Killing a project which is based on a good idea can be difficult but with a little effort it can done. Below are some simple solutions which should go a long way towards ensuring that a world changing idea never sees the light of day.
1. Lead By Confusion.
Try to ensure that project goals are ill defined, avoid defining success criteria, ensure that dates and budgets are unclear. The lack of a concrete structure at the start allows for infighting and the possibility of burying the project in change controls. With this method you’ve created a myriad of potential stumbling blocks for your project.
2. Castrate The Project Management.
Obviously not appointing a project manager is a very effective method of killing a project but since most organisations are now aware of this, you’ll have to try another approach. Appoint a project manager and then either don’t empower them or allow ‘snipers’ to operate. This will ensure that your project manager will spend their time worrying about, seeking approval for or defending every decision. These distractions will mean that time for planning and contributing to the project will be severely reduced.
3. Appoint A Dictator Not A Manager.
This is opposite of the solution above. With a mix of arrogance and total autonomy a project dictator can ride rough shod over client requirements and ensure that only their vision is delivered. As bonus, a project dictator can act as a great motivation killer by antagonising team members and clients alike.
4. Allow The Project To Be A Political Battleground.
Fill your project team with individuals involved in an ongoing personal dispute or a struggle for position. This will ensure that nothing meaningful is achieved without considerable effort.
* Obviously the use of a weak project manager can enhance the problem by ensuing that no one can act as referee.
5. Use External Forces.
By allowing external influences to dominate you can create doubt within the team. If you start the project as a reaction to the market you can then ask the team to constantly abandon plans and following trends until the budget is exhausted. You also use both rumours and actual developments in the market to criticise the speed, cost and quality of the project, thereby lower morale.
6. Allow ‘Bean Counters’ To Dictate
By setting the budget prior to defining the scope the project, you can severely limit the creativity employed. It can also ensure disunity in the team by creating an opportunity for disputes over the allocation of limited resources. Obviously the effect can be enhanced by ensuring that you get involved in ‘penny pinching’ at every stage of the project.
7. Allow ‘Fundamentalists’* To Dictate
By giving fundamentalists a free hand you can ensure that the balance of the project is skewed in such a way as to ensure that the final output is less than desirable. For example, allow technologists to define the project and you can end up with system that is more focused on ‘sexy’ technology than usability. Lawyers may deliver systems so bogged down in regulations that they are impractical to use. Sales may want a system so far ahead of what’s possible that it’s impossible to deliver.
* Fundamentalist in this case means any individual who has an unhealthy commitment to any particular area or idea.
8. Carry on Regardless.
You need to ensure that your team has a juggernaut mentality, nothing should divert them from their course. Obstacles like a failing project or changes in the market should not be allowed to encroach on how the team is working. This is best achieved by ensuring the team is rewarded on meeting targets set at the start of the project and by ensuring that these targets are not based on business goals but on delivering a package.
9. Ensure That The Team Remains Suitably Demotivated.
There are numerous ways to ensure that this happens, the more obvious being constant complaining regarding scope, budget and timelines. Introducing a never ending supply of change controls in which minor changes require major reworking is effective, particularly if these changes are the result of a whim. In addition to the obvious demotivators try some of the more subtle methods such as ensuring that senior management remain distanced from the project and therefore never offer support, cast doubt in the teams mind by comparing the project to what your competitors may be doing, try mentioning that the project’s future is in doubt because of some vague external influence.
10. When All Else Fails Strike At The Heart.
Every project needs resources (time, people, money) removing them will kill the project but then the person who removed the resource is responsible. A more discrete method is required so make resources fluctuate, recall team members to operational duty at critical times, withhold some of the budget until next financial year or ask for early delivery of part of the project. Used at the proper time, this will cause the project to stall and hopefully collapse but the instigator can hide the behind the protective cloak of commercial or operational necessity.
11. Throw In A Surprise At The End
I know that this article is entitled ’10 ways to kill a project’ but extending the scope of the project near the end is always a nice way to demoralise a team.
There are many more ways to kill a project but trying all or any of the above will ensure that you get off to a great start in ensuring that your projects end badly. Obviously you could chose to avoid these circumstances if you want your project to end well.
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