When (Y)our Project "Goes Wrong"

It was all going swimmingly well and then suddenly out of the blue you've found yourself behind time, over budget with no clear end in site. To get back on track, you need to take these 8 steps...

Stocktake: The first thing you need to do is to work out how far off-track you are. Exactly how many days are you behind schedule and what is that, as a % of the project timeline? Also, how much over budget are you and what is that as a % of the overall budget? Re-plan: Then review your Project Plan to see if you can make the time back, by changing your task allocations. First, see if you can reassign people to tasks in a smarter way that saves time. Then check out your task dependencies and see if there is a more logical sequence that completes the overall deadline earlier. Make sure you identify the critical path through the plan so that you know which tasks must be completed and which are a nice to have. Then assign your best people to the critical tasks and try and get those done earlier. Any time you can save through re-planning is precious.

Brain Storm: Sit down with your team and go through your revised plan and see if they can come up with new ideas for delivering the project earlier or save on budget. You might be surprised with what they come up with.

De-scope: The easiest way to get back on track by far is to de-scope your project. This means delivering less than you originally intended. List your project deliverables, prioritize them against the project objectives and see if there are any deliverables that you can ask your Project Sponsor to remove from the scope of the project, to help you get back on track. It doesn't mean that these deliverables will never be produced. It's just that they can be done as a separate activity once the project is complete.

Get Support: If your Sponsor won't change the project scope, then ask them for a deadline extension or for more budget so you can assign more resources to finish it on time. Get their buy-in and support by telling them why you're late. Be honest and upfront. Show them that you're willing to do whatever it takes to deliver on time, but you need their support to do it. With their support, anything is possible.

Control Change: You then need to tightly control change so that new features or deliverables aren't added without your approval. Change is common on most projects, so you need to control it to have the best chance of success.

Rally: Then meet with your team and explain why the project is late and how important it is to the business. Get their buy-in to working harder and longer hours to deliver the project on time. Remember that you need everyones understanding, buy-in and hard to work to deliver your project on schedule and under budget.

Communicate: Keep everyone regularly informed of progress . This will keep them focused and motivated to achieve the targets set.