The following post is an outline on the options you can take to rescue a troubled IT project. This post is something you can apply to your everyday job if you are a project manager.
The five options are as follows:
- Reschedule work plan
- You can reschedule the project to see if you can still meet the deadlines and budget constraints that are imposed. Try and get the approval from other stakeholders to approve a new budget. Best case scenario here is that project turns around and completes successfully. This however all depends how much you are over budget and time. Typically if you are already a certain percentage over budget, you may not be able to finish in budget.
- Reset expectations with newly devised plan
- If the first option does not work, then you need to work with clients and rest work plan based on newly devised work plan. Best case scenario is that new expectations are set and estimates as well. This can motivate the team to meet these new expectation, However, this is not a good move to make if you are deep into a project. You should never have to let your work plan play catch up to the actual project. The project can kick back up but can expectations can always be missed again if you do not get to the root of the problem.
- Cancel Project
- Best case scenario is that the project is cancelled and the money spent is written off. Worst case scenario is that the project is mandatory and needs to be completed no matter the amount of mixed expectations. That means more money would need to be spent to kick back up the project.
- Conduct recovery on the project
- here you can look at the characteristics of the project and determine the level of effort needed. You then need to develop a full project definition and work plan. Once the recovery project has been defined and planned, you need to assess the troubled project and consult with the stakeholders. After this, you should continue on with the rest of the project management steps (implementation, etc. )
- Continue Project as it its:
- The sponsor can come together and accept the cost of the project and continue on with it. The client may also decide to live with the later deadline.
I would suggest the 4th one personally as it is the only one I suggested that involves getting to the root of the problem and following a project management lifecycle.