Project Failing? Here's what to do next!

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]Have you found your project vering?

[00:00:02]Of course, whether you're a manager, a leader or a department head, you probably run projects and if they are very ing, of course, you've got a problem to solve projects are considered successful that means aren't how to stop the train from continuing to drive you over de cliff.

[00:00:20]If your projects failing.

[00:00:21]Let's talk about that coming up next on project skills.

[00:00:24]Mentor I've already done a video about what happens on your projects lips, but this goes further.

[00:00:29]This is knowing when to actually stop de project and retool the way of working.

[00:00:34]Maybe you need to change how your interacting with de stakeholders or maybe the use case isn't clear.

[00:00:40]A neverending cycle of change is not going to make your project successful.

[00:00:44]So what do you do?

[00:00:45]Wel, let's break it down.

[00:00:46]But first stop and answer this question.

[00:00:49]What would you do if your project slipping?

[00:00:51]Do you already have a way of working If so leave it in de comments below, I'd love to hear from you if your project is of the tracks, if the train is going over de klif.

[00:01:00]You need to slam on the breaks and make a change.

[00:01:04]Whether you're changing your way of working, the people, the goals, the roles.

[00:01:09]Something something has to give because continuing to do the work as you're doing.

[00:01:13]IT isn't going to work for you.

[00:01:15]Now if that's the case with you, let's talk about what happens next step One validate that you're actually off track.

[00:01:22]Sometimes we're so overwhelmed with how things feel we lose the ability to cope with reality around us.

[00:01:28]So the first part of resetting or deciding if you're off track is validating, what's really true and the easy way to do.

[00:01:35]This is to look at your dashboard.

[00:01:37]And if you don't have one.

[00:01:38]I'll put a link here about how you can create a dashboard that will tell you if you're off track and here's my project.

[00:01:44]Reset checklist.

[00:01:45]Look at your key milestones.

[00:01:47]Are they slipping repeated ly?

[00:01:49]So if you set a new deadline on Monday for Friday and you miss it again and again and again and pretty soon the slip is now on mond.

[00:01:56]That's a sign. You need to do a reset.

[00:01:58]Maybe your deliverables are being complicated, but they're not adopted.

[00:02:02]The users aren't accepting your approach.

[00:02:04]You can go into that turn process of making continual revision, but at the foundation all understanding of your project is wrong.

[00:02:11]If the users aren't grasping what you're trying to do, or if it's not really fit for purpose, that wheel will go around forever.

[00:02:18]If the stakeholders are disengaged or new ones of come on board with new ideas, approaches and goals.

[00:02:24]You know, sometimes these are personal.

[00:02:26]People actually are worried about their next career.

[00:02:28]Move their emotional rays coming up in the end of the year, and that's driving a lot of consideration they're giving to your project.

[00:02:36]If you don't know that you may be making some of the biggest mistakes.

[00:02:40]A project manager can make no your stakeholders understand what drives them.

[00:02:45]What metric they're using to decide.

[00:02:47]If your project is working or not, and then work with them to make sure their expectations are set correctly and your delivery what they ask for.

[00:02:57]And now let's turn to your team if they are doing a lot of work, but not moving forward if they're getting demoralised, but they entire process and feeling frustrated, or if they are talking about issues, but not solving them or not able to solve them.

[00:03:11]Then your project indeed may be off track.

[00:03:14]Here's a quick example I worked on a big bang implementation.

[00:03:16]This is then the old days or we would implement counting finance, HR and customer service at the same moment.

[00:03:24]IT was really really changing, especially because the team working on finance had no time to work with us on the outcome, and because they didn't know what we were doing.

[00:03:33]They didn't understand our questions to them and so we had to do it reset.

[00:03:37]We stopped de project just long enough to figure out who are key Stakeholders were re-engaged with them and we're able to move forward.

[00:03:44]Step two is identify the root causes you may think you know the root causes, but in fact, you may not and not understanding the root cause means you can't fix it and remember projects don't fail for one reason.

[00:03:57]It's normally a multitude of problems, the team LAX alignment, so the product is an meeting the purpose and therefore the users are disengaged.

[00:04:07]If you aren't understanding the daisy chain effect of all of the issues on your project, you may be one solving the wrong problem or two, not looking for the under lying cause and so creating new problems as you fix other ones.

[00:04:21]So my reset checklist here is about.

[00:04:23]Identificeert de root of the problem is scope, exceeding delivery capability other requirements actually unclear our stakeholders believe they know what the outcome should be, but they don't have the same view of that outcome.

[00:04:37]And the worst case scenario is when they don't know it when sponsorship is weak.

[00:04:42]You know politics is real at work and if you are sponsors are being pushed and shutved in different ways inside the politics of the organization.

[00:04:51]You may think you have strong leadership and strong backing, but you don't.

[00:04:55]The first sign of trouble your sponsors might go running and if that happens, you could lose the ability to reset your project.

[00:05:02]Sometimes the technologie just hasn't caught up with the emissions and goals of the organisation.

[00:05:08]And if that's the case, it may be that the technologie is out there.

[00:05:12]But you have to make a technology infrastructure that makes sense for your organization, and that may be harder to do.

[00:05:18]Then people think you might have to stop that project until your technology stack does catch up.

[00:05:23]And when I faced in the past is when delivery processes are unstable.

[00:05:27]I had a situation where I was working with a client where we had consulting people working with the client team.

[00:05:33]We were one combined team, but they're way of working wasn't our way of working.

[00:05:37]So our stage gates are approval process.

[00:05:41]We're different. What did that mean?

[00:05:42]IT meant we thought we had a greenlight they that they had a red light.

[00:05:46]We were going back and forth. This is a tango.

[00:05:48]You don't want to do.

[00:05:50]So make sure your processes fit.

[00:05:52]Not only the team, but also fit the kind of work you're doing.

[00:05:56]And I can tell you sorting out a problem like that is a lot better than playing the blame game.

[00:06:01]So don't go down the funnel of whose problem is it.

[00:06:04]It's all of your problem you all need to solve it Step three.

[00:06:07]Sure you know what that execution plan is.

[00:06:09]Reset the foundation of the project to prevent further problems.

[00:06:13]Make sure you're looking to see if there's any untended outcomes.

[00:06:17]So, for instance, let's say you need to delay the project by three months to reset the technologie.

[00:06:22]Well, you need to not only let the technology team know that, but your stakeholders and others so that they're not making them mistake.

[00:06:29]It's thinking this only impacts technology.

[00:06:32]IT has no other impact to the project that would be a mistake.

[00:06:35]So make sure you're communicating clearly understanding who the timeline effects and the knock on effect of what do you do with the people who are on that whole project?

[00:06:43]You need to know that to make sure you've thought through everything before you start communicating one time.

[00:06:48]We should have stopped the project and we didn't.

[00:06:51]And that lead to both contractual issues and a dip in de moral of the team.

[00:06:55]And let's face it, it's hard to start a project.

[00:06:57]If your team is demoralised and step vier Take action planning isn't the same as doing now.

[00:07:04]You're in the doing phase.

[00:07:05]So you're gonna wanna confirm your plan.

[00:07:07]Revalidate the business case if you need to align with the sponsors, expectations and make sure they're on board before you announce it to others, clarify the user need and their use cases and reset de scope and priorities and maybe the budget.

[00:07:20]And if you can't change the budget, you're certainly going to need to plan the rest of the work, de scope and the timing and fundamentally to all of this is communication communication.

[00:07:30]Download to your team upward to your management, across to your peers and other departments, and most of all to your end users, so they can stay engaged, aligned and understand why the reset was necessary.

[00:07:44]Hopefully see, it is a good sign that you're listening and you're not gonna continue doing something the wrong way.

[00:07:50]And if you have a business case, one more step you might want to do is reconnect it to the business case and other words if you're company expects you to test against the business case, so it might be a good thing to actually make a version of the business case and restate the changes you're making to the project, while you're making those changes and the impact they have on staff time costs, scope and quality.

[00:08:12]And then establish your assignment and keep it that way have regular check ins with our sponsors, your users, your team and your peers.

[00:08:20]Why?

[00:08:21]Because you've got off track you've now gotten back on track and you need to stay there. How do you stay there?

[00:08:27]You keep your eye on the price and you keep your eye on all the people invested in that outcome.

[00:08:32]And now that you've learned your lesson about a starlet or stopped project.

[00:08:35]You need to put in the early warning signs.

[00:08:38]So put in your early warning dashboard your early warning staff meetings and your early morning stakeholder meetings to make sure this does not happen again.

[00:08:46]And if you think maybe you don't need to reset, but maybe you're project slipping.

[00:08:50]Check out this video and I'll see you next time.

[00:08:53]Project skills Mentor. com.

[00:08:55]Bye bye everybody.