Methodology
The 90-Day Diagnostic — What I Do First When a Programme Is Stalling
The first question I am usually asked when I arrive inside a stalled programme is: what are you going to fix first? The answer is always the same — nothing. Not yet. The first four weeks are not about fixing anything. They are about understanding who actually controls what, which is almost never what the org chart says.
Weeks One Through Four: Diagnosis
Map the informal power structure. Who do people call when they need something to actually move? That person is more important to this programme than whoever is listed as Programme Sponsor.
Read the last six steering committee minutes. Not for what was decided — for what was deferred. Repeated deferrals on the same item tell you exactly where the real blocker sits.
Identify the three people without whose cooperation the programme cannot succeed. Are they engaged? Are they incentivised? Do they believe it will succeed?
Find the backlog items that have been in the backlog longest. Each one is a deferred decision disguised as a technical requirement.
Talk to the delivery team, not the programme team. They know why things are stalling. They have usually known for months.
Weeks Five Through Eight: Intervention
Address one structural blocker visibly and completely. Not a workaround — a resolution. The programme needs to see that things can actually change.
Reset the governance model. Fewer meetings, clearer decision rights, shorter escalation paths.
Secure one early win that is visible to the executive sponsor. Early wins are not about momentum — they are about rebuilding the credibility that will be needed to make the harder changes later.
Weeks Nine Through Twelve: Embedding
Transfer the diagnostic capability. The team should be able to identify structural blockers without me.
Document what changed and why, so it survives the next leadership transition.
Define the conditions under which the programme does not need external support anymore. That is the exit criterion, and it should be agreed at the start.
The goal is a programme that can sustain its own delivery after the sherpa leaves. Anything less is dependency, not transformation.