How to save a failing project?

When I was younger, the thought of a project failing filled me with fear. It seemed like a painful and humiliating experience, something I wanted to avoid at all costs. However, as I delved deeper into the beautiful world of project management, I began to see things differently. I learned that saving a failing project wasn't just possible; it could be a gratifying challenge. This discovery was empowering, and now, I'm eager to share my experiences and insights with others.

What is a "project in trouble"?

A failing project is a thing that is easy to recognize and hard to fix. The most accessible metric for a failing project is the inability to reach the goal and satisfy stakeholders. However, when you find yourself facing a project that seems like it's on the verge of failing, don't lose hope. Remember, there's always a way to turn things around. It might feel complex and even chaotic, but don't let that discourage you. You can find an opportunity in a challenge with the right mindset.

Here are some factors to consider when dealing with a troubled project:

1. Tensions may have arisen between different parties involved in the project. This is a natural response to difficulties. But if you direct it correctly, it will become an opportunity for collaboration and problem-solving.
2. Time and budget have been used without delivering the expected results. Stakeholders' trust deteriorated with lack of outcomes. But this isn't the end of the road. It's a good starting point to learn and adapt. It is time to win trust back, and wisely use remaining resources to save as much of the project as possible.?
3. The pressure is on, and it might feel like there is no room for innovation or experimentation. However, this is precisely when creativity can shine brightest.
4. Demotivation can set in when we face setbacks, but even failures can teach us valuable lessons.

Additionally, there are cognitive biases that can cloud our judgment.?

These include:

• The sunk cost fallacy (continuing because you've already invested)
• The backfire effect (resisting new information)
• The pseudo-certainty effect (overestimating the certainty of current plans)
• The zero risk bias (avoiding risk at all costs)
• Loss aversion (focusing too much on avoiding losses rather than seeking gains)

Setting the stage

Before healing, you must create an environment for collaborating and aligning the effort. With limited resources, we can't afford the luxury of playing politics at the price of the project's success.?

Here's what you can do to create an opportunity and environment for healing:

1. Be radically candid about the project's status. Acknowledge that it's in trouble; everyone involved must understand this reality. Denying the problem won't help. Instead, focus on achievable goals in the current situation.
2. Build discussions around goals, not just efforts and outputs. This helps avoid sugarcoating problems.?
3. Rely on data rather than opinions. Encourage everyone to make decisions based on data. It may require providing some education along the way, and it is ok.
4. Be patient and give people time to process information. Rushing decisions can lead to resistance. Sometimes, making a decision the next day changes the whole picture.?

In short, the message is simple. Stop whining about the project failing. Stop trying to pretend that it is possible to keep doing what we did. The project needs to be fixed. It is not time for conservative treatment anymore. It is time for surgery. After all, heroes don't run and don't pretend that nothing happens. They face the challenge, they fight, and win. It won't be easy, but it will strengthen you and your team.?

It's essential to make sure everyone makes fair decisions and doesn't let their biases influence things. Use goals and data to facilitate this behavior. Сonnecting goals closely to the business results helps a lot. An efficient way to do this is using Evidence-based Management (EBM). EBM helps you set goals and measure progress in four crucial areas:?

• Current value: how much value you're delivering right now;?
• Unrealized value: the value you still can achieve;?
• Time to Market: how quickly you can get things out there, and so learn fast?
• Ability to innovate: reacting to changes and coming up with new and innovative ideas.

For me, the toughest part of fixing a troubled project is creating a shared goal and getting everyone aligned. But anything is possible with the right people and people with the right goals and environment. That's why being aggressive and blaming, the "good old" management style, is often efficient. The management creates "a common enemy" for the team, helping them to focus, align, and collaborate. But being transparent, candid, and focused on goals and data works even better. More importantly, it will cause less collateral damage to the team.?

I must also make one crucial note. As we said, implementing data and goal-driven approaches may require teaching. When teaching others, it's best not to just trust your knowledge and experience. Instead, use trusted sources like PMI (Project Management Institute) for guidance. Relying on these well-known organizations can make it easier for everyone to understand. It also makes it more painless for people to accept harsh reality. That gives you more time and resources to focus on improving the project's situation.

When you succeed, you'll have the extended project team (stakeholders, sponsors, and project team) focused and aligned. Collaboration is the key to success. You have just enabled them to save as much of the project as possible. The surgery table is ready now, and the team is gathered around. It's time for the patient to come.?

Let's start healing!

Now, let's talk about actually saving the project. It's not about meticulous planning; it's about making minor, continuous improvements.?

Acting fast in small steps helps us to:

1. Develop trust back through delivering outcomes, not empty promises. Small wins can rebuild confidence and lower perceived risks, allowing for innovation.
2. Build self-confidence in the team by achieving small victories. This can reduce anxiety and open the door to experimentation.

To act fast yet efficiently and effectively, follow these steps:

1. Set clear goals and prioritize them based on their importance.
2. Break these goals into small, practical scenarios for product use.
3. Use prioritization methods based on the business value of outcomes, like MoSCoW or KANO. It helps to determine what to focus on first.
4. Start with the most important and feasible scenario. Implement it and use it.
5. Reevaluate priorities and repeat the process for the next most critical scenario.

When it comes to implementing scenarios, the fundamental principle is simple yet critical: "Implement and use" means just that. Every work should be completed to a production-ready state before moving on to the next one. This approach is essential. Only fully completed work has the power to build trust. Only real use provides valuable insights. A scenario that's "99% done" is not done at all. It remains merely a promise, offering no real assistance in achieving our goals. Therefore, prioritize finishing each task thoroughly before moving forward. That's how you ensure tangible progress and success in your project endeavors.

Completing each scenario also works toward reducing the risks. Whatever happens, every day, our stakeholders and sponsors have more of a working product. If something happened, they wouldn't find themselves in the situation: "We spent all our resources and got nothing." They will be in the position: "We have the maximum possible for the resources we spend." That may look like a minor change. However, having something tangible daily changes trust and confidence dramatically. It also creates a positive environment to save the project.

When a project has problems, it usually means more than the team's experience is needed to fix it. This can be a sign that the project is complex or chaotic. In such cases, it's better to trust actual data and common sense rather than just opinions or old methods. Doing small updates or changes and seeing how they work is an excellent method to quickly learn what's happening. It enables the team to find a solution. This approach helps us test our ideas and learn from actual results.

To use the "step-by-step" approach effectively, you must eliminate any barriers within your project. Two significant obstacles you might face are:

• having teams that only focus on specific parts (aka component teams), and?
• not working together and keeping separate groups for development and operations (having silos).

So, when a project is in trouble, it can be challenging, but it also allows you to make essential changes. Fixing the project, you can create teams that handle all aspects of a feature (feature teams) and use DevOps practices. This way, you can turn the problem into an opportunity to upgrade the team's way of work. More importantly, it prevents future projects from failing by bringing things up to modern industry standards.

Essentially, you're experimenting to create a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) on the debris of a failing project.?

Sometimes, you might need more time and resources to develop a complete solution. In such cases, provide data that speaks in terms of business goals and outcomes to guide decisions. Highlight your ability to succeed through small changes, and discuss reasonable investments to help the profitable part of the project survive.

And this is… Agile!

Those proficient in Agile project management can easily recognize the practical application of Scrum's Inspection, Transparency, and Adaption pillars. It also demonstrates the Project Backlog concept and Project Backlog management best practices with a touch of triage techniques. That's not a coincidence. We called the situation of the failing project "complex and chaotic." Agile is the correct answer to handling complexity, and triage is the right one for chaos.??

The good sources for further reading would be:

• Cynefin framework to understand different situations where a project can be and the efficient method of handling each.?
• Management 3.0 to understand the problem of complexity and how Agile and Lean are designed to overcome complexity.
• Evidence-based management to develop efficient, scientifically based, and data-grounded language to set goals, measure progress, make informed decisions, and communicate them to everybody.
• Kim Scott's Radical Candor book to learn about different ways to communicate with stakeholders and the team.
• 7th Edition of PMBoK and Disciplined Agile Principles from PMI to learn more about using Agile for project management in general.?

And last but not least. Don't be scared if it is your career's first problem project. That's just the way it is. Projects fail. Then, a Project Manager "not in the name only" comes, and healing begins. That's not a disaster; it is your chance to join the highest league and become one of the people who make things happen. Welcome, and good luck!