As part of B821, I recently read a paper called ‘Why bad projects are so hard to kill’, (Isabelle Royer, [1]). It contains a summary of research into projects that had significant warning signs that something was wrong and were still continued for a long time, causing huge monetary losses. It resonated with some of my experiences, and I bet most of you have come across these types of projects, too. I’ll share key points of the paper with you, and some of my own thoughts on the subject.
Why do you think can projects that clearly are failures (and there are visible signals about that) just go on and on and on, burning money for nothing? ……… Some of my own first thoughts around this were lack of management oversight or too much bureaucracy as the other extreme.
However, research done by Mrs Royer showed the following: The main reason is the managers’ rock-solid belief in the ultimate success of ‘their’ projects. Championed by highly influential persons, this is then reinforced within the organisation, often resulting in collective belief (and blindness).
Royer describes a few real-world cases where this happened, one example being a lense-manufacturer with many warning signs about quality problems and serious issues revealed in the pilot test. Still, the company went ahead and built expensive production facilities and starts with trial manufacturing, while continuing research. Customer’s responses are largely negative. The new production line gets pushed and pushed further, despite low sales and issues with FDA testing. Ten years later, and after more than 50m USD spent, research and production is brought to a halt.
As part of the solution for these cases she suggests:
“Just as companies celebrate and recount stories of the great successes of product champions, they could perhaps identify and spread tales of courageous exit champions in their midst […] who saved their organizations millions of dollars.”
In most corporate cultures, heroes get born when pushing through complicated projects against many odds. It is often higher regarded to continue fighting an already lost battle than to say ‘nope, never going to fly’. I think you can observe this kind of behavior particularly technology-driven companies.
Adding to these cultural issues are reporting line / hierarchical considerations: In most cases, project champions are in top positions, and who are you to tell them they’re wrong?
How would this exit champion role look like? Royer suggests they are a similar type of person like the project champions. What distinguishes them is that they don’t just ask questions about the project, its status and outlook, but actively seek for evidence that something is wrong, and act on it. It is important to acknowledge the importance of both the project champion and the exit champion’s role and keep them in a good balance.
Have you seen this type of project? Where there early warning signs, and which ones? Would it have helped to have such an ‘exit champion’? I welcome your comments!
A reading recommendation on a related topic for German Readers: See the article “Wann gibt es endlich eine Zertifizierung von Managern”.
I’ll follow up soon on this topic: What medicine has Project Management theory in the cupboard against these ‘bad projects’? And, be brave, what to do if YOU are the one who gets appointed as the unfortunate PM in such a project!
[1] Harvard Business Review, from “Why Bad Projects Are So Hard To Kill”, Isabelle Royer, Issue 8/12 February 2003. Copyright 2003 by the Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation; all rights reserved. Available online.
