ROBERT J.R. GRAHAM: 7 Reasons To Kill A Project

by: Ron Rosenhead

At what point do you kill off a project?

That is the question posed on a recent 2 day project management training event we ran for a client. It’s a great question and I suggested that the group think carefully about the answer. They broke the project management training course into groups and after some time they came up with some interesting ideas. They may not be specific to your situation, but they were to this group. So, when do you kill a project:

1) when the project has formally ended i.e. all the deliverables have been accepted by the client and the project formally closed. The group agreed that the post project review would check the level of client satisfaction

2) when it is obvious that the project will not deliver against the original business case

3) when the project is so over budget that you are simply pouring money into a sinking hole

4) when key stakeholders object to or clearly do not buy into the project and without them, the project will clearly not succeed.

5) when the project does not fit with the overall strategy of the company. This was met with total unanimity by the group who felt their organisation did too many projects and not all fitted into the company strategy

6) when risks are so high that too continue would impact negatively on the company – financial, publicity, health and safety were cited here

7) when you have delivered 80% of the project. People felt that to deliver the other 20% often meant 80% more time and the return on investment was not worth it

Interestingly, no one in the group had ever been involved in abandoning a project, as a project manager, team manager or a sponsor!

A common cry from people who attend our project management training events is that there are too many projects, not all will be delivered, and not all fit the strategy of the company. How many project have you stopped or to put it another way; how many need to be killed?

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