Discussion #03 - "You have inherited a struggling project, what do you do first"

You are a fairly seasoned & successful Project Manager, content, satisfied, & challenged working in a company you like. You have just wrapped up a successful project you had been assigned & feeling quite good about the deliverables that were provided the business as you have actually witnessed that they (the deliverables) are adding value to the organization's way of working.

You get an EMAIL appointment from your supervisor requesting a discussion for the next day & you accept it.

At the meeting you find out the one of your colleagues has resigned in the middle of a project (her last day was actually the past Friday) & your supervisor has requested that you take on the project. The project's scope is something that you are familiar & comfortable with from a subject matter perspective. The Project Sponsor & Stakeholders are individuals you have worked with in the past, they are demanding but fair business partners. You tell your supervisor you will jump in and complete the project.

Your supervisor contacts the IT Service Desk on the spot to get you access to the project's website that contains all the working artifacts for the effort. That afternoon you review the materials and find out that your predecessor has left you with a project that is not in very good shape from a schedule & budget perspective. You also review the open issues list and you have some stakeholder topics that have not been addressed & are overdue.

You take a look at your EMAIL right before you sign-off for the evening and word has already gotten out on your new appointment with project correspondence now beginning to trickle in.

What are your next steps & why?