Summary: Play Now: This episode is sponsored by The Agile PrepCast for The PMI-ACP Exam: It seemed that in the final weeks of 2013, project management was on everyone’s mind. And not in a good way. The roll-out of the affordable care act website really brought to light that substandard project performance can have a disastrous effect on public perception. While we often hear about failed government projects, failed private sector projects seem to fly under the radar. In today’s interview we welcome Todd C. Williams (http://ecaminc.com/ - http://www.linkedin.com/in/backfromred) has spent the past 25 years advising Fortune 500 companies on what to do about projects that are either headed for a cliff or have already gone over. We begin the interview by looking at what makes government projects uniquely susceptible to a higher failure rate than private sector projects and then move into seven steps that Todd recommends for recovering a troubled project. Below are the first few pages of the transcript. The complete transcript is available to Premium subscribers only. Podcast Introduction Cornelius Fichtner: Hello and welcome to Episode # 260. This is the Project Management Podcast at www.pm-podcast.com and I am Cornelius Fichtner. Nice to have you with us. It seemed that in the final weeks of 2013, project management was on everyone's mind and not in a good way. The roll out of the Affordable Care Act website really brought to light that substandard project performance can have disastrous effects on public perception. While we often hear about failed government projects, failed private sector projects seem to fly under the radar. In today's interview, we welcome Todd C. Williams who has spent the past 25 years advising Fortune 500 companies on what to do about projects that are either headed for a cliff or have already gone over. We begin the interview by looking at what makes government projects uniquely susceptible to a higher failure rate than private sector projects and then move into seven steps that Todd recommends for recovering a troubled project. And now, motion to move forward with the interview. Seconded and here we go. Podcast Interview Female voice: The Project Management Podcast’s feature Interview: Today with Todd Williams, expert witness, executive consultant, and President of eCameron. Cornelius Fichtner: Hello Todd and welcome back to The Project Management Podcast™! Todd C. Williams: Oh, welcome Cornelius. Hope you're having a great day! Cornelius Fichtner: I am, thank you very much. But it seems to me that there are some people out there who are not having a great day because we are hearing a lot about seemingly failed projects especially from the public sector these days and that's why we have brought you on because one of your expertise is turning projects around. So tell me, are government projects more likely to fail than the ones in the private sector? Todd C. Williams: Well, I think in general, no. But they definitely get a lot more visibility. I mean nothing spells a day worse than having CNN at your front door when you get up in the morning which I think has probably happened to a lot of people when we look at healthcare.gov, what's going on with the traffic control, with all the other projects that are out there. But I think that you'll also see that there are other projects that are equally as bad in that it's places out there like the Boeing 787. I mean how many years late was it. Once it got flying then it started having batteries which just kind of spontaneously catch on fire. Those projects do seem to hit both the private and public sector. I think the private sector by just the nature of the name was able to keep it a little more private. Cornelius Fichtner: Are there any characteristics, any components that favor one type of project over the others in regards to success? Todd C. Williams: Well I do think that the private sector projects do have one very nice feature about them and that is that
