Into the frying pan - My first 'major' project - part 2

In part 1 I talked about how I got involved in the rather interesting world of Project Management. In part 2 (and those that follow) I'm going to talk about some of the highs and lows along the way, my learning points, etc. So, onward!

The first thing we did was assemble a project team. This was quite a strange affair as, looking back, I think I had very little to do with the make up of it; rather, it landed in my lap. The first thing that happened was the board appointed one of their group to be the project executive (sponsor). As it happened he was from one of the other council's in the partnership. We met one afternoon and had a really good chat about ourselves and backgrounds, what we were expected to do, the kind of deliverables we wanted from it, etc. We seemed to see eye-to-eye on things and were keen that it needed to be a managed as short sharp project.

Then came the rest of the team. As one would expect we involved a Help Desk operator from each council - except the one I was from. Having started at this council in the role and continuing to oversee it, it was considered I had the required knowledge. We did include a member of technical support from one of the other councils to represent that viewpoint but that is where the team stopped growing. Although we had opportunities to invite a representative from a separate partnership technical sub-group; in hindsight it would have been better if they were included as part of the project team itself. So, we've got 2 project team members from each council except the one I work for who had, well - me.

Our first project meeting felt quite exciting and there was a very positive vibe. None of us knew one another and there was a lot of work to do to become a team, but still, we were all curious about how this partnership would work and here we were, starting to actually work together. Once we got the introductions out of the way and some understanding of one another's viewpoints we delved straight into figuring out just what we were expected to deliver.

We figured that a good place to start would be defining our ideal help desk operation and an appraisal of the existing call logging tools in use at each council (Heat, Sunrise, and Touchpaper). This is where I found questionnaires quite helpful to both elicit the information and to compile and compare the results afterwards.

And with that I leave you this cartoon that I believe is rather appropriate to the position we found ourselves in... and something you want to avoid at all costs (Found on http://www.grin.com/en/fulltext/ine/23156.html ) !