6 December 2000

"Project Recovery"
by: Kym Henderson – Program Manager, Compaq Computer Australia

Project recovery is a vexed and often ignored topic within the IT industry in spite of the long history of large numbers of IT projects which could be classified as troubled projects.

The presentation was based around the model for project recovery in the article Six Steps to Project Recovery by Richard W Bailey II, PMP that appeared in the May 2000 edition of PM Network and also drew on the presenter’s experience in leading project rescue missions.

The presentation considered the characteristics of troubled projects and then, due to the size of this topic, mainly focused on the "recovery assessment" phase using examples from personal experience to highlight and illustrate points made.

The presentation also considered the political and personal dimensions associated with project recovery and project recovery management.

Also presented were selected past examples of the presenter’s use of Earned Value techniques as a means of:

• establishing the current financial and performance status of troubled projects
• assisting in the recovery of project financial and performance management
• tracking project history and progress since the recovery effort was commenced
• letting the "metrics tell the story"

Kym's presentation can be viewed by clicking on this link.

About Kym Henderson

Kym’s Information Technology career commenced in 1989. Since joining the industry most experience has been in Project Management roles. Two career changes lead Kym to the IT industry. Kym’s previous experience encompassed the Australian Army and Registered Nursing.

Kym’s career highlights feature relevant facets covering, Project Management, Software Quality Assurance Management and Project Planning and Control. Kym’s experiences working with a number of reputable IT companies ranging from IBM, CSC, BHP IT and Unisys, across many industry sectors including commercial IT, Defence, Government and Telecommunications, with particular focus on large, complex environments has been invaluable.

Kym is a Program Manager with the Compaq Computer Australia company currently based in North Sydney.

Kym holds a Masters of Computing Science and Bachelor of Business degree with Accounting and Computing majors to add to his other qualifications which include registration as a General and Psychiatric Nurse in both Australia and the United States.