You’ve been asked to take over leadership of a team midway through a project.  What do you do when you realize the project is off course and lacking a plan?  The reality is that there’s a reason planning comes first and trying to tailor a plan to an existing project is not ideal.  

Changing mid-stream can be threatening and demoralizing for a team that’s been working hard.  It’s a difficult message – be transparent and realistic.  Try to identify opportunities and wins – a  discouraged team will find it hard to be excited about what’s likely to be a heavy lift.

There are definitely limitations to what you can do but there are course corrections you can make to get the most out of a project “gone rogue.”

  1. Understand the current situation: Conduct a rapid assessment.  Think of it as a “SitRep” (a report that details the current situation) that will tell you what the project was intended to do and what’s it’s currently likely to do, where it is in the process, what the gaps or weaknesses are that would hinder success.  Solicit honest input from your team.  No finger pointing, make it clear you just want to get a feel for what’s working and what’s not.
  2. Develop a SWOT:  This will help you understand the impact of the weaknesses but also identify opportunities that you may be able to leverage. 
  3. Identify “in play” and “static” areas:  “In play” are activities that haven’t begun or are early enough in the process that you could make changes,  or phases that are scheduled for down the road.  “Static” areas are activities or phases that are complete or almost complete where it is impossible to make changes or changes would require too many resources for too little improvement.
  4. Determine successes for “in play” areas:  What would need to change to deliver a success? List them all and identify the 1-2 activities for each area that will yield the biggest results.  There are are usually a few activities that will achieve 60 – 80% of the success, after that it’s diminishing returns so focus on those high impact activities.   Determine the most critical “in play” areas and prioritize your resources and staff in those areas.
  5. Paint a new picture:  Develop a “mini” plan that will see the project through to the end with course corrections for “in play” areas.  Redefine success based on what realistically can be done and create SMART objectives that reflect this.  Build in evaluation of both the project and of your team’s efforts to right the ship. If your project is so far down the wrong road that you can’t achieve all the original objectives, at least you can achieve some and demonstrate how the course correction contributed to this “modified” success.
  6. Hit the Reset Button:  Pull the team together to communicate the new plan, clearly articulate everyone’s role and your expectations.  Changing mid-stream can be threatening and demoralizing for a team that’s been working hard.  It’s a difficult message – be transparent and realistic.  Try to identify opportunities and wins – a  discouraged team will find it hard to be excited about what’s likely to be a heavy lift.  Most importantly, be a strong leader – that means being open to hearing from the team but making it clear that some decisions that are necessary to course correct may not be popular.  Frame difficult feedback as kindly as possible but don’t avoid the conversation – it will impede the team’s ability to move forward.
  7. Monitor closely:  For a project in trouble, there is less wiggle room than a properly planned project so develop a dashboard that the team regularly reports into.  This will allow you frequent assessments of progress and gives you the ability to adjust the plan to build in further course corrections if needed.
  8. Incentivize your team:  Keep everyone motivated by praising progress, inviting creative solutions and calling out outstanding efforts to senior leadership.  It will be a stressful time, take care of your team and they will give you their best work.

The reality is that it will be difficult to deliver on the goals and objectives of a project that has not been well planned.  It’s going to be a heavier lift for smaller returns than it would be if strategic planning had been done in the beginning.  But, if you are systematic in your assessment, planning and implementation – you stand a good chance of delivering some wins and you’ve made a strong case for strategic planning going forward. If you want to learn more about how Devi Partners can help your organization course correct, contact Amy at [email protected].