This past week the tweets looked at how to handle taking over a project that is at high risk of failing or has already failed. The first thing to realize when taking over a failing project is that the rules for managing a project from the start don't apply.Another point on taking over a failing project is that you do not have a lot of time to get a handle on it. Management wants quick action.

• The first step is to determine exactly what the state of the project is. This is more than status. You need to know every detail.
• Start by getting the team together to explain how you're going to start getting the project realigned and what help you need from them
• Next, schedule interviews with key team members and stakeholders to assess where the project is and what the major issues have been.
• As you interview people you want to listen for clues such as scope changes, stakeholder involevment, technical issues etc.
• As you interview people take good notes and keep a list of issues and risks.
• You also want to review all of the project artifacts including status reports, risk logs, plans, resources, requirements docs, charters etc.
• After the interviews and doc reviews you want to take the notes and lists you created to perform an analysis of the data.
• For each issue or risk give it a severity score of 1 low - 5 high and an impact score of 1 - 5. Multiply the 2 scores for a composite score.

Part 2 of this series starts tomorrow at @tprusk1. I'll post the complete series at the end of the week.