When I come into an organization, it is not to criticize a team’s work or to dismantle the team piece by piece; it is to make the team effective and get the project on track.

Organizations typically call in project recovery specialists or consultants when:

• They are not hitting objectives
• They are missing key deliverable dates; perhaps a product didn’t launch on time or a program didn’t go live on schedule
• They are over-budget
• They are not making progress measured against their goals
• The sponsors do not have clear line of sight into the workings

The project team may be intact, and if it is, we have to evaluate how efficient and effective they are. We don’t go in and clean house because it is tremendously detrimental to morale and creates unrest within the team. This can impact productivity even more. The goal is to keep the existing staff and rehabilitate as much as possible.

• What do they need to get back on track?
• Establish a project Governance Structure
• Can we reassign roles?
• Can we switch up responsibilities?
• Establish clear lines of accountability
• Establish exactly what is expected of the project team members
• Establish a setoff project guiding principles
• What knowledge or skills do the team members have – and can we use it to better advantage?
• Define Success; What does success look like?

Many times, we can optimize roles and responsibilities and make some changes that create a more cohesive team and maximize knowledge and skills. It may be the team that’s the “problem,” not the members. Sometimes a team is less than the sum of its parts; what we do is try to reconfigure the dynamics so they become more.