Oscar Wilde wrote, “Questions are never indiscreet; answers sometimes are.” This to say, when it comes to project recovery, nothing is sacred. I use a diagnostic question set as a basis for gathering information from team members and stakeholders. Just like a doctor uses questions to determine a physical diagnosis, I use these questions to determine what is ailing your project.

Why?

The goal of a diagnostic question set is to get a common understanding of:

• The challenges; whether risk issues, or open actions
• The benchmarks
• The players
• The dynamics
• What the project/team is trying to achieve

I ask everyone the same questions so I can spot inconsistencies as well as consistent answers. Where do people believe there are issues? Do executives have the same concerns as those on the operating level, or is there a disconnect? This is an efficient way to get a real sense of where things are; instead of talking to one person, you’re getting the perspective of a variety of team members and stakeholders at all levels of the organization or team hierarchy.

How?

The question set remains relatively constant from project to project; so I ask the same questions, but not necessarily all the questions in a specific situation, depending on what I already know. I find an interview style works best, and I don’t provide the questions beforehand. Why? I like to be face-to-face with an interviewee so I can pick up body language and facial cues. I am not trying to “trick” you into answering these questions, but I do want a natural, unrehearsed answer. It may be a little less fluent, but it’s a whole lot more useful.

What types of questions do I ask? Well, I’d hate to tip you off, but here are a few examples:

• What do you see as your primary role in the project/program?
• What do you see as the key skills required for this project?
• How often does the steering committee meet? Who attends these meetings?

From this, I can start to see if there is a common understanding of:

• Objectives
• Morale
• Accountability
• Who is not pulling his/her weight
• Who is having difficulty keeping up
• The clarity, or ambiguity, of roles

When I start to see divergence in answers, I know there’s a problem, and we have to work to zero in on the issues. What are they? What’s the problem? Are they specific to a person or particular aspect of the project, or are they across the board? Always more questions!

Diagnostic questions dovetail perfectly with the PMO Centre of Excellence (COE) approach. Questions are a tool, and they lead to valuable conversations. We could sit and chitchat about the weather, or we could start figuring out how to bring your project back to health. Questions set the tone, inform the agenda, and keep us focused. If the weather is particularly noteworthy, however, we can spend a minute or two discussing that as well.