There are a few questions that you need to ask that are critical for success when starting on a new project, especially if your determining how to turnaround a failing project:
What is the business need?
How does the business need meet the business strategy
?
Does the project have funding?
So what do you do if the business need has not been defined and when you ask the question, you are not getting the right answers (for example, you are being offered a solution but without the business benefit)? The question is – how to turnaround a failing project?
Some of you will be happy to push and keep asking questions until you get an answer that is actually a business need. Or to call out that the project has not established a business need so significant investment or progress should not be made until this has been clearly established.
However, if you are not very comfortable asking more questions, the remainder of this post explores strategies to help.
Table of Contents
What is a Failing Project?
A failing project can be defined as a project that is not meeting its objectives, is behind schedule, or is over budget. There are many causes of project failure, but some of the most common include inadequate planning, unrealistic objectives, poor communication, and changes in scope.
When a project is failing, there are usually several warning signs that indicate that something is wrong. These warning signs can include missed deadlines, increased conflicts, and decreased morale.
Understand the Common Mistakes that Lead to Project Failure
One of the first steps to successfully turning around a failing project is to understand the common mistakes that lead to project failure. This way, you can avoid making these mistakes in the future. Some of the most common mistakes that lead to project failure include:
- Failing to Define the Project Goals Clearly: Without clear project goals, it’s difficult to know what you’re working towards. As a result, your team may become frustrated and demotivated, and the project is more likely to fail.
- Not Assigning Enough Resources: If you don’t assign enough resources to a project, it’s likely to fall behind schedule and over budget. This can cause immense stress for both you and your team, and may eventually lead to the project being scrapped altogether.
- Not Monitoring Progress: It’s important to monitor progress regularly in order to identify any potential problems early on. If you don’t do this, small problems can quickly spiral out of control and lead to the project failing.
How to Rescue a Failing Project
Firstly, you need to know what sort of organisation you are dealing with.
Is it sufficiently mature that it has a change framework that defines the process and the steps that every project must follow?
In most large organisations that manage a lot of change, the need for some sort of consistent change process will have been identified and it will have been developed over a period of years. Of course that doesn’t mean it is perfect!
Secondly, you will need to know something about the culture of your organisation.
For example is it collaborative where everyone is expected to contribute or is it hierarchical where there is natural deference to seniority?
One of my colleagues mentioned to me the difficulty with dealing with stakeholders who come from a military background. The implication was that ex-military people are used to a very strict hierarchy where asking questions is considered to be insubordination. Obviously, this is a very generalised statement but it does make the point that culture is important when deciding how to approach this.
This can impact your confidence when asking questions and whether that seems to be lacking respect.
Aside from this, here are some other questions you need to answer to help decide how to approach this:
- Are there disincentives if a project doesn’t deliver the benefits?
For example, the change framework may have ‘gateways’ that require the project to prove it will deliver benefits. - Does the organisation require a business case before an investment is made?
Again, this may be part of the change framework. - What happens on other projects?
- Does the culture encourage/rewards sponsors to decide on solutions and push through to delivery?
Use Official Organisational Processes To Authorise You To Ask Questions
If the answer to questions 1 and 2 is yes (or looking at other projects suggests that the answer is yes), the organisation has authorised you to ask questions about the business need (in fact, you would be a poor corporate citizen if you didn’t ask them). The business case and benefits are different ways of describing the business need or, at the very least, need to have a business need before they can be documented.
Find Allies
If you are uncomfortable going too far with asking questions, you can seek allies to give you support. The obvious ones would be your project manager. If your project manager would not make a good ally and you are uncomfortable going straight to the sponsor, most sponsors will delegate their day to day involvement to one of their direct reports. Establish a good relationship with them, raise your concerns and seek their advice on how/when to best to ask your questions and maintain good relations.
Ask Open Questions
Don’t ever challenge directly – your questions should be in the spirit of gaining understanding and insight, not suggesting incompetence or stupidity.
If you are on a new and unfamiliar project, you can use your ignorance as an excuse for asking ‘stupid’ questions. Use the ‘new boy or girl’ excuse for as long as you can!
Good question: how do you see the business benefiting from the introduction of this new software package into the HR department?
Bad question: why have you chosen a software package when you don’t know what you are trying to achieve?
Remember You Are Not Doing This For Yourself But For The Good Of The Organisation!
It helps to remember you are thinking of your organisation when you ask these questions. And there’s no harm remembering that and even explaining this is why you are asking these questions.
You are ensuring:
- The business gets a good return on its investment (if the project fails to deliver any benefits that would be a terrible return on investment!);
- Managing costs by ensuring the scope is defined by the business need;
- Using limited business resources wisely (the business has limited funds and capacity to deliver change).
For me, this is where the business analyst has the opportunity to provide the most value to the business. A clearly defined business need is a project which has a strong justification and a clear destination that can be used throughout the project to guide decisions on scope and priority.
Develop a Turnaround Project Recovery Plan
As a business analyst, if you have a project that is failing, it is important to develop a project recovery plan with your sponsors to turnaround the project and get it back on track.
Work with your project manager and sponsors to ensure that the plan entails steps such as identifying the causes of the problems, communicating with all stakeholders, and creating a new schedule and budget.
Determine a suitable moment to engage senior management in the decision-making process and getting them to sign an action plan with the steering group or governance board.
You may want to consider having an independent review team headed by a respected leader to handle the current project manager’s lack of objectivity in owning the turnaround process. The head of the team should be experienced enough to identify key issues and make judgement calls on necessary trade-offs.
Select someone to manage the corporate connection and make them a lead member of the project management team. Ensure they feel responsible for the project’s success as well as for delivering on the business case’s promises.
Analyse the business case, existing capability and progress timeframe as a team. If it appears that the business case is still valid and what has been accomplished so far has value, consider taking measures to fix any issues while continuing with the project. If there are doubts about whether or not the business case makes sense and team productivity is low, think about putting the project on hold for now.
Another important step in successfully turning around a failing project is to communicate with your team. This is essential in order to keep everyone on the same page and ensure that everyone is working towards the same goal. Some things you should communicate to your team are:
- The Project Goals: It’s important that everyone knows what the project goals are so that they can work towards them.
- Your Plan: Your team should be aware of your plan for turning around the project. This will help to keep them motivated and on track.
- Keeping regular updates on Progress: Everyone should be kept up-to-date on the project’s progress so that they can see how their work is impacting the overall goal.
It’s also important to stay positive throughout the process of turning around a failing project. This can be difficult, but it’s essential in order to maintain morale and keep everyone on track. Remember that things will get better and eventually the project will be successful.
Conclusion
As a business analyst you sometimes need to be brave and keep faith with your experience and expertise. You will encounter difficult stakeholders and uncomfortable project situations.
In most cases over time difficult situations resolve themselves if you use your experience to tackle and address difficult situations. The article has provided some strategies that you can use on your projects (and work with your project manager, programme manager or project sponsor) to turnaround failing projects.