subject: Identify and Track Unknowns On Your Project [print this page] Identify and Track Unknowns On Your Project
"Knowing what we don't know and tracking it is the only way to ensure that eventually we know what we don't know. Understand?"There are things that we don't know, there are things that we know we don't know and then there are things that we don't know we don't know. Got it. Well the latter situation - things we don't know we don't know - will, during the project, eventually bump us in the 'butt' and as the project manager we will need to handle those things and get them taken care of when we finally realize we don't know them. After all, that's one of the things that the project manager is there for - to ensure that challenges that come up during the project are met.The first situation, however, - those things that we know we don't know - need to be identified and tracked. I have found that in most cases these things come up while we are working with the Client to identify their requirements. As we work with the client in producing the requirement we are told that they don't know the answers to some of our questions. These are things that we need to know to truly understand what the Client wants.I believe that in most cases the information is either really known by someone in the client's organization or it would not take much work to get the answer. So what should you do? Well, you should push as hard as you can to really get all the information you need. Having said that, you need to understand that some things really are not known at the beginning of the project. In these cases, you need to make sure that you establish a data base to manage these unknowns.The data base should include at least the following for each unknown: title of the unknown, unknown description, the project event by when it will be known, who is responsible for providing the information, the risk associated with the unknown, the mitigation action to be taken and any comments associated with the unknown.Each Unknown should be reflected in your project plan along with who is responsible and when they will have the information. These Unknowns should then be monitored and tracked as any other activity in the project plan.If you do this and do this properly, you will soon know what you don't know. Get it?Look for other articles of mine. Come back soon.
