Turning the Tide Pt. 3: Identify & Address Gaps

Now that you’ve defined the scope and assessed the current state, it’s time to dive deeper, identifying the gaps that are holding your project back and taking decisive steps to close them. This phase is about moving from awareness to action.

In this installment, we’ll guide you through how to systematically uncover critical shortcomings across strategy, governance, planning, communication, solution design, and team dynamics. More importantly, we’ll focus on how to prioritize and address these gaps effectively, restoring alignment, rebuilding accountability, and driving momentum.

The next two steps in the distressed project guideline enable you to:

🔍 Identify Gaps – Pinpoint what’s missing or misaligned, and understand their impact on the project's intended value 

🛠️ Address Gaps – Collaborate with business leaders and decision makers to implement targeted fixes that stabilize and propel the project forward

Addressing gaps isn’t just about fixing problems; it’s about stabilizing the project so it can advance confidently toward its goals. Let’s explore how to transform obstacles into opportunities for recovery and growth.

Step 3. Identify Gaps

Once you’ve established a clear understanding of the project’s current state, your next step is to identify the gaps that need to be addressed to get things back on track. The level of detail you go into will depend on the project’s current phase and how significantly each gap impacts the overall success. Prioritize what matters most to stability and momentum.

Here are some common gaps to look out for:

Strategy

• The roadmap is either obsolete or doesn't exist

• There are no defined exit criteria or SLAS to note when the project completes

• No agreed-upon tools for communication and task tracking (it's the wild west)

• No source of truth, all information is in separate systems (technical or handwritten)

Governance

• Stakeholders required for collaboration are not all identified or informed

• The RASCI matrix is missing, incomplete, or not actively enforced

• The prioritization rubric is not well defined or being enforced in every decision

• Requirements have not been fully documented or signed off by the business

• The RADIO log doesn't exist or has not been kept up to date (risk and issues are not being tracked promptly)

• No clear escalation path has been defined for different stakeholder groups

• Determine if a budget tracking tool exists and understand how data is sourced for forecasting budget vs. actuals

Planning

• The Project plan is obsolete or not maintained regularly

• Dependencies and sequencing are not clearly outlined

• Task assignee backups are not identified

• Due dates are not enforced and reported as issues when missed

• Training plans do not consider testing timelines, and either overlap or do not sequence within a reasonable timeframe

Communication

• Teams are not collaborating or communicating handoffs within and across different groups

• Meeting attendance is sparse and not enforced

• Information is not being shared in a timely manner, leading to "surprises"

• There is no source of truth for where the tasks are in progress, who owns what, and what the current status

Solution

• Design doesn't meet all the business-defined requirements

• There is a significant gap in design that doesn't account for legacy integrations

• The solution has critical bugs that have no feasible workaround

• Testing evidence is not provided and or is not focused on the right scope

Morale

• Blame is being thrown at one another, but no accountability is being taken

• All members of the project core or stakeholders are burned out and disengaged

• Vendors are stalling progress, asking for commercial change orders, and business is stonewalling

• Collaboration is winding down, and information is being withheld and used as a means of control

💡PRO TIP: Remember one critical truth as a project manager. You have no formal authority over the project’s direction. Your role is to surface gaps, recommend mitigations, and guide the process, but the final decisions rest with the business leads and key decision-makers. Your influence comes from clarity, communication, and trust, not control.

Step 4. Address Gaps

Once you've identified what's missing and agreed on how to address the gaps, your next move is to focus on the highest-priority items, those agreed upon by your decision-makers. Lower-priority tasks can be set aside for quieter moments (though expect few at the start). Let the current project context guide your focus, and direct your energy toward actions that will drive the most immediate impact.

Here are some common actions to take:

Strategy

• Work with decision makers and the core team to update the roadmap with clear milestones

• Define and validate exit criteria with the business and decision makers

• Work with business leads, core team, and stakeholders to define and agree on to set of tools to be used for the remainder of the project (include folder structures where needed)

Governance

• Create or update RASCI and get written acknowledgment from at least the decision makers and business leads

• Build a prioritization rubric that defines severity based on impact and magnitude; get sign-off from the business leads and decision makers

• Review the RADIO log (or create one if missing), reprioritize based on current context, recommend mitigations, and align next steps with the business.

Planning

• Meet with workstream leads and SMES and review the task list for sequencing, due dates, and dependencies

• Make sure there is one task owner for each task, who is a designated backup

• Get business sign-off on the new updated plan

Communication

• Set up 2x meeting touchpoints with key cross-functional groups until the project stabilizes

• Set up teams channels or groups for immediate collaboration, make sure there are cross-functional ones for hand-offs, and for immediate questions

• Monitor meeting attendance and, if engagement drops, assess whether timing is a barrier or the agenda lacks perceived value, then adjust accordingly

• Migrate all task data to one source of truth platform for task management (like JIRA)

Solution

• Hold new workshops to review any existing gaps

• If upstream or downstream groups have not been involved in the design or the testing, raise the risk with the business leads and decision makers, and act accordingly

• Document or revise requirements and get business sign-off

• Conduct end-to-end testing, not just testing in pieces, and provide evidence of success

• Prioritize critical defects and bugs; if no resolution is identified, log them in the RADIO as issues with recommended next steps

Morale

• Celebrate wins to build momentum and engagement (leverage reports and daily stand-ups)

• Record any commercial disputes as issues, noting their impact on project continuation, and escalate if unresolved

• Hold 1:1s with team members to get a "pulse"

• Lead by example and start to use collaborative language and defuse hostile situations

💡PRO TIP: As you work through the current gaps, expect new issues to surface; it’s a natural part of stabilizing a distressed project. Use your agreed-upon prioritization rubric to assess and adjust as needed, and always loop in your business leads and stakeholders when new information arises. One common mistake project managers make is failing to adapt to changing context, pouring energy into what used to be the top priority, rather than what matters most now.

What You Do Next Matters Most

Identifying and addressing project gaps is where clarity turns into traction. It’s not enough to recognize what’s broken; you need to take swift, intentional action to rebuild trust, reestablish governance, and restore forward momentum. The decisions you make at this stage will shape how the rest of the project unfolds.

This is where your leadership becomes visible, not by fixing everything at once, but by focusing on what matters most and guiding others through uncertainty with pragmatism and confidence.

🎯Up next: we’ll break down steps 5 and 6, where we shift into real-time execution and reporting. We’ll explore how to keep the project moving under pressure, manage competing priorities, and maintain visibility through focused monitoring and reporting, without getting lost in the noise.

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Pragintion PM, we specialize in navigating ambiguity and high-stakes environments tied to complex initiatives.

Our program & project management services are grounded in a pragmatic, intentional approach delivered through a client-validated methodology that gets results.

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