Before beginning the health check process there needs to be time to communicate the purpose of the exercise to the stakeholders. The process must have the buy-in and commitment of all involved to deliver the correct outcome. The health check process needs to be communicated as an educational exercise providing a breakdown of the current status of the projects or programmes. The outcome should be a better understanding of what’s going well and if there is any need for improvement.

Request and review key documents for each of the projects (Vision Statement, Project Charter, Scope, etc). Complete the checklist (or use survey) using three key participants from each of the projects. The participants should be the executive sponsor, the major stakeholder and a project team member.

Present results of the Health Check, both as a a dashboard and a report. The report will detail projects that are healthy and those exhibiting signs of potential project disease (poor communications, incomplete scope, etc). The report will also provide commentary on the current status of the projects which may not be apparent through normal status reporting.

Consider what actions are necessary in light of details contained in the report and the information available from the health check dashboard. Are there areas for example, where processes need improvement or greater adherence to process to increase the chance of project success? In addition are there practices that need to be avoided?