A sponsor can start a bounded independent diagnosis that recommends stop, salvage, continue, stabilize, restructure, or rebuild-or-refer—without committing to SI takeover or treating a score as qualification.
Project Clarity — Diagnose
Who this is for
Leadership faces material uncertainty on an important technology initiative: status and reality diverge, delivery is slipping or stalled, or a consequential funding/continue decision is pending. You need an evidence-backed view before more spend—not another status deck from the implementer.
Entry check. There must be an answerable sponsor decision and minimum evidence access. Predetermined conclusions, concealed conflicts, or denied access disqualify ordinary Clarity. An unmanaged active production incident is not ordinary diagnosis—incumbent containment (or separately qualified incident coordination) comes first.
Evidence-led review. Agreed sources, interviews, and current-state snapshot within a bounded scope. Unknowns stay unknown; they are not painted green.
Decision brief. Primary deliverable: a Project Health and Decision Brief (executive conclusion, evidence/confidence, critical dependencies, options including pause/stop, recommendation and immediate actions). Supporting extracts as scoped.
Handoff. Recommendation and action owners transfer to the sponsor/delivery owner. Pause or stop can be a successful diagnosis.
Independent diagnosis framing
When the incumbent implementer authors “continue vs stop,” conflict of interest and watermelon reporting (green status / red reality) are common failure modes. Clarity exists so an independent party can force a gates-first, evidence-backed call—without taking over delivery.
Example contexts (not exclusive SKUs): Workday / Oracle Fusion payroll distress, post-go-live remediation, and other troubled technology programs where leadership needs truth before more spend.
Acute Project Management Consulting LLC (Arizona) is not Acute Project Management Consultants Pvt Ltd (Mumbai).
Related educational resources
Assessment checklist + blank Clarity Brief structure: /resources/troubled-technology-project-assessment (https://www.acutepmc.com/resources/troubled-technology-project-assessment)
- Continue / Stabilize / Restructure / Stop / Rebuild decision table: /resources/continue-stabilize-restructure-stop-rebuild (https://www.acutepmc.com/resources/continue-stabilize-restructure-stop-rebuild)
Scores and checklists on those pages are decision-support. They do not qualify a buyer or route to Clarity/Rescue/Recovery.
How to start
Diagnose is a scoped intervention after readiness—not the definition of Acute. There is no public checkout for Clarity right now. Write Andrew.Davenport@acutepmc.com (mailto:Andrew.Davenport@acutepmc.com) to discuss whether a bounded Clarity Diagnose engagement fits.
Next paths after Clarity (human-qualified)
Exit; client self-execute; specialist referral; another bounded diagnosis; or separately qualified Critical Project Rescue — Stabilize or Critical Project Recovery — Lead Recovery. No required upsell.
Contact
Andrew.Davenport@acutepmc.com
Legal: /terms (https://www.acutepmc.com/terms) · /privacy (https://www.acutepmc.com/privacy) · /refund-cancellation (https://www.acutepmc.com/refund-cancellation)
What Clarity is
Project Clarity — Diagnose is an independent diagnostic intervention. Acute answers agreed diagnostic questions, links material findings to sources and confidence, surfaces evidence gaps, compares feasible options (including pause and stop), and recommends next decisions and immediate actions.
Contractual boundary: Acute diagnoses and recommends. Client leadership retains execution. Standalone decision value is required—including options that do not employ Acute again.
What Clarity is not
Not the implementer’s audit or a vendor-filtered “health check”
Not an exhaustive code/config forensic audit by default
Not legal, clinical, or regulated opinion
Not a guarantee of recovery, savings, or preserved deadline
Not automatic conversion to Rescue or Recovery
Not staffing or team augmentation
Not defined by a session micro-fee as the architecture of Acute
Buyer decision Clarity supports
After Clarity, a sponsor should be able to decide—with named owners and dates—among:
Continue under control
Stabilize (bounded operating-system reset with a capable receiver)
Restructure
Stop / controlled wind-down
Rebuild or refer a specialist
Severity describes harm and uncertainty. Intervention describes execution ownership. A high “trouble” signal does not by itself select Rescue or Recovery.