How to rescue projects from the ‘red’

In the complex world of project execution, even well-planned initiatives can veer off course, jeopardising timelines, budgets, and strategic objectives. While some troubled projects may warrant termination, Project One experts explain that others hold the potential for recovery, if the right interventions are applied.

Change Management offers a structured approach to assessing project viability and implementing targeted corrective actions. By integrating Change Management principles, organisations can diagnose root causes, align stakeholders, and drive the behavioural and operational shifts necessary to steer projects back on track. This article explores how Change Management can be leveraged to systematically evaluate struggling projects, determine their feasibility for recovery, and execute a structured turnaround strategy that maximises success.

Some indicators are obvious:

• Red and amber status reports from your workstreams
• Missed deadlines
• Key team members leaving the ship.

Change Management experts are equipped to spot the trouble earlier:

• The business sponsor is disengaged and less available
• Poorly attended Steering Committees.
• Business leadership actions are not being followed through.

The key is not whether the technology delivery team are on or off track. It is that the business leaders continue to be fully committed and are commanding and communicating that this change must happen. If they are not, then you are at sea.

Many technology-enabled change projects are initiated to meet a business imperative but then they build a life of their own and become disconnected from the sponsor, the business, and what they set out to achieve. That is when the distress begins. And that is why it is essential for us to take the business sponsor back to base camp: why did we set off on this journey? Is it still valid? Are there more important priorities and destinations for you now?

Should the project be recovered?

It is important to acknowledge up-front that not all projects warrant recovering. A competent change manager should re-assess the appetite of the business sponsor and leadership group to continue with the project. Be sensitive to the fact that stakeholders’ responses may be influenced by the potential impact on their personal reputations, and conversely that recent leadership changes may make new leaders immune from criticism.

At a leading, global media company the incoming CIO wrote off a £30m technology project that had successfully passed UAT because there was insufficient business stakeholder buy-in; easier to blame his predecessor than battle on with the problem. Re-visit the business case: does it still stand up in the current market and macro-environment (PESTEL analysis can help here). Ask “why did we set off on this journey, and what were we aiming to achieve? Is that still realistic?”

A structured Change Management approach is essential when navigating project recovery. By implementing a well-defined recovery plan, project teams can realign efforts with original goals while managing risks effectively. Through proper governance, stakeholder engagement, and iterative feedback, organisations ensure that projects progress toward successful delivery.

Diagnosing the causes of project failure

A critical first step in project recovery is finding the underlying causes of failure, not just the surface-level symptoms. While tools like risk registers and status reports offer snapshots of project health, they rarely capture the deeper human and organisational dynamics at play. This is where a structured Change Management approach becomes essential.

Change management helps uncover hidden causes of failure by:

• Involving key stakeholders early in the process
• Clarifying expectations and adapting to change
• Identifying resistance that may derail recovery efforts

If stakeholders are unwilling to adopt or promote a project’s outcomes, recovery efforts may be futile.

Take the UK NHS IT Programme as an example: despite massive investment, it ultimately failed due to stakeholder resistance, shifting goals, and persistent delivery issues. Adopting a Change Management approach – focused on communication, alignment, and adaptability – could have highlighted these barriers sooner and shaped more realistic solutions. Crucially, Change Management also helps determine whether recovery is viable at all. If key stakeholders remain unwilling to support the project’s outcomes, then even the best recovery plan may be wasted effort.

Successful project recovery depends on re-confirming stakeholder buy-in and leadership alignment. Change Management ensures that all key stakeholders, particularly senior executives, remain engaged in recovery efforts. Leadership alignment mitigates uncertainty and provides the momentum needed to move the project forward.

Key questions to ask:

• Does the project have the right, influential, and respected sponsor?
• Is that sponsor appropriately motivated and incentivised to ensure the project’s success?
• Does the sponsor have a clear vision?
• Is that vision communicated repeatedly and with conviction? This vision should be the ‘North Star’ for all team members to align their efforts towards.

In one recovery project, initial stakeholder alignment was a challenge. A CEO’s comment that success “rested on the CIO’s shoulders” highlighted the need for broader leadership engagement. By securing active participation from all C-suite executives, the project transitioned from an isolated IT effort to a business-wide transformation initiative.

Before launching any recovery effort, teams must conduct a holistic review involving technical, financial, and operational perspectives, guided by Change Management principles, to ensure the response addresses root causes, not just symptoms. Sometimes, the most strategic choice is knowing when to stop.

Rebuilding team morale and performance

Recovering a failing project is not just a technical or strategic challenge, it is a people challenge. Change Management focuses on transparency, engagement, and support to rebuild team morale.

A committed and motivated team is essential for project turnaround. Regular updates, clear communication, and recognising team contributions can significantly impact project recovery. In every successful turnaround, an engaged and empowered team has been a decisive factor.

When applying a Change Management approach to recover a failing project, the recovery communications plan becomes a central tool for rebuilding trust and aligning stakeholders:

• Clearly explains the reasons for the project reset
• Defines a revised vision for success
• Highlights the benefits of the new direction

Messaging is tailored to each audience; executives, project teams, and end users, ensuring relevance and resonance. Transparency is critical; communications acknowledge past challenges; outline lessons learned and offer a clear path forward.

A change-driven plan also emphasises two-way communication, enabling feedback and dialogue to address concerns and resistance. Communication happens on a regular cadence and features consistent messaging across all channels, reinforced by visible, credible leadership. Supportive, empathetic language helps manage change fatigue, while recognition of progress re-energises teams. Ultimately, the plan helps shift the narrative from failure to opportunity, aligning people and purpose around a renewed, achievable path to delivery.

Sustained recovery requires ongoing monitoring of key performance indicators (KPIs). Change management ensures that interventions, whether governance improvements, communication strategies, or resource adjustments, are tracked against defined success metrics.

Recovery efforts should not just focus on restoring project health but also on embedding long-term resilience. Active intervention management, rather than passive reporting, is key to sustaining project turnaround.

Governance is often a key pain point. Weak governance structures lead to slow decision-making, lack of accountability, and misalignment with strategic goals. In one recovery effort, securing leadership agreement to dedicate weekly time for decision-making accelerated progress and kept the project on track. Hold leaders to account by laying out the cost and benefit implications of them delaying key decisions.

Conclusion

Change Management is a fundamental enabler of project recovery and building longer-term capability, providing a structured framework to diagnose failure, engage stakeholders, ‘encourage the hearts’ of team members, and realign objectives. By involving team members in developing the new roadmap and plans you will foster ownership and buy-in to the new journey ahead.

A public sector organisation injected clarity and pace into a two-year-old technology project that had lost its way by seeding a handful of highly motivated young consultants into a tired and weary team; after some storming, forming and norming, the system went live six months later. By integrating Change Management principles into governance structures, organisations foster resilience and adaptability, ensuring that both current and future projects are better equipped to navigate challenges and deliver value. Project recovery is not merely about fixing what is broken, it is about building a culture of continuous improvement and long-term success