It can be surprisingly difficult to determine when a project is failing or has failed altogether. You might chalk this up to people being inherently optimistic. Or, it could be public exposure to the standard plot arc found in pop music, movies, fiction writing and celebrated in the evening news: just when we thought all was lost, there was a rally and the goal was accomplished. Unfortunately, for as many heroic saves there are many instances where it did not turn out for the better – and continuing the effort actually caused greater harm than good.
This post is not intended to be negative. Rather, it is intended to take a positive view of a troubled project in order to help fully understand what it would take to recover the project. Some projects should fail and should fail quickly. It should never be our goal to fail a project, of course. But, when a project is critically flawed the best avenue may be to fail the project, learn from it, and start again.
Here are a few signs that it might be time to stop, realign and start again:
1. You cannot identify what the project status is.
If you cannot accurately identify the project status you have – at the very least – a critical failure of communication. I would recommend applying the same lens to driving as you would to a project. If you were unable to tell the status of the gas pedal, brakes or steering you would assume the car has encountered a critical point of failure. Apply this same perspective to schedule, budget and scope.
Most often this problem does not represent permanent failure. A vendor may be inconsistent in reporting on budget. Gray areas of scope can persist uncomfortably deep into projects. And timelines – especially those not tied to a critical end-point – have a way of moving.
That being said, the wise course is to calmly, though immediately resolve the lack of clarity. To your vendor you might note that without project status you must assume that no work has been completed and therefore will not honor any invoice that is received without a prior status update. Escalate areas of scope that are unclear and request of your sponsors to either provide definition or remove them from your purview as you cannot be expected to realize an outcome that remains undefined. Set a timeline, report on the timeline and organize around that timeline until it has meaning and definition equal to any other project.
2. Your project team has experienced significant turnover.
Project turnover, especially on multi-phase and multi-year projects, can be expected. Planning for these changes mark effective project management. However, there is a tipping point whereby turnover fundamentally changes the project.
If more than a third of your project team has turned over in the past six months you likely need to “pause” the project and reorient the group. It is unlikely you will need to start at the beginning, but you will likely need to at least catch-up those participants that missed the beginning.
If your project sponsor or executive sponsor turns over you likely need to “pause” the project to reorient the project around the new sponsor. A sponsor’s role is typically strategic in nature. Strategy is something that can readily change when a new leader comes aboard. However, reorienting a project – complete with diverse stakeholders, individual requirements, timeline and milestones, and decisions – is less likely to pivot so quickly. A Project Manager is a Captain of a Ship and steering said ship requires the interplay of navigation, engineering, officers, and many other compartments within.
Turnover does not mean the project has failed. It simply means the project environment is different. The differences should be reconciled with a new plan. Expecting the previous plan, set within a different environment.
3. Your objectives have changed significantly.
Successful projects can encounter an unexpected burden through success. I can think of a fundraising system replacement project that evolved to an organization-wide CRM project. At the start, the technology was largely focused on raising new revenue, but through the project the potential to fundamentally transform the organization’s communication practices both internally and externally. It was as though the project team had set their sights on crossing a vast lake and found themselves on a course to intercept the moon.
This was compelling stuff, though it was important to remember that the prior project was over. The project team would never see the shore they originally set as their goal.
The project needed to be stopped, reconstituted around a new set of objectives, reoriented around the revised schedule, budget and scope – and begun anew. This might be the most challenging of the examples provided here as the momentum of success is more difficult to reign-in than the stagnation of a troubled project.
4. Your schedule, budget or scope has a variance greater than 30%.
Many would argue that a variance greater than 10% is a sign that your project is on the verge of failing and that 30% represents the finality of failure. The key point here is that a variance of this size is a sign of a project that is out-of-control. This lack of control could be due to poor governance structures that are unable to check the project. This could also be due to poor reporting structures through which an unexpected variance is abruptly realized.
Summary
If your project is demonstrating one or more of the signs above, it is likely time to put the brakes on. A client of mine aptly described the importance of “not throwing bad money after bad.” Better to stop, realign and start again.