Proactive”. Identify or foresee issues, problems and needs of the projects and incorporate this during planning, design, build, and test and deployment phases of the project life cycles. This will help reduce projects risks and keep the project on schedule. This is desirable on any project… but this rarely happens on any project.
If you live in a proactive world, you spend most of your time thinking what could happened wrong in the future and how to overcome future potential issues and you will lose track of current tasks.
You need to be active to get day to day project tasks going on smoothly. Be active and mindful of tasks going on in the project will result in higher productivity – keeping the project on schedule and on budget with high quality deliverables.
As for being reactive, you have to be to certain extent. Any project runs into snags at various phases of the project. How you and your team react to overcome or mitigate this risk by being reactive will keep the project on track and the stake holders happy.
Proactive - anticipation of future problems and needs
Reactive - a response to a stimulus
Active - engage in an action or activity
All projects should have team members with varying degrees of these traits – Proactive (think future), Active (think present) and Reactive (think past). What percentage of each trait varies based on the project and your role on the project. Team members, Project Managers and Senior Management often emphasizes on being proactive and reactive, but never on the key element “active”.
You need to be active and present for this moment, looking around for micro and macro details of the project keeping a pulse on health of the project and escalate any abnormalities or risks.
My observation based on around 20+ projects – 15% Proactive, 75% Active and 10% Reactive.
Please share your experience with our SAP SCN community.
What are your thoughts???
