Everyone managing a project becomes intimately familiar with Finagle’s Law of Dynamic Negatives: “Anything that can go wrong, will – at the worst possible moment.” The project doesn’t start on time; crucial milestones are missed; team members don’t communicate; you’re going over-budget; there are too many status meetings and not enough action. While you do not know which specific challenges you will face for a particular project, you can take steps to ensure that they do not turn into crises.

Project management consultants are not typically called in when things are going well; it’s a little like being invited to a party that is already tanking or a game where the home team is losing. No one’s in a good mood, and no one particularly wants you to be there. Sure, projects are “manageable;” if, by manageable, you mean that they are chaotic, in crisis, over budget, and off schedule. And this is right where we come in.

Project management consultants tend to walk into the middle of chaos. We typically find that the executives don’t like what’s going on; they do not feel they’re getting the results they should; budgets are out of sort… whatever the reason, there is – understandably – a lot of pressure to quickly develop corrective action. In an ideal world, here is what we’d do: