Project Management Support — Sub-Service

Distressed project recovery — diagnosed, planned, executed.

Structured diagnosis of drifting projects, recovery plans built around commercial reality, disciplined action tracking, and stakeholder re-alignment. Recovery is a discipline, not a slogan — and we run it as one.

Initial Commercial Risk Assessment Discuss this service

What this service is

Project Recovery & Turnaround — the discipline behind it.

Distressed projects don't recover through motivation or optimism. They recover through honest diagnosis, ruthless prioritisation, disciplined action tracking, and structured re-alignment with the client and internal leadership. Recovery consulting that leans on 'transformation' language and heroic narratives rarely produces sustainable recovery — because the underlying issues are usually about discipline that has slipped, not about strategy that is missing.

Ashforte's recovery approach is contractor-side and commercial. We start with an honest diagnosis: what is the true commercial position, what is the actual programme trajectory, what is the state of the contractual record, and what is the credibility of the current recovery narrative internally and externally. From that we build a plan grounded in what can actually be recovered — not what we'd like to recover.

The plan then runs through disciplined execution. Action ownership is explicit. Progress is tracked weekly. Escalation triggers are agreed. Stakeholders are re-aligned. When recovery is complete, we hand back a stable project and step down.

Delivered the Ashforte way

This service is delivered as part of Ashforte's shared senior capability model. Recurring workstreams run to standardized procedures. Senior review sits over every output. Applied consistently across one project or across your full portfolio — at materially lower cost than staffing the equivalent capability separately on each job.

When contractors bring us in

The trigger signals for project recovery & turnaround.

Most engagements begin at one of these trigger points. If any of them match your situation, the Initial Commercial Risk Assessment is usually the fastest way to establish scope.

Discuss an engagement

01A project is drifting on programme, commercial or reporting — and internal recovery attempts have plateaued.
02Leadership needs an independent honest view of a project's true position.
03A project is heading toward significant loss and structured intervention is required.
04The client relationship on a project is deteriorating and re-alignment is needed.
05Multiple recovery attempts have failed and a different approach is required.
06A project is approaching close-out with significant unresolved commercial exposure.

Scope of work

What's actually delivered.

The scope below is illustrative — every engagement is shaped around the contractor's specific project, contract form and commercial exposure. Any element can be scoped standalone or bundled with adjacent workstreams.

Diagnosis

Commercial position audit
Programme trajectory audit
Contractual record audit
Stakeholder relationship audit
Internal team capability audit

Recovery plan

Prioritised action plan
Ownership and RACI
Timeline and dependencies
Cost and time impact
Escalation triggers

Execution

Weekly recovery cadence
Action tracking discipline
Stakeholder re-alignment
Commercial recovery execution
Programme recovery execution

Handover

Stability threshold definition
Handover documentation
Continuity plan for internal team
Post-handover review
Lessons capture for future projects

Typical outputs

Documented. Defensible. Delivered.

Every engagement produces a defined set of tangible outputs. The client keeps everything — records, templates, dashboards, procedures. Ashforte's role is to build the discipline; the client's role is to run it.

01
Independent diagnosis report with honest position statement.
02
Recovery plan with prioritised actions, owners and timelines.
03
Weekly recovery cadence pack.
04
Action tracking discipline operational.
05
Stakeholder re-alignment documentation.
06
Commercial recovery quantum where applicable.
07
Handover documentation and continuity plan.
08
Lessons-learned capture for portfolio-wide application.

Engagement

Scoped for the situation. Sized for contractor economics.

Project recovery is usually delivered as a fixed-scope engagement with defined exit criteria — the project is stabilised to an agreed threshold, discipline is handed back, and Ashforte steps down. Follow-through review at defined intervals can be scoped as continuing lighter-touch support.

Engagement models in detail

FAQ

Common questions.

Can you turn every distressed project around?

No. Some projects are past recoverability — the commercial position is too weak, the contractual record is too degraded, the client relationship is too damaged, or the internal team is too demoralised. In those situations, honest recovery consulting says so, and helps the contractor manage exit or close-out rather than pretending recovery is possible. What we don't do is take fees to run a recovery that we know won't work.

How long does a typical recovery take?

For a moderately distressed project, expect 3–6 months to reach stability. For severely distressed projects, 6–12 months. Recoveries advertised as achievable in weeks usually aren't recoveries — they're plateaus that collapse again after the consultant leaves.

Next step

Discuss project recovery & turnaround for your project.

Every engagement starts with a scoping conversation. Reach out with the specifics of your situation — live project, contract form, current pressure — and we'll set up the right first step.

Start the conversation

Related sub-services.

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