Repair, rebuild or stop? Make the recovery decision first.
Use evidence, dependencies and operating cost to choose the next investment.
Start with the result you still need.
A troubled project often accumulates fixes before anyone revisits the intended outcome. Establish what users and the business need now, then assess the existing system against that requirement.
When repair may make sense
The useful parts of the system are understandable, the failures can be bounded and the work has a credible path to the desired result. Dependencies and ownership are sufficiently clear to make the repair manageable.
When replacement deserves a closer look
A component may be incomplete, difficult to maintain or poorly suited to its role. Compare the cost and risk of changing it with replacing it. A component-level decision is different from assuming the entire product needs a rewrite.
When stopping is an option
If the use case no longer matters, the expected benefit is weak or the ongoing operating requirements are unsuitable, further engineering may not be the best investment. Those constraints belong in the recovery discussion.
Our AI SaaS case had eighteen months of development behind it and began failing near launch. The subsequent ten-week recovery describes that project; elapsed time alone would not have told us what another project needed.
Make the options reviewable.
- Define the intended outcome and the current blockers.
- State what each option would keep, change and leave unresolved.
- Identify dependencies, uncertainties and access requirements.
- Explain how the result would be checked.
- Scope the next step before committing to the full recovery.
A useful first assessment gives you a way to investigate the decision. It should not pretend that a conversation alone has established everything hidden in the code or infrastructure.
See how our AI project recovery process works, from the free initial assessment to a scoped investigation and delivery.
Tell us where it
started going wrong.
A free initial assessment to understand the problem, discuss recovery options and agree a sensible next step.