Doomed Projects. When Do You Surrender?
From the The Project Shrink Blog
by Bas de Baar
Bas de Baar is a Dutch visual facilitator, creating visual tools for dialogue. He is dedicated to improve the dialogue we use to make sense of change.
As The Project Shrink, this is the riddle he tries to solve:
“If you are a Project Manager that operates for a short period of time in a foreign organization, with a global team you don’t know, in a domain you would not know, using virtual communication, high uncertainty, limited authority and part of what you do out in the open on the Internet, how do you make it all work?”
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Of course, as a Shrink you get the hard questions. The ones that mainly take place inside the heads of Project Managers. This week I got a question from Dan:
"Dear Project Shrink: I have a used car, that keeps on breaking down. Every time I bring it to the repair shop to get it fixed, I have to pay a huge bill. Every time I think it is the last time, this will be the last mechanical problem that needs fixing. My projects feel the same. When do you know to surrender and give up?"
When you get the early signs of a doomed project, I think it is either time to really turn the course of the ship, or, if you don't succeed, to jump ship. For me personally those early signs have to do with the business intent. If there is no business case, if the business goals for the project are not clearly formulated or if they keep on changing every week, that is for me a huge sign of doom.
Time, money and scope may fluctuate, but only if there is a clear vision of business value. Decisions about changes in the iron triangle components can only be validated against business value. No clear value, no way to validate what done looks like. Doom! Doom I say. It is like your used car; no way to validate if the added cost is worth the investment.
Other signs of trouble can be found in the people surrounding the project. Stakeholders that are reluctant to commit. Oof. After a motivational speech of the sponsor where everyone is applauding the beloved leader, go to the water cooler and listen what people are saying ("That will never work!"). If you find your entire team making references to the pointy haired boss from Dilbert, you either talk to them to change their attitude, or you pack your bags.
Operating in a culture of blame, where more time is spent playing office politics than actually performing tasks, is also a beacon of doom. Open communication and honesty is a success for any projects, except when an honest statement is used to really shoot the messenger.
When do you surrender?
When you are up into your ears in signals of doom, and see no clues into addressing them properly.
I am very curious about your answers to this question?
If you have another question you would like to discuss, please send an email to: [email protected].
Posted on: May 25, 2010 08:14 AM |
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Comments (5)
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Hi Simon, great article. I especially like your recommendation to start with talking to all involved. Yes, it is very important to get to know the expectations from every one before proceeding. And yes, as always, it depends. Although? Some patterns seem to be universal. It's your stomach that will tell you a lot :)
MICHAEL MCGARRITY
PLANNING DIRECTOR| MINNESOTA DEPARMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES
Saint Paul, Mn, United States
Success
I have had to do this quite a bit over time and it took me many years of head banging to find it's best for all involved including me to jump on this right away.
When a Project is not going to my expectations despite best efforts; I take a pause, do a formal project assessment and recommendation for change, first draft includes my own observations and conclusions, second includes input from interviews with key stakeholders and a third party Project Manager if possible.
This report goes to the Sponsor and Owner and other stakeholder groups such as Steering Committee or PMO or Architecture/Portfolio Governance group for sign off/decision.
Sometimes a project needs: to be put on hold as the organization has over committed key resources to operations or other projects, or the level of business/technical analysis is insufficient or flawed and the entire idea needs to be rethought or is no longer relevant, othert times such politics involved with great change create tremendous competition for the new world territory to come and drain all the fun and energy out of everyone.
It is such a pleasure to be part of the creative process as a Project Manager with a team pumped up with the secret sauce that Simon cites. In such a healthy state our teams can overcome great challenges.
While I'm all for a good fight for a good cause, there comes a time to throw in the towel and disengage or jump ship as you may in toxic environments, for there is plenty of work to do and good people to do it with.
Thank you all for the topic, wise comments and forum for sharing.
All the best!
Michael
Hi Michael,
Thanks for emphasizing to take a step back and pause. Reflect and make things better. Throwing the towel is a drastic and final option. But always better than burning yourself up.
Cheers
Bas
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