Projects go wrong.  Despite some people’s best efforts, hopes to the contrary, or helpless denials, that’s a fact.  ‘Best effort’ is sometimes not good enough to help a failing project recover, ‘hope’ can merely be unfounded optimism and denial in the light of facts is just part of the grief cycle.

Nobody really wants to fail, very few like it, and even fewer will enjoy it.  Those that planned a project did not purposely plan to fail.  Perhaps there may have been a bit of a gamble with a tendency towards optimism rather than applying the caution of pessimism.  Projects are about risk as well as opportunity and as the idiom goes, “Nothing ventured…nothing gained” but not every cloud has a silver lining.

In Murphy’s eyes, “If it can go wrong, it will” and any failure to plan will be a plan to fail and wrongness will almost certainly ensue.  Projects can, and do, go wrong at any time through the realisation and manifestation of risks.  However, the risk of poor planning is oftentimes overlooked in the enthusiasm that pervades the early part of a project’s life cycle.  Even though the planning may be historical it can, and does, affect the attempts to rectify a future situation, but why?

People & Projects

The common denominator between successful and unsuccessful projects as well as those projects in trouble or that sail effortlessly from inception to close-out is people.  People make projects as well as break them.  When the tangible aspects of poor planning, rushed estimates and substandard quality are coupled with the people-centric aspects of sub-optimal management, unsuitable skills, inadequate leadership and an absence of governance, failure can easily result.

But, before failure there is some element of trouble and, just as troubles can be solved there is almost always an opportunity for project recovery.  But, and, given the reportedly high frequency of failed projects, why is this opportunity missed?  Again, the common denominator is people.  The people who planned the project defend their assumptions even though, for whatever reason, they were wrong.  And by wrong this means, “not correct”; people don’t like to be wrong!

For those who planned the project they protect their perhaps undefendable historical position and, in their denial, they become project protagonists.  Their denial is often coupled with anger, but this amalgam does little to solve problems and reality can be conveniently avoided.  In the neutral cold light of day when KPIs register trouble and calls for lifelines are met with being sold lemons the project executioners become project antagonists.  Suddenly we have conflict as well as trouble and while making lemonade may solve the lemon problem the project won’t be put back on track.

Tracks & Train Drivers

Hopefully, but not usually, a project in trouble will be identified early.  After all, identifying a problem early allows more time to fix it and a problematic project is no exception.  Early identification, like both medical and mechanical conditions, allows time to find the cause and apply a cure.  Time spent in angry denial is procrastination and a waste of time and effort as well as money.

In the construction industry, for example, men in suits may, eventually, appoint a man in boots to get things back on track despite that they, perchance, created the underlying problems in the first place.  In the early days of a project a rose-tinted perspective on project planning coupled with an unhealthy application of wild enthusiasm and ignoring requirements can quickly germinate into a troubled project.  For some, there is that all too familiar sinking feeling of pending derailment.  However, the early recognition of trouble and timely engagement of somebody who can get the train back on track before there is a complete and utter trainwreck is essential.

Getting the train back on the tracks is only part of the recovery effort, it needs to gather speed and momentum and the crew and the others on the railway must start performing.  However, for those who may have been culpable in sowing the seeds of trouble, why waste a chance to not get back in charge at the earliest opportunity and control the driver!

The risk of failure may now seem remote but just as they may hope that lightning won’t strike twice in the same place, they declare victory at the first glimmer of success.  Those that derailed the project in the first place now get back into the driver’s cab and like true back seat drivers tell the man/woman able to drive what to do, in excruciating and miniscule detail.  The back-seat drivers who were once side-line bystanders take charge.  They look at the costs of recovery and realise that the budget cannot cope with the rest of the job even though the costs of dealing with the trouble are now sunk.  Little do they realise that this is the cost of gaining experience and has a future value.

Heroes and Egos and Blame

On the road to eventual recovery, and in true human fashion in finding and apportioning blame, there may also be a realisation that the original planning and estimating was wrong.  But who, in their right corporate mind, will admit to a mistake now that there may be an element of glory attached to being ‘’involved’’ in the recovery?

The euphoria of glory and accolades of heroic effort provide a golden opportunity to sweep any risk of being blamed under the carpet.  Reputations can be protected, and just as importantly egos can be bolstered as the protagonists rally around the bandwagon of recovery.  Furthermore, the outsider who put the project back on track can be blamed…even though he or she metaphorically ‘’saved the day’’.  But how can this be?

When a troubled project, hopefully, gets back on track and the train starts running the project team can, theoretically, get back to business as usual (BAU).  For those who oversee the project they too can get back to BAU.  But, weren’t they the cooks who left the kitchen in the first place when it got too hot, allowed trouble to brew and, more importantly allowed it to do so?  Self-preservation kicks in, egos must be maintained, and for many, blame needs to be apportioned.

In the oftentimes malapropos post-mortem of the firefight of recovery there will be inevitable accusations and allegations of some form of impropriety on the part of the hero.  Cries of “hurried decisions’’, breaking rules, stepping on toes, ignoring a fallacious budget, and riding roughshod rather than deferring diplomatically will be made.  The communication will, inevitably, be in veiled speech, couched terms and innuendo rather than crystal clarity.

These disparaging remarks fill the air after the fact but, without a recovery agent the air during a failing project will be filled with the silence of indecision and a hubbub of hesitation.  These brave souls poke their heads above the parapet of solace and make the decisions while self-proclaimed innocent bystanders merely keep their heads down, criticise and complain and one day, blame.

Conclusions

Projects, at one time or another will experience some form of trouble and, also at some time or another, those in power will need to parachute in somebody to initiate and execute recovery.  The result can be good, bad, or indifferent depending on the person, the situation and the support given.  With success then some of the rules may be broken, with failure the result wasn’t achieved and with indifference there is futility but, in any event, blame may well be apportioned.

Recovery means that something has gone wrong and no matter what has happened something needs to be done to put things right and that requires a somebody.  Unfortunately for mankind there are always winners and losers.  There’s always a loser, a sacrificial lamb, or a scapegoat.  This is about preserving the status quo as well as self-preservation and our “somebody” is often blamed.

If recovery happens but there is no stock taken of the problem or the lessons learned, then history may well repeat itself.  The recovery isn’t merely putting a repaired train back on the same tracks with the same people it’s about changing the way things happened before.  Recovery also doesn’t involve pushing the man or woman who saved the day into a siding in the hope that they won’t be needed again because, just like any train in a siding if it isn’t used or maintained it will fall into disrepair, be sold off, and just move on…and then what?

Bio:

Malcolm Peart is an UK Chartered Engineer & Chartered Geologist with over thirty-five years’ international experience in multicultural environments on large multidisciplinary infrastructure projects including rail, metro, hydro, airports, tunnels, roads and bridges. Skills include project management, contract administration & procurement, and design & construction management skills as Client, Consultant, and Contractor.