Stuck Project Recovery

The Plot 60 Way

Project failure can happen to anybody and to any project. Recent studies, based on more than 13,000 projects, report that successful projects made up just over 34 percent of all projects; meaning around two-thirds are failing.

If your Acturis implementation or integration project goes off track or is failing to deliver the value anticipated in the business case, our hands-on approach to project recovery enables us to rapidly assess, then implement, corrective actions to turn things around.

To help us assure delivery and ensure deadlines are met, we first look at why the current approach is not working – is there a gap in capability in the current team, a lack of understanding of real user needs, are business expectations unrealistic or have communications and relationships broken down?

To get things back on track we work together, collaboratively and hands-on through a few iterations, and conduct assessments to evaluate complexity and risk. We also use our experience and expertise to conduct a formal structured project inception to get to a revised delivery plan; one which all stakeholders can agree on.

We follow a 5 phase process to perform project recovery.

1 Defining the Charter

The project charter delegates authority to the Recovery Project Manager (RPM), who is typically an individual from outside the project. Because the RPM and his or her team are “outsiders” it is important at the outset that the project manager (PM) and his or her team are committed to working with the Assessment and Recovery Team (ART). The charter process ensures that this is accomplished before proceeding.

In this important first step you are attempting to identify and agree on a number of critical elements which will be included in the project charter. The essential tasks include:

  • Defining the mission with the sponsor
  • Understanding the project history and sensitivities
  • Establishing initial project team contact
  • Determining the assessment approach
  • Completing the charter and obtaining approval

2 Developing the Assessment Plan

Using this model, the ART will develop an assessment plan that is realistic and can be executed to achieve the charter’s objectives. The model will allow for an assessment as quickly as possible, whilst ensuring findings are accurate and minimising project team distraction.

This model centres around two areas of activity at this stage: conducting the interviews and analysing project data. To do this, the ART will identify the critical documentation that needs to be reviewed and analysed, identify the stakeholders who need to be interviewed and prepare the agenda and interview schedule.

In all of this, the ART should expect a certain level of resistance from the core project team to their activities. After all, the ART is involved because the project has experienced trouble and key stakeholders do not believe the project team can correct its own mistakes.

3 Conducting the Assessment

The ART is now ready to execute the Assessment Plan, which has three main areas of focus:

  • Determining the true current status of the project
  • Identifying the major threats, opportunities and problems for the project moving forward
  • Establishing an extended team for the recovery effort
One of the keys to successful conclusion of this step is to get off on the right foot; which means conducting a kick-off meeting with the extended assessment team. This includes all ART team members, project team members, customers, vendors (if applicable) and sponsors, as well as other key stakeholders whose support is required. The RPM needs to remind the extended team of the purpose, scope and objectives of the assessment. This can be accomplished by reviewing the charter with the group. Also, everyone must understand that the focus of the assessment is on helping the project team, not finding fault with past actions and decisions.

4 Developing the Recovery Plan

The focus of this step is on developing a recovery project plan and assembling an extended team to accomplish the work. In many ways, assembling a team and getting the job done is a project in itself. However, the ART is now faced with a situation where, because of poor performance, they might have a difficult time obtaining buy-in and support or having motivated team members on board. Recall the characteristics of a troubled project; confidence has been lost, people are out of patience. In such a situation, once the ART has re-baselined the project, the schedule cannot slip again. This makes developing an achievable plan of paramount importance. The ART needs committed and dedicated team members to make this happen.

The development of the recovery plan takes into consideration how the RPM will address people and personnel issues, the specific project management processes that will be employed moving forward, and the decisions that need to be made relative to the product/service which is the output of the project. The RPM will:

  • Focus on building everyone’s morale
  • Deal directly with personnel problems
  • Resolve serious leadership problems
  • Add people to the project carefully, if at all

When looking at processes used in the project the ART will establish a schedule based on “inchstones” (as opposed to larger “milestones”) and track schedule progress meticulously, recording the reasons for any missed inchstones.

Recalibrating the plan every two weeks the ART will never commit to a new baseline until an achievable one can be created and painstakingly manage risks.

5 Conducting Recovery

As the team monitors the execution of each inchstone, it will conduct variance analysis at the end of each and:
  • Re-plan the next rolling 3-week period
  • Examine variances by estimator
  • Define or re-define workload for next period
  • Obtain new estimates for the next period from estimator
  • Acknowledge progress (team, sponsor, customer feedback) to build moral
When the project has been restored to a useful condition and the transition to the project team has been completed, an exit review with the project team and key stakeholders will be conducted. In the exit review, the RPM is looking for the stakeholders to “sign off” on the recovery effort and acknowledge that the ART has been successful and met its objectives.