The Diagnostic · Fifteen days

Fifteen days. A defensible answer.

Before any recovery, before any recommendation, an independent assessment of what's actually happening - not what the last status report said. Privileged access to the real position, and one of three honest answers at the end of it.

What it establishes

Four questions, answered in full.

An independent fifteen-day diagnostic, with privileged access to a programme's commercial, programme and governance data - not a desk review of what's already been reported, but a direct look at the underlying position.

  • →What is actually happening, as distinct from what is being reported
  • →Where control has been lost, specifically and evidentially
  • →What it would take to recover the position, in practice, not in principle
  • →Whether recovery is justified at all, given what it would cost to get there
The output

Three honest outcomes. Not one predetermined answer.

Stop

The business case no longer holds, or the cost of continuing exceeds the value of finishing. A clear, evidenced recommendation not to continue - the hardest call an owner can act on, and the one most advisers won't make. Why this matters →

Fix

The position is recoverable with defined intervention - stabilisation, a re-baselined plan and contract position, or leadership held through to completion. This is where most recovery engagements actually begin.

Accept

The programme is fundamentally sound. What's needed isn't intervention, it's a defensible position the board can stand behind, without disrupting a team that already has it broadly right.

If you're concerned about the position of your project, talk to us confidentially.

Start with a conversation

The diagnostic is stage one of the full recovery practice - what happens after it depends entirely on what it finds.