PMI Carolina Virtual Meeting - How to Diagnose Any At-Risk Project
Topic: How to Diagnose Any At-Risk Project
As project managers, we are trained to monitor and control projects. But when a project suffers from repeating or cascading failures, we need to find the underlying cause(s) to bring the project back in the green. When initiatives stall or fail, the instinct is to intervene: to revisit the schedule, to escalate risks, add to resources. These interventions often address visible symptoms while the underlying dysfunction continues to drive new ones.
This session introduces a diagnostic framework for rapidly identifying root causes in any at-risk project, regardless of industry, organizational maturity, delivery methodology, or available documentation. Through case studies, attendees will learn an adaptable framework for tracing surface-level symptoms back to the systems that cause them, so they can intervene at the right level or escalate with confidence.
Learning Objectives:
- Apply a flexible diagnostic framework to identify root causes in any at-risk project
- Distinguish between surface-level and organizational problem
- Recognize when a projects presenting problem is a symptom, not the diagnosis
- Determine the appropriate level of intervention or escalate with confidence
Speaker: Bryan Guess
Speaker Bio:
Bryan Guess, PMP, is the founder of Bartizan Strategic Group, a strategic consulting firm that specializes in finding and fixing the organizational breakdowns that manifest as project problems. Drawing on over 12 years of forensic investigation and project leadership in the building-enclosure industry, Bryan developed a structured diagnostic methodology for tracing visible project problems back to the organizational systems generating them. Bartizan works across industries with executives and project leaders who need decision-making clarity in high-stakes scenarios. His core premise: presenting problems are never the real problems.
