An SAP programme needs recovery when its plan no longer predicts what happens. The signs are usually there for months before anyone uses the word. The first thirty days of a recovery should establish what is really true, steady the team, and reset a plan the business can believe in.
Recovery is a hard word for a sponsor to say out loud. It can feel like an admission of failure. In reality, most programmes that need recovery have been run by capable people making sensible decisions, one at a time. Scope grew a little, a design decision was deferred, and the data work slipped behind. Nobody was hiding anything, but nobody was joining it all up either.
Answer these honestly, ideally with one or two trusted colleagues.
One or two yes answers are normal on any large programme. Three or more suggest the programme is further behind than its reports say. Five or more, and it is time to act, whatever the status colours show.
The first job is to stop making things worse. That usually means pausing any decision that would commit significant new spend until the facts are clear. It also means telling the team plainly what is happening and why. Rumours travel fast on a troubled programme, and people work better when they know the plan.
An independent review starts in week one. It needs access to everything: the plan, the budget, test results, defect logs, data load results, the risk log and the people.
The review looks at scope, plan, data, testing and budget, based on evidence rather than opinion. It talks to people at every level, including the delivery partner. The question is simple. If nothing changes, where will this programme actually deliver, and when?
The answer is often uncomfortable but is nearly always more useful than anyone expected. Teams under strain usually know exactly where the problems are. What they typically lack is a safe way to say so.
Once the root causes are understood - then clear and transparent communication is critical. Manage stakeholders up and down the organisation, as well as the programme team.
One of our clients contacted us after some timelines kept sliding right. After a deep dive from our team, we got to the root cause - some conflicting design decisions and poor housekeeping of prior decisions - all ultimately caused by a lack of engagement from a particular business function. We stepped in, corrected the problem and then worked with our client to accelerate delivery to catch up the lost time. The programme went live 9 months later, and then continued to roll out to multiple geographies.
Week three: steady the team
With the facts agreed, the programme needs to start making decisions again. That means clear decision rights, a short list of the decisions currently blocking progress, and a regular forum with the authority to make them. Often the quickest win in a recovery is clearing a backlog of decisions that have been waiting for weeks.
The relationship with the delivery partner is critical. Recovery works best without blame, with the delivery partner as part of it. They usually know where the problems are. What they often need is a client side team able to make the decisions required to fix them.
The new plan is then built from the evidence, with honest dates and costs. It should include the decisions the business must make and when, so that the plan does not depend on things the client has not agreed to.
If you have not already, then board reporting is next. A message to the board should say what has changed, why, what the new plan is, and what the board needs to decide. Boards generally respond better to a clear account of a problem than to months and months of amber.
Our RunRecovery engagement starts with a RunHealthy Assessment to establish the facts, followed by Limelight directors leading the client side of the recovery. We work alongside the existing delivery partner rather than replacing them.
If your programme is showing some of these signs, book a Readiness Review. It is a 45-minute conversation with one of our directors. You can do that HERE