A Simple Set of Steps to Organize Your Recovery Activities

Bill Hoberecht - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.         

When your project strays off course and it looks like you will not complete as planned, you are in a jeopardy situation. In most serious situations, the project will benefit by using a Jeopardy process in which the team has been trained and with which the team is familiar.  This approach lets the team focus on resolving the problem and reduces the effort spent in determining how to structure the resolution actions.

Is Your Project Completion in Jeopardy?

Introducing a Jeopardy Resolution Process

The Jeopardy Process defined in the overview materials below gives important structure for communications to team members and stakeholders, as well as ensures that clear direction is given to team members in taking proper action towards resolving the jeopardy situation.

The Jeopardy Process is implemented as a set of 6 steps that are executed sequentially.  These steps are most appropriate for a serious jeopardy situation (you'll want to adapt/simplify this for less serious situations). These steps define a method of:

• Providing visibility for stakeholders and team members of a situation that is jeopardizing project success, and 
• Managing the action steps that must be executed in order to best respond to the jeopardy situation.

This set of actions and communications is driven by the Project Manager, with active participation by those who can resolve the issues - this might include project team members, the Program Manager, clients/customers and other stakeholders.

A Jeopardy Notification Template and A Presentation on Project Jeopardy Management

	This overview provides a high level description of the process to follow when a project encounters a jeopardy situation.		This 20 minute briefing presents the overview materials - this is intended for project managers, managers, executives and PMO team members.
	This annotated Jeopardy Notice template provides guidance to the Project Manager on populating each field of the Jeopardy Notice and Plan document.
	This MS-Word Jeopardy Notice template is ready-to-use