How to take over an in-flight, off the rails project

One of our readers recently shared a project-related scenario they’ve found themselves in, asking if we could post an article on how to navigate to a successful outcome.

The scenario: a very detail-oriented subject matter expert (not yet a fully-fledged PM) has been assigned a flagging project, dealing with rapidly approaching fixed deadlines, a dysfunctional team, inconsistent tools and a leadership team that has been firm with their direction: “you must find a way.“

The key question asked was: What are the most impactful things a PM can do (quickly) when assigned an in-flight project, that is off-the-rails?

To be clear, this is just another day in the life of Customer Centricity. In fact, this is the primary reason we are engaged: a senior executive is fed-up with a flagging project and simply wants it completed, so they call us for help.

So, how does one handle such a scenario?

Let’s go!

First and foremost, we must do no harm. That is, we cannot and should not immediately begin making changes on the project, before we’ve surveyed the landscape. For example, there are likely many things going right that we don’t want to disrupt. Instead, we want to identify areas needing attention and subsequently make the necessary adjustments that result from taking the steps outlined below.

With the above understanding it is now appropriate to follow the same path one would take if we were kicking off a project from scratch. Doing so helps to get our arms and head around our new, in-flight project. This path is clearly outlined in our article: Project initiation done right! And, in addition to the questions posed and information gathered in the aforementioned article, we simply need to ask 2 other important questions:

• What is going well, on the project?
• What areas need improvement or attention to enable success?

From here, we’ll want to do a detail review of the plan (or define it, if it doesn’t exist). Even if it does exist, it can be VERY helpful to follow the steps outlined in our article: Defining the Detail-level Plan, to confirm that our plan is accurate and comprehensive, including ALL moving parts associated with the project.

Once an initial pass at our plan is complete, it is time to begin verifying existing or projecting new go-live dates, which will become increasingly accurate with each iteration of the plan. Steps to accomplish this are outlined in our articles: Projecting Go-live Dates and the 3 Stages of Project Planning.

In parallel with fleshing out our detail-level plan, an iterative process which could take multiple weeks (depending on stakeholder and team-member availability), it is crucially important to ensure everyone is clear on their role, as outlined in our article: Program Management – Key Roles. As roles are clarified and adopted, and the detail-level plan comes together the PM is poised to focus on highly effective execution, with all team members pulling in the same direction.

With regards to tools, the intent is to get to a single tool for each use (or project artifact). Doing so ensures a single source of truth (for each artifact), dramatically improving efficiencies as well as providing consistent cross-functional awareness of project details and status.

Following is a list of key project artifacts and examples of tools (with the preferred tool listed first):

• Project Charter – MS Powerpoint or MS Word
• Project Plan – Smartsheet or MS Project
• RAID Log (Risks, Actions, Issues and Decisions) and other necessary tracking sheets – Smartsheet or MS Excel
• Project Dashboard – Smartsheet or MS Powerpoint
• Shared document store – MS Sharepoint

Note: After using MS Project for decades, our team has migrated to Smartsheet. In a nutshell, we consider Smartsheet as MS Project fully shareable and MS Excel on steroids. By leveraging Smartsheet we are able to easily build-out a complete set of inter-related project artifacts that roll-up into a single dashboard providing essential information at the finger-tips of all stakeholders, to effectively track and monitor project health and status.

A final comment regarding tools is that we must realize Tools Don’t Manage Projects, PMs Do, as outlined in our article on the topic.

Lastly, when a project sponsor, or leadership team indicates “you must find a way”, the first question to ask is: what resources and options are at my disposal? When doing so, we must consider the fact that there are 3 parameters that can be adjusted on a project:

• Time / schedule: In the above scenario, it would “seem” the timeframe is locked in, so the “initial” guidance here is that this parameter is NOT flexible.
• Cost / budget: Here we consider whether additional resources (personnel and/or tools) would aid in successfully achieving the project objectives and timeframe.
• Quality / scope: Here we can identify aspects of the project that we will NOT deliver on because they may be lesser in priority and/or impact relative to the overall objectives of the project.

An outcome from the above dialog is our determining if we are being asked to take over a project that could be classified as one of the following:

• A death march, in which the entire team knows (but may or may not be willing to share in a group setting) that the project is destined to fail, due to an unreasonable timeframe to meet objectives, or;
• Failure is not an option, in which the entire company’s existence (and/or stock price) is riding on the successful completion of the project, resulting in senior management pulling out ALL the stops and making available EVERY “reasonable” resource to support and ensure project success.

If/when we find ourselves in the former situation, we need to clearly indicate the reality of the situation. And, if senior leadership isn’t willing to provide necessary resources and/or commitment to the project, while expecting the defined objectives to be successfully achieved in an unreasonable timeframe, it may be time to find something else to do.

If/when we find ourselves in the latter situation, realize we have a committed leadership team and an opportunity to truly shine by getting the team aligned, executing with focus, resulting in a successful outcome that will represent a key achievement in our career!

In closing, there are many considerations relative to the scenario shared above. It is our hope that by following the guidance outlined in this article, as well as MANY others on our blog site High Performance Project Management, one can effectively navigate projects to successful completion.

And, if all else fails: who are you going to call? Customer Centricity, of course!