I once reported into a head of project management who believed projects should not have any risks and issues attached to them.

I am not sure where that school of thought came from, if it was just a lack of experience or just pure naivety but what I do know is it was a complete fallacy.

Every project has risks and issues and these can morph into bottlenecks which can cause delays and impasses in project progression and delivery. But the question is how we recognise what a bottleneck is, can we prevent them and once live how can we resolve them. 

See some important points below.

• Having the correct project delivery structure in place is key.

• Where possible project managers should deal with bottlenecks as a level one project support.

• Project managers cannot resolve all issues and bottlenecks on their own and will need on occasion an appropriate and effective decision making and escalation policy available to them.

• This should be decided at the beginning of the project, signed off by key stakeholders and included in the project charter.

• If project managers don’t have the authority or if they find they can’t solve the bottleneck on their own then they should engage with level two support which is the project sponsor.

• Having a capable, engaged and supportive project sponsor is essential.

• Project sponsors need to know what their role is in the project team and they cannot stand by doing nothing.

• Project manager & project sponsor relationships & communication channels should be open & effective for adequate bottleneck resolution. 

• If level one & level two escalations don’t work then there needs to be another level which can be a c-suite/ senior management level to provide resolution & guidance.

• In the unlikely event that these levels prove fruitless then depending on the bottleneck it may be a case that a legal team get involved.

• Risk registers & risk matrixes are effective ways of monitoring risks and the probability and impact of those risks escalating into issues.

• Issues can become bottlenecks so project managers need to monitor these carefully and take the appropriate and desired action where necessary.

• Remember risks have a cause, event, impact, control management system and this means that an event is caused by something happening and the event has an impact that needs to be mitigated and controlled.

• For example the cause could be inclement weather, the event could be a snowstorm, the impact could be employees cannot get into their work office as transport systems are down. The mitigation and/or control could be a remote working policy. Therefore the impact is managed effectively and can be recorded in the risk matrix as a low to medium risk.

• Therefore if a project manager can focus on risk management effectively then bottleneck management becomes easier and will mean the likelihood of impasses and delays in projects are minimal.

• A key factor in bottleneck management is the structure of project delivery in an organisation and the availability of key resources.

• Poorly run and unstructured project environments which include a resource deficit will lead to an increase in bottlenecks and these bottlenecks may be harder to resolve.

• It may sound simple but if the project manager doesn’t have adequate resources then solving bottlenecks can become a losing battle, as a key reason for project failure and delays is inadequate resource management.

• Most importantly don’t let bottlenecks build up & fester, be proactive and attack them with the required urgency and determination to close early and not delay project deliverables unnecessarily.

Thanks for reading