hardScenarioBehaviouralStaffLead
You take over a team and find the project reported as on track is months late. What do you do?
6 min readUpdated 2026-08-15
Answer
Short answer
Verify the position from working software rather than opinions, re-baseline once with evidence and options attached, tell your leadership early and without blaming your predecessor, protect the team from the fallout, and fix the reporting mechanism that let a red project look green.
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Likely follow-ups
- Your director asks who is responsible for the last three months of green reports. What do you say?
- The team insists it is nearly done. How do you test that claim without accusing anyone?
- What does your first status report look like, and how often after that?
- When is cancelling the project the right recommendation, and how would you make it?
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