Speaker 1: Hello, I'm Jennifer Whitt, Director of ProjectManager.com. Welcome to our whiteboard session today on what to do when your project is over budget. This is a panic distress call we get when people are over budget because guess what? At that point, if you're over budget, it's too late. You're now recovering. So people want to know how can they stop the bleeding, how to stop the recovery. But a lot of times, even the over budget is not actually due to something maybe the project manager overlooked or something that grossly happened to the project. Sometimes things occur that we don't have control over. For instance, people who are working on some projects that are impacted by a natural disaster, whether it directly hits or impacts their project directly. But some things may be a fallout from that. For instance, if there's a natural disaster and parts can't be obtained and there's delays in the project or shipping, higher shipping costs or things like that, that again, the project manager or your project or your organization has no control over. But still, at that point, it's still too late and you're recovering. What we've seen is typically when you're over budget, things just don't miraculously get better without some action being taken over time. They actually get worse. You can see the projected budget and if you're over budget, it seems to continue to grow. What we want to do is begin to stop the bleeding. Here's some suggestions we have and a six-step recovery process. Number one, it's critical to stop the bleeding. Find out what's the cause. What's the cause? Why did this happen? Or who is causing the overages? So what occurred? Maybe there is an event that occurred, again, it could be a natural disaster or some federal regulation that's been assessed against you. Why did it happen? It's important to know why. It's like did you know in advance? Was it something that was overlooked or maybe you as a project manager didn't document it? Maybe one of your team members, vendor partners, or stakeholders didn't provide you information? Or who? Is there someone who is making a conscious decision to overrun the budget hoping that you as a project manager have to facilitate wondering how to handle the overage? Sometimes you see people who make decisions knowing it's better to go back and go ahead and make the decision to do the thing, overrun the budget, and go back and recover later. So you want to know who is making that decision and get them to stop. Number two is assess the impact. How is this impacting the scope of our project? How might it be affecting the schedule? And further, budget overrun. So how is it, what is it impacting? And working with your team, your team, your vendor partners, other organization members to find out what are some alternatives, what might be some solutions, gaining insights, and what could be some recommendations because you as a project manager want to have this information because as soon as you find out you're over budget, it's critical to notify the change control board and your stakeholders ASAP. So you don't want to hit them blind and get them in a panic. You want to let them know you as a project manager have your hand on the pulse of this. They want to know that you're aware, you're alert, you know what's happening, you know all of these things, what, why, who, and they want to know that you know how it's impacting things and they want, they're expecting you to have done your due diligence and bring this information to them. Don't put the burden or responsibility on your change control board or your stakeholders to do all this legwork for you. So bring this information to them, let them know that you know, okay, here's what's happening and why. I've already worked with the team, the vendor partners, everyone who needs to know is aware and they're working on it so here's what's happening and why. Here's the impact to the project. Here's some alternative solutions, insights that we've already gleaned about this. And here is our recommendation. So bring that to them and then it's easier for you to facilitate their decision. Remember it's not your decision as the project manager what to do, you bring the information to them and your change control board, your stakeholders make the decisions because although you bring a recommendation, they may have other things in mind they know about. For instance, there could be some other higher priority projects. There could be some other budget monies, allocations that they can make. There could be some things that they know that you don't know so although you're making a recommendation, they may or may not choose to take your recommendation based on other information they have. But facilitate the decision no matter what it is and then you have to go back and change the plan. You have to notify and inform your other teams and other vendor partners so they likewise can change and modify their plan. And once everyone modifies or changes, revises their plans, then it's a matter of implementing the changes. And these we feel like are the six steps to recovering your budget and getting things back on track. If you need a tool to help you recover your budget overruns, then sign up for our software now at ProjectManager.com.