Continue, cut back or stop — the audit prices all three before anyone decides.
The starting point
Most ERP projects that get into difficulty show the same early signs: delays against the original project plan, budgets exceeding what was approved, and the growing sense that the original project goals can hardly be achieved.
At that point the worst move is to keep adding resources without an independent view of where the project actually stands. More people and a later go-live date do not answer the question management is facing, and they raise the cost of every option that follows.
A rescue review sits alongside the work we do in ERP project management and it always ends in numbers: what continuing costs from here, what stopping costs and where the ERP cost exposure actually sits.
A quick read before you spend a meeting on it. If most of this matches your situation, a recovery audit is worth scoping — if it does not, we will say so.
The project is behind the original plan and the delays are compounding
The approved budget is exceeded or forecast to be
Confidence inside the team that the original goals will be met is falling
The implementation partner is reviewing its own work
Access to your stakeholders and project staff for the fact check
The project documentation as it stands
A few days of commitment from your side
Openness to all three outcomes — including a stop
THE QUESTIONS THAT DECIDE IT
Eight questions decide whether a project continues, continues in part or stops. Each one has to be answered with evidence rather than opinion.
These are the questions the recovery audit answers — with your stakeholders, not about them.
Dreher is not the implementation partner and does not resell software, so the audit has no preferred outcome. We are not defending earlier decisions, and we do not earn more if the project continues. That matters, because the honest answer is sometimes to stop — and that answer only exists in practice if someone has priced it.
Management gets three costed scenarios and a recommendation that follows from them, rather than a revised plan built on the assumptions that produced the problem.
An independent fact check with you, your stakeholders and your project staff — in a commitment of a few days.
Where the project actually stands: progress against plan, budget consumed, scope delivered, and what the people in the project say when someone independent asks.
Output · status pictureThree scenarios are worked through and priced: continuing with the complete project scope, partial continuation of project parts and a complete project stop.
Output · three costed scenariosManagement receives a clear recommendation with risk statements — a foundation to decide on recovery or termination, not a plan that assumes continuation.
Output · decision basisFor a continuation: a clear roadmap, milestone-focused project management and user-acceptance measures. For a stop: an orderly wind-down that protects what has been built.
Output · roadmap or wind-downIndependent ERP consulting to establish where the project really stands.
Progress measured against the implementation plan, not the mood in the steering committee.
Recovery or termination, with the costs of both.
For continuation or for an orderly termination.
What can still go wrong on the chosen path.
Whether the people who must work with the system still stand behind the project.
What management receives
The recovery audit ends in a document your management team can act on. Each scenario is priced before anyone argues for it.
Continue in fullThe remaining cost of reaching the original goal, the risks that stay on the table and the measures the plan now depends on.
Continue in partWhich parts of the project can be saved, what each is worth to the business and what an orderly reduction in scope costs.
StopThe cost of discontinuation, what has been built that is worth keeping and how a wind-down protects it.
For 15 years we have been working with Dreher Consulting on various tasks in the context of process optimisation. We have achieved all our goals
Honest answers about what a recovery audit assesses, how long it takes and what happens when the answer is to stop.
Answers by:
Dr. Harald Dreher
Founder · Dreher Consulting
Since 1992 he has reviewed ERP projects in difficulty for Mittelstand companies — independent of the implementation partner, with no software revenue behind the recommendation.
Profile · Last updated: 26 August 2026
An ERP project rescue is an independent assessment of a troubled ERP implementation. Schedule, budget, scope and acceptance are reviewed by consultants with no stake in the original implementation, and three scenarios are priced: continuing with the complete project scope, partial continuation, or a complete stop. The output is a costed decision basis for management, not a revised plan.
When the project is behind the original plan and the delays are compounding, the approved budget is exceeded or forecast to be, and confidence inside the team that the original goals will be met is falling. The clearest signal is the reflex to add resources without an independent view of where the project actually stands.
A few days of fact-finding with your stakeholders and project staff. The review establishes progress against the implementation plan, budget consumed and scope delivered, then prices the three scenarios. The commitment is deliberately short, because management needs a decision basis before more money follows the original assumptions.
Yes. Partial continuation is one of the three scenarios the audit prices. Some project parts carry enough value and enough acceptance to be worth finishing, while others cost more to complete than they return. Naming which is which, and costing both, is the substance of the scenario assessment.
A costed basis to continue, cut back or stop — from consultants with no stake in the original implementation.
The full initial consultation with Dr Harald Dreher or the senior partner managing the account. Aim: to clarify the decision-making situation — not to recommend a system.
Book the call →Whether taking on the mandate makes sense. If we're not the right people for the job, we'll say so.
Book a short call →Where you stand. Next step — not a sales pitch.
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