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10 Signs That You Should Give Up on Your Project

November 20, 2008 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Project Management Musings

10 Signs That You Should Give Up on Your Project
By Karine Simard

Project management is not just about getting projects from beginning to end. It is also about recognizing when to cancel a project, cut your losses and stop wasting time and resources. In my experience, here are the ten most important signs that the project cannot be completed. When I have more than five of those signs on a project, I start seriously thinking about cancelling it.

  1. No one caresThere might have been a lot of enthusiasm about your project at the start, but now priorities have shifted and your project seems to be on the back burner. If you do not have management’s buy-in for your project anymore, it is time to start asking questions. If your product or service is no longer valuable, what is the point of delivering it? It might be better to cancel this project and work on something that means more to your organization or your client.

  2. No end in sight

    The project seems to have no end. Its deadline keeps being pushed back – often when resources are removed from your project and affected to other, more important projects. Sometimes, a technical issue bottlenecks the entire project. When a 6-month project is becoming a multi-year endeavor, something is wrong. Maybe people care less and less about the project. Maybe your project team needs help. You should sit down with your project sponsor and explore ways to stop the dates from slipping. If delivery dates are not important to the sponsor or the client, project cost should be a good argument to stop the slippage. Projects with no end cost money with no profit in sight.

  3. Risk deadlock

    Risk analysis always seems a little esoteric to project sponsors and clients. However, when an important risk needs to be managed, it is essential to have their buy-in. Some clients want to reduce risk as much as possible, at no cost. Sometimes that is not possible. It is your responsibility as the project manager to refuse to take on a project with unreasonable risks and no adequate response plans. After all, you must remember that you are accountable for managing those risks. There is no point going in a cave with a bear if all you have to defend yourself is a pocketknife.

  4. Throwing more resources at the problem only makes it worse

    When projects have problems; it seems the first response is to add resources to the project. Think of the saying: “too many cooks spoil the soup.”If your project’s problem has to do with the QA process, throwing money and people at it will not solve it. Beware of clients and sponsors who have one solution for every problem. If you cannot get the means to solve your project’s problem, cancelling the project surely will solve them.

  5. The client cannot be satisfied

    Clients can be a very good source of frustration in a project, especially at delivery time. Some clients will change their mind from the time they approve scope and specifications and the time they see a prototype of the product. Be very careful with clients that will delay deliverable sign-off with details and last-minute changes. It gets to a point where the resources required to satisfy last-minute ideas eat up all the profit of a project. If there is no way to satisfy the client, you should consider stopping the project and delivering the product as defined in the scope and requirements. And be sure to keep that client’s history in the records!

  6. Stakeholder of the week

    It is a challenge to manage stakeholders in any project, but it is even more difficult in organizations with a lot of movement. However, when your stakeholders change every week, it is a warning sign that project scope and requirements will change at an alarming rate too. Projects that change stakeholders too often, especially at the client and sponsor levels, are impossible to manage. It is normal to have new stakeholders join the project, but it is not normal to find a new one every week. If you cannot stabilize stakeholder movement, be weary of this project, it may end up with no one caring about it, or no end in sight.

  7. Requirements change so much you cannot keep up

    This is one of my pet peeves. I would rather spend a lot of time getting the project scope and requirements rights before I get my team working, than have everybody backtrack on their work because of a new requirement that popped up suddenly. It is normal to have minor requirement and scope changes as the project progresses. However, if you get a feel that requirements are less stable than today’s stock markets, you are better to completely stop the project and redo the requirements document.

  8. The original project charter has nothing to do with what you are doing now

    Every once in a while, reread your project charter. When you cannot see how your project fits with its charter, it is time to stop everything and reconsider.

  9. Too much money involved

    If the only reason to continue with a project is that too much money has been invested in it to cancel the project, then its high time you cancel it. You cannot recover sunk costs, but you can keep them from growing. If the project is not working and you cannot see your team successfully delivering the product, stop everything. Now.

  10. Your own gut feeling

    This is my number one sign. As we gain experience, we refine our instincts. When your gut feeling about a project is bad, listen to it. Take time to analyze the project in detail and verify the facts support your instincts.

About the author:

Karine Simard has 10 years of experience in project management in the marketing and product development fields. Karine is the Director of Marketing for Websystems inc., and its flagship product, AceProject. She is also the pen behind the blog Go Ahead, Manage, where she writes about the life of a small company in the great world of project management software: from marketing to product management, software development… and project management, of course.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, November 20th, 2008 and is filed under Project Management Musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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