How to fix a Ferrari engine on the run

Sometimes people ask me what we do at Simulen. And I say, well, what we do is pretty straightforward: we fix engines.

Of Ferraris.

While they are running in the final lap of the world championship.

At 200 mph.

And in essence, this is exactly what we do. We fix high stakes projects that are facing distress. And of course, we have no idea what is wrong with the project beforehand and we don't have the luxury of freezing the project in order to diagnose it. And it needs to be fixed yesterday.

So, when is a project in distress? There is a very wide range of definitions in the relevant literature but, in our view, a project is in distress when one (or usually several) of the following conditions exist:

The project has material deviations (usually of 20% or more) in schedule and / or budget execution or material deviations in scope / velocity when employing agile methods.
The project has missed, or is in the process of missing, one or more key milestones.
Although there has been one or more re-definitions of the schedule baseline, the project is still drifting.
The project sponsor, or other key business stakeholders, are markedly dissatisfied with the progress of the project.
The team morale and the team expectations from the project outcome are unusually low.

Let's suppose that you are the sponsor of a project or program that meets these criteria. In this case, and especially if the project is mission-critical, it constitutes a concern that most probably keeps you up at night.

What should you do?

Align with the key stakeholders: The first essential step is to ensure that all key stakeholders understand that the project is in distress and are willing to take bold actions to recover it. In some cases, it might surface that the project no longer serves its initial purpose and, given its state, the business might decide to terminate it.
Bring in some help: Against common wisdom, even senior and capable people within the organization cannot effectively recover a distressed project. The main reason is that a project in distress carries a heavy emotional baggage that can lead to unnecessary and harmful blame games. Furthermore, to bring the project back to normalcy, a number of decisions might need to be taken that could have significant political implications within the organization.

For both reasons, an external recovery team is always preferable since it can bring in a neutral view, experience from other recovery efforts and the analytical rigor required for an evidence-based analysis.

Once you start, act quickly: Once the diagnosis and recovery effort is underway, projects tend to come to a halt, with everyone involved waiting for the inevitable restructuring. Therefore, once the project is marked as "under recovery" the diagnosis and the recovery roadmap should be completed as soon as reasonably possible. In our experience, this time should not exceed two weeks.
Empower the recovery team: The recovery effort should have the most senior sponsorship possible, typically the manager of the project sponsor of the project in distress. This is necessary in order to facilitate difficult decision making and to ensure that the recovery effort gains the visibility and priority required.
Balance "emergency mode" and "planned delivery": In time critical projects, especially distressed ones, time is of the essence. Therefore, even a 2 week cease of the planned project activities might be fatal. In that sense, the recovery team, along with the tactical project management team, need to ensure that all planned project activities are performed while the situation is being accessed.
Help the team score: Among the numerous signs that a project is failing, the most prominent is team morale. When you get into a team room of a distressed project, you typically see a distressed team: overworked, disappointed, losing 3-0 at half time although they have given it all. The recovery team needs to do one thing right: give the project members a win, something to celebrate.

Pick one important and troublesome item, be it a piece of requirements, a difficult test, a hard decision, and focus all the effort to get it done right within the two weeks of the diagnostic. This is the only way to build trust and a winning momentum; you will need them both going forward.

Take a holistic view of the project status: When you try to diagnose the root causes of the project distress, you need to take a holistic view. In Simulen, we try to understand the project under three different views: the Project Management and Governance View, the Project Content View and the Organizational Environment View. The first gives us an overview of what we can improve in terms of management, efficiency and effectiveness.

The second shows any deficiencies in the actual delivery capabilities while the third unveils improvement opportunities in the overall organizational universe within which the project operates.

Sometimes it is perfectly ok to quit: In many cultures, we are brought up with the motto "real men don't quit". Well, sometimes, it is ok to be a not-so-real man and quit. The number one question that the recovery team needs to answer, usually within the first week of the engagement, is "should we move on with the project or not?". Sometimes, more often than one would imagine, the unemotional answer is a plain no.

No, the business environment has changed, nobody really wants this project anymore and we just try to move on with it out of pure caprice and the notorious sunk cost bias. So, yes, you might want to quit now.

If you have a project or program that keeps you up at night, talk to Simulen. We might be able to help.