JoMax Consulting
Strategic Business & IT Consulting - Project Rescue

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1/22/2026 - by Vincent M. Benz  

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There is a small niche of consulting companies that have been called into more failing projects than I can count. In every industry: public sector, manufacturing, consumer products, Chemical, Pharma and even Non-Profit. The pattern is the same: tense boardrooms, sleepless executives, and a quiet undercurrent of fear that a critical project might go completely off the rails, costing the company a lot of money and time.  

 

When that call comes, the first step isn’t to fix anything...It’s to listen and do the proper analysis. 

 

Data, communications, vendor documents, project status reports and metrics; all these documents tell a story, true or fabricated; it's the message being communicated to the executives and stakeholders. So, understanding the real story by interviewing the team, evaluating the deliverables and project collateral like test scripts and results and any associated metrics, and keeping the identities anonymous is important. The project can be rescued and put back on track.

 

Once the project team realizes, someone is finally listening. 

 

The Real Reasons Projects Fail 

In over 25 years of leading more than 400 projects, this becomes evident: projects don’t fail because of technology or software solutions. They fail because of the people driving the decisions during the execution. 

When communication breaks down, leadership loses control of the narrative. When vendors operate unchecked, even a solid strategy unravels. And when there’s no documented plan or governance, teams spend their time reacting instead of delivering. 

I’ve seen multi-million-dollar; global initiatives derailed not by code defects, but by silence and a fear of not sharing bad news or higher risks with the sponsor or executive team.  The communication is flawed when the vendor controls the narrative and convinces the executives the project is under control, and the team is too afraid or too tired to raise the red flag. 

As one CIO told me during a recovery effort, “We thought our vendor was managing the schedule, turns out, there was no schedule.” An early copy was written and never referenced again.   

 

That is not mismanagement. That is a leadership vacuum. This scenario is why having a project imploding is more difficult to fix because the architect of the project is still doing what made the project fail in the first place.   

 

The Misdiagnosis Most Executives Make 

When an IT project starts to falter, most organizations reach for the same quick fixes: 

• Replace the project manager. 

• Add a new tool. 

• Ask the vendor for a new plan. 

But tools don’t fix trust. 
And in my experience, vendors rarely volunteer the uncomfortable truths. 

One of the biggest myths in project management is that communication and change management “will take care of themselves.” They don’t. In fact, they’re usually the first casualties when pressure mounts. 

At JoMax Consulting, we see failure differently. It’s rarely one problem—it’s the intersection of three: 

1. Lack of communication 

1. No documentation or weak governance 

1. No adherence to commitments for delivery dates 

Each of these erodes accountability in the project until no one really owns the outcome.  That also makes it difficult to know who can make the problems go away.    

 

Inside a Rescue: What Happens First 

When JoMax Consulting steps into a failing project, we don’t bring noise. We bring clarity. 

The first 40-80 hours are about observation. We review contracts, schedules, and deliverables. We talk to leadership, defining what the original expectation was and what the leadership thinks success looks like.  Then we engage the team, then the vendor, always in that order. The goal is to understand the landscape without assigning blame. We are looking for findings across the project to be able to understand which issues need to be addressed quickly to stop the spiral and which changes should be rolled out over time. 

Then we rebuild structure where it’s missing: 

• We add metrics that matter- forecast vs. actual, percent complete, Earned Value, and Performance to Schedule.   

• We reestablish governance - a deliverable review of cadence and senior-level communication rhythm. 

• We require the vendor to produce a real project plan and schedule with critical path defined. In some cases, the client made assumptions that the vendor had a plan, which wasn't followed.  What we found was there was no plan; the vendor had made up the dates and were on track when asked about specifics.   

• And we mentor the internal team, so recovery knowledge doesn’t walk out the door when we leave. 

I still remember a project in the consumer-products space where the vendor had been delivering subpar code for months without review. The steering committee hadn’t seen a valid project plan since kickoff. Once we implemented structured reviews and held both sides accountable, the tone changed almost overnight. Deliverables stabilized, communication resumed, and leadership finally had visibility into progress. Within weeks, the project was back on track, and an active PMO was born from that success. 

 

What Makes a True Rescue Different 

Most consulting firms focus on the process; JoMax focuses on patterns of failure. 
We’ve seen them all, and we’ve built utilities specifically designed to diagnose and recover projects before they implode. Some of those tools use AI, quietly running behind the scenes to spot the same risk signatures we’ve encountered hundreds of times before. 

We don’t share these utilities with clients; we use them to accelerate recovery. Because at the end of the day, speed matters. Every week of uncertainty costs credibility, money, and morale. 

Besides having a strong, tested methodology, JoMax believes it’s empathy and understanding the expectations of the project that brings the team together again.   
You can’t rescue a project without rebuilding trust along the way.  

 

Rebuilding Trust and Accountability 

Trust isn’t restored by speeches or dashboards. It’s earned, slowly, consistently, and collectively. It is doing what is agreed to and showing progress along the way.   

When a project’s reputation collapses, it’s clear: recovery is a team sport. Recovery is everyone’s responsibility.  The rescue consultants are only facilitators of the fixing process.  The real work in rescuing a project is the adaption of the new processes and actions performed by the client.    

By aligning leadership on the recovery plan, reestablishing the expectations and involving everyone in its execution, trust starts to shift from individuals to the collective. Each honest update, each delivered commitment, rebuilds confidence in small increments, leading to changing the control of the project back to the client organization. 

No blame. No finger-pointing. Just accountability through truth and delivery. 
When that happens, morale returns, trust is repaired, and delivery of the project follows. 

 

Leadership Through Original Thought 

Every project rescue teaches the same truth: the answer rarely comes from the top: It comes from the people closest to work. 

JoMax Consulting philosophy—Leadership through Original Thought - was born from that realization. In a failing project, good ideas can come from anyone. Sitting around a table, all the participants got there to be in the same meeting talking about the same topic, but none of the attendees arrived through the same career path.  Different experiences drive unique perspectives that will resolve issues with unique solutions. The key is creating an open environment where those ideas regardless of the person, can surface without fear. 

That’s what leadership really means in a recovery: building enough psychological safety for candor to exist and grow again. 

 

The Executive’s Role in Prevention 

For CEOs, CIOs, and private equity owners, the real opportunity is to catch failure patterns early, before the rescue call. 

If you’re not seeing: 

• Weekly communication that reaches decision-makers, 

• Metrics aligned with your governance standards, 

• Or a project culture where accountability is shared rather than avoided, 

…then your project may already be in distress. 
Project health isn’t measured by green dashboards; it’s measured by truth in communication. In one project rescue from a known brand name, every status report and communication to the executives was sunshine ad roses.  The true issues were so bad; the company almost had to write off over $100M in cost if the project couldn't be salvaged.  We saved the project and left the client team with the skills and organization to continue the 159-country rollout of project. 

 

Your Next Step 

If the project feels off course, it most like is but no one is saying, or you just want an unbiased assessment before it becomes one, JoMax Consulting can help. 

Start with our Project Rescue Readiness Checklist, a concise self-evaluation tool that helps you see where the warning signs may already exist. 

Then, when you’re ready, contact JoMax Consulting for a confidential consultation. 
Because every project, no matter how far gone, can be brought back if you are open to understanding where the project left the tracks and what changes are necessary to bring it back from the brink.   

 

About the Author 

Vince Benz is the founder and managing partner of JoMax Consulting, a firm specializing in project rescue, IT transformation, and CIO advisory services. With over 25 years of experience leading more than 400 projects across industries, Vince and his team brings calm leadership, technical depth, and a proven record of turning around high-stakes initiatives. A certified Lean Six Sigma Green Belt and PhD candidate in leadership, his philosophy, Leadership through Original Thought, and JoMax Consulting IP Metrics RMQ™ emphasizes that breakthrough ideas can come from anywhere, and that every successful recovery starts with listening, alignment, and trust.