A staged framework for the recovery and rehabilitation of troubled IS development projects

It is not uncommon for information system (IS) software development projects to finish behind schedule, over budget, and below owner expectations. Such projects are usually failing long before the project manager completes delivery. This article describes a process for recovering such projects from troubled situations. In doing so, it discusses the elements of project failure and project management maturity in the IS industry. It also reviews the differing perspectives of project recovery, as discussed in the literature, perspectives involving crisis management, de-escalation, and software recovery. It then outlines a generic framework for recovering and rehabilitating troubled IS software development projects and details each of its four stages (recognition, immediate recovery, sustained recovery, maturity) and its twelve steps.