How do you rescue a project that is in trouble?

A number of regularly referred to studies (Bull Survey, KPMG Canada Survey, Chaos Report and OASIG Study) demonstrate that projects (IT, in particular) regularly get into trouble.  Similar statistics are not readily available for civil projects, but our experience shows that they too have a high rate of winding up in troubled waters.

Prevalence of failure is not our focus or thesis.  Our objective is all about how to rescue a project that is suffering, and failure and poor reputation are threatening.  At the same time, we prefer to exert equal energy at converting some of the difficulties into opportunities.

Our course provides the participants some of the tools needed to identify projects that are in trouble and developing strategies on how to get them out of trouble and converting the troubles into opportunities.  Beyond skills and knowledge, our course provides a 'way of think' about handling difficult projects.

Finally, we explore strategies of capitalizing on the Lessons Learned from troubled projects by converting them into organizational process assets.

Our approach to training

We spend one session on theory and the remaining parts of the three days on practice.  We practice on current and relevant, real-life scenarios.  Our carefully crafted scenarios elicit important project management principles and bring out important lessons learned from recent projects that have encountered difficulties.  We work through each scenario individually and as a group listening to all creative solutions.

Our preference is to construct the scenarios from your workplace projects.  Naturally, for training purposes, we can add some scenarios from other project environments, and if necessary, all our scenarios can be sourced from elsewhere.

Our courses can be customized to support any of the major project management methodologies or your organization's methodology.

Our courses are unique in approaching project rescue through interactive and dynamic group discussions, debates, negotiations and exercises, story telling techniques, and management and project management quizzes.  All these activities have been designed to elicit project management skills.

Key benefits

• Discerning the important factors in dealing with a critical situation.
• Confidence in handling difficult project situations and working through ways forward.
• Developing a 'way of thinking' in converting adversities into opportunities.
• Understanding the importance of being in control of a project throughout the duration of the project.
• Opportunities for listening to other experienced project managers' accounts of how they would handle the same difficult situation.
• Integrating Lessons Learned into organizational process assets.
• Extensive reference notes.
• Recommended Reading List.
• Practical Workbook.
• Real-life scenarios.

Typical content

The list below is only an example. We customize our project rescue courses with scenarios from your workplace to meet the needs of your organization.

• Theory:  Anatomy of a Project Rescue

Scenario examples

• The project has an impossible deadline to meet.
• Six months into the project, we realised the scope was far too big for us to handle effectively.
• The project is costing much more than was approved.
• The community is outraged with the project even though we have all the necessary approvals.
• A risk analysis has shown that a high risk may delay the project and cause budget over-runs.
• There has been another accident on the site.
• The project requires a technical knowledge not available in the project team.
• Variations are exceeding 30% of the contract price.
• The main contractor/consultant (or Principal) is adopting an adversarial position.
• The main contractor (or Principal) is in the hands of an Adminstrator.
• The project requires more resources than are available for assignment to the project.
• A reliable consultant cannot be found.
• The consultant has not completed the works to our specifications.
• A regulator will not give us approval in time to commence the next phase of the project.
• The consultant has not met the requirements of the contract, but feels the work is complete.
• The contractor has advised of delays of up to 6 months in procuring some plant required to complete the project.
• A major defect was discovered in the contractor's work during a site meeting one week after it occurred.
• A long-term, complex project started well, but it fell apart nearing the end.

Who should attend

Our project rescue course can be customized to any industry. The typical personnel from organizations that attend our courses include:

• Project Managers
• Contract Managers
• Project Directors
• Senior Management
• Engineers (civil and IT)

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