In my 30 year career, I have been put into many new situations within different industries ranging from projects that had gotten into the ditch, businesses that were failing, to forming new operations. The following simple, three-step process has served me well in determining what to focus on and in what order:
Find out where the organization is bleeding:
Having major quality/operational/service issues
Having major cash flow problems
Having a major customer dissatisfied and about to leave you
Having high turnover of key employees
2. Find out where you are behind:
Budgets
Projects
3. Establish where you are going and get the organization aligned around it:
Mission
Vision
Core values
Strategy
Succinctness and simplicity are what make the above approach so powerful and effective. Indeed, everyone quickly understood what I was focusing on and, more importantly, provided me with the insight I needed to get to the heart of the issues and address them.