Programme & project support

Recovery of a stalled IT project

The schedule stopped being believable a while ago. The last steering group produced mostly new actions, nobody can say precisely what is finished, and your supplier answers more carefully than it did six months ago. Your people are working hard and very little is moving. The question on the table is no longer who let this happen, but how you get out of it.

Recovery means someone takes the wheel until the project can run under its own steam again. Not to pass judgement on what went wrong, but to make it steerable. The order matters more than the speed: stabilise first, replan second.

When an engagement needs recovery

Overrun on its own is no reason to hand an outsider the wheel. These situations are.

The schedule has been revised more than once and nobody believes the latest version, including the person who wrote it.
People are working hard, but the list of open items is not getting shorter.
The project manager has left, dropped out, or is caught between your organisation and the supplier.
Conversations with the supplier are now about blame, contract and change requests, and barely about the work itself.
An analysis or second opinion already exists; the conclusions are clear, but nobody is acting on them.
A hard date is approaching (a contract ending, an obligation, a system going offline) and there is no plan that credibly meets it.

What the work covers

Recovery moves in two stages. Building a new schedule while the project is still unsettled only produces a new date that will also be missed. So first calm, then direction.

Freezing what can wait. In the first days new scope goes on hold, along with open change requests and anything that does not contribute to the next working delivery. A freeze is not a cancellation, it is how you make room.
Establishing what actually exists: what has been built, tested, delivered and can be handed over. Until that is settled, every new schedule is a guess.
Getting decision-making moving again. Who decides what, within what time, and which decisions have been sitting for weeks with someone who is not allowed to take them.
Bringing the conversation with the supplier back to the work. A supplier that has to defend itself delivers more slowly, so I repair the working relationship first: what was agreed, what actually happened, and what is needed to get both sides delivering again. The legal route stays open, but it costs time a stalled project does not have.
Replanning, and starting small. One delivery that demonstrably works, with a date I am willing to defend, rather than a full schedule nobody believes.
Governance light enough to keep up: reporting that measures what is finished, a risk log that is actually maintained, and a steering group that takes decisions rather than sits through them.
The honest judgement on whether continuing is still sensible. Recovery can also mean keeping what is usable and winding the rest down properly.

What you are left with

Recovery has only worked once the project can carry on without me. What you are left with is therefore not a dependency, but a project that is steerable again and the artefacts your own people need to keep it that way.

An agreed picture of the real position: what is finished, what is not, and what still hangs off it.
A revised schedule and scope that both your organisation and the supplier are willing to put their name to.
A working governance rhythm: one report, one risk log, one decision list, deliberately kept light.
Repaired working arrangements with the supplier, or, where that proves impossible, a reasoned proposal for the alternative.
A handover to whoever takes it on, including what is still open and why.

What it is not

Not an investigation into blame. I establish what happened as far as is needed to move forward, and no further.
Not a second opinion. That delivers a judgement and leaves the decision with you; recovery means I take the wheel. If you do not yet know whether the project can be saved, start with the second opinion: shorter and cheaper, and the answer may well be that taking over is not needed.
Not case-building for a legal process. Once the matter sits with lawyers, you are past the point where this service still helps.
Not a reorganisation. I do not rebuild your organisation and I do not assess people. I work with the team that is there.
Not a guarantee that the project continues. If the honest outcome is that stopping is wiser, that is what my advice will say.

Common questions

How does this differ from a second opinion?

A second opinion gives you a judgement: what is going on, which options you have and what each one costs. What you do with it is yours to decide. Recovery means I take the wheel and am answerable for the progress. The second opinion is the cheaper first step when you do not yet know whether the project can be saved. Recovery is the step after that: by then the problem is no longer that nobody knows what is wrong, but that nobody is acting on it.

Does the current project manager have to go?

Not necessarily. Replacement is a remedy, not a diagnosis. Scope stretched without a decision, decision-making that has stalled, and a project manager without a mandate do not disappear when a different name goes on the org chart. I can take the wheel temporarily, but I can equally work alongside the incumbent and organise the mandate that is missing. Which shape fits is something we settle in the first conversation.

How long before things are stable again?

Stabilising is deliberately short: freeze, measure and decide, not build. A few days to a couple of weeks, depending on the size of the project and how quickly the people involved are available. The revised schedule follows only after that. Doing it the other way round, setting a new date and then checking whether it is achievable, simply produces another schedule nobody believes.

What if the supplier will not cooperate?

Then that is an outcome in itself, and one you want to know quickly. I start with the workable route: the facts side by side, agreements re-established, and one short first delivery both sides are willing to commit to. If there is no movement there, I record what was tried and what it produced. That is the evidence you need for a harder conversation, with or without a lawyer. I do not conduct that negotiation and I do not act as a party-appointed expert.

What shape does the engagement take, and what drives the price?

Three shapes. A short stabilisation of a few days, after which you decide whether anything follows. Interim project management on a time-and-materials basis, with an agreed ceiling on hours and an agreed end date, so that time-and-materials is not an open end. Or a fixed price for a defined result, once the first delivery is sharply bounded. What moves the figure: the size of the project, the number of parties involved, the state of the documentation, and whether I steer only or also work in the technology. I name a rate in the first conversation.

And if the conclusion is that we should stop?

Then I say so, as early as possible and with the reasoning attached. Stopping feels like a loss. But the bill for continuing with a project that is no longer going to work keeps running, and the bill for stopping does not. In that case I also set out what can be salvaged (data, interfaces, knowledge, parts of what was delivered) and what a responsible wind-down asks of you towards your supplier and your own people. That is work in itself, and I do not leave you to do it alone.

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Is your project stuck?

An introductory conversation is without obligation. Sketch what is at stake; I will say honestly whether taking over helps, or whether a second opinion serves you better.

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