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One State Governor (not Illinois) is pushing a project that we all know is doomed. But it's his baby and he is ignoring expert objections. One local politician (of his party) lost his party endorsement when he opposed the project openly - so all the rest are keeping quiet. So multi-millions of dollars are doomed to go down the drain ....

Posted by Mike L at March 23, 2007 10:24 PM

What about projects that fail because people who work in them believe it will fail...?

Posted by G Salcido at March 23, 2007 11:35 PM

There's no point in speaking out against bad projects, the best that can happen is that your line manager will agree with you, and then do nothing. The worst is...

No, that's wrong. The best thing that can happen is that you'll be encouraged to find a position better suited to your talents and abilities. The worst is that you'll be blamed for not being a team player.

The department I work in is being steadly trashed by a managment team that is constantly being told that they're making the wrong choices. Moral is bad enough that relatively new employees (>7 months) are getting disgruntled, and every employee over that time IS disgruntled.

And still the beatings continue.

It's so bad that my manager basically made me a deal--stick around through the birth of my son, and try to find something else within the company while doing a TOI to the newhires--I was just going to leave (taking a considerable amount of knowlege with me). This after being one of the top producers in the previous 2 months.

So you go a year or two like this, and then almost ANY project is going to be a failure--the people you have left in your organization are timeservers, bureacrats and the marginal. Not really bad enough to fire (especially in a state where that is difficult), but someone who's "exceptional best" is the definition of medocrity.

And as G. points out a bad attitude doesn't help things.

My attitude? I do my best. Always everywhere. Some days my best is better than others, some days it's worse. If you choose not to reward that, if you don't even bother to ask, much less listen, then it's your loss, not mine.

It's a big economy out there, lots of jobs.

Posted by Billy Oblivion at March 24, 2007 12:19 AM

early in my business, I would get a few clients whose projects I knew would fail. I've since learned not to take such clients on (it makes for a disappointing end result for both parties) but there's one from my early days who still 'hangs on' a bit--this person is always looking for the next big break, is unfocused, and every 5 months or so comes to me with the hopes that I'll jump on the next bandwagon of theirs that never gets seen through. I've dealt with this of late by raising my rates to this person ;)

I do tell prospective clients who are unfocused or whose projects are unlikely to succeed that I'm not a good fit for them, and sometimes I will disclose the problems i see with their business or project. It's a delicate thing, though--that kind of transparency. It's even more delicate, I would imagine, for employees who believe their monthly paychecks and potential raises may be dependent on them NOT rocking the boat.

I'm with Billy, though...do your best, always. My own successes have come partially through speaking up when others would not. Employers and clients really benefit the most from fresh thinking -- not "yes men."

Posted by reese at March 24, 2007 1:35 AM

Val,
I know what you're talking about. But what about those projects that do succeed inspite of the fact that many people did think that they were doomed from the start? And I agree with G Salcido that there are several that fail simply because people who work there believe it will fail.

Posted by Mohit Bhushan at March 24, 2007 4:47 AM

About ten years ago I was involved in road-testing a new way of doing projects called Design4Excellence. We enabled teams to articulate their individual uncertainties about their project... which led in some cases to a three week death-process (about a year shorter than the conventional process). Post-project interviews revealed that individuals in the team felt they had to deliver something because what would they do to deliver to market in the first quarter 199* if they killed it? Why? No visibility of really great ideas/concepts that were waiting in line to be worked on. In the words of Emile Chartier, Philosopher “Nothing is more dangerous than an idea when it is the only one you have.” The cure was to improve the front end collection, communication and visibility of ideas just waiting to "Feed the Funnel".

Posted by Jim Rait at March 24, 2007 5:27 AM

What worries me more than projects that fail is the ones that sort of succeed - usually by the efforts of a few people working their guts out to compensate for poor planning and execution

Then the BS kicks into over drive hyping the success way beyond reality. In that environment it is very difficult to look clearly at what worked and what didn't. I am very much with Col. Boyd in wanting examine what went right and what went wrong and learning to do things better next time.

Posted by PaulH at March 24, 2007 6:41 AM

Honesty is possibly the single most important contributing factor to the success of any project or endeavor. I like how you worked the great importance of the human element into the post. The ability for a project team to speak honestly = valuable insight into the informal culture (dynamic) at work among team members and the corporation for which they work.

Posted by Ed Rybczysnki at March 24, 2007 10:40 AM

It is important to distinguish between projects that many people don't understand, projects that "the" team doesn't buy, and project that just give that nasty feeling of death.

AND - it's important to differentiate between who "people" are. Stakeholders? Team members? Sensationalizing bystanders? Not everyone's feelings matter.

Then, we must differentiate amongst doubt, ambiguity, and a clearly visible failure.

Finally, "the team" has to buy the project - and contribute to it. Over reasonable time, the team turns ambiguity into reality.

Posted by Ramla A. at March 24, 2007 11:46 PM

I'd be hesitant to put much faith in these numbers. The research consists of an online survey with less than 500 repondents. I can't find any information on the site about how the research was conducted.

Posted by Wally Bock at March 25, 2007 3:45 PM

I too was suspicious of the numbers from the survey. But, I don't think that was the point of the posting. Who is willing to be a whistleblower and who is not? Why do some speak up? What kind of culture keeps honesty at a minimum? I liked the five points brought up on the web site under "solutions." Especially the praise for early adopters. We are not afraid to fail at a project because we're out front and working to find solutions. Also, we embark with purpose (and within reason) on projects that the culture says is dubious. I'd rather try and fail and then try again than sit on my hands. But, where I work, I'm "allowed" to do that and I'm fortunate. I think I work with many early adopters. I've noted that conversations among the early adopters where I work always seem to be held at a whisper....

Posted by Doug Mitchell at March 25, 2007 8:47 PM

To paraphrase (mangle?) Shakespeare: "The honest man fights only for the lost cause, recognizing all others to be mere effects." It's easy to be a whistle blower. Forget all that bunk about how hard it is to be honest in certain company cultures. That kind of "honesty" is akin to the person who verbally abuses you then states they are "just being honest." The hard part of life and work is to try to save something that has merit even in the face of an organization full of people who realize "dooming" something is easier than breathing life into it. Beware the doomsayers, because most are just lazy.

Posted by Mike at March 26, 2007 7:40 AM

Ed Rybczysnki nailed it - "Honesty is possibly the single most important contributing factor to the success of any project or endeavor." Honesty is clearly the missing element in these situations.

I'm a little bit surprised nobody mentioned The Abilene Paradox yet... dishonest silence in the face of certain failure is what that book is all about.

Jerry Harvey is a true master, and he explains that our main problem in organizations is not how to handle conflict, but how to handle agreement... particularly when we are outwardly agreeing to support something we (all!) inwardly disagree with.

Posted by Dan Ward at March 26, 2007 7:56 AM

Dan--isn't that about something that should not be done rather than something that is not going well, i.e. failing? A project that should not be undertaken is not necessarily going to fail, and that's where the honesty comes in. If something is worthwhile but failing, people have a tendency to let it die, all the while claiming they could have told us it would never work, etc. Failure of this type is akin to the doomsayers about Iraq. Our effort their must be a failure because it did not meet their preconceived notions of how it would go. Instead of doing everything possible to help ensure success, those "honest" types just keep yammering about how it's such a dismal failure and it's time to drop the whole thing.

BTW Dan, congratulations on the new book.

Posted by Mike at March 26, 2007 9:00 AM

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It seems to me that we all need to walk that fine line between being honest about when we see a project failing AND (as Mike and others point out) being one of the naysayers whose gloom dooms a project from the outset. In my experience, the projects that failed have always been the ones that were going to solve all problems, be all things to all men and women, and make everybody happy.The projects that succeeded were those with more modest goals and where the smaller scope provided more opportunity for mid-course corrections - and gave us opportunities for small victories. On smaller projects, it's also easier to shut up the doom-sayers.

Posted by Maureen Rogers at March 26, 2007 9:46 AM

Good question, Mike.

What I got from the Abilene Paradox is that it's really about honesty & courage within organizations. The video version highlights a series of situations, including an ongoing project that everyone knows is doomed to fail but nobody says it out loud. They excuse their behavior by saying things like "I know it's impossible, but Joe has invested so much effort into it..." The book is fantastic, and the video is definitely worth watching too (if you can find it).

The "worthwhile-but-failing" scenario also benefits from honesty and courage, of course!

(Thanks for the note about my book - I'm really happy with how it came out!)

Posted by Dan Ward at March 27, 2007 8:54 AM

Maureen - great comments! I'm a proponent of projects that are FIST: Fast, Inexpensive, Simple and Tiny, and you described the attributes of FIST projects very well!

They tend to underpromise and overdeliver. They don't set out to solve all the world's problems, they don't have huge budgets (and so avoid being cut when other projects overrun), and thanks to a cannonball-schedule, they present a very small window of opportunity for anyone to throw stones at it. FIST projects either succeed or fail before many naysayers have a chance to cast their negative (self-fulfilling) prophesies.... and the FIST team then moves on, applying whatever lessons they might have learned...

Posted by Dan Ward at March 27, 2007 8:58 AM

I have a copy of a very old download from Tom's site that formed the basis of the first step that we believed we should take after the first gate> in the innovation funnel...Ideas>feasibility>capability>prepare to launch>launch>post-launch feedback. That is after the ideas>feasibility gate. We called it Project challenge based on the WOW Project Reframer which asked you to fill in
GOAL:
IMPACTED: WILL AFFECT......>BECAUSE
BIG PICTURE
5 WAYS THIS PROJECT WILL BE REMEMBERED
DELIVERABLES: REQUESTED......> IDEAL?COOL?SEXY
and so on.
What we were doing was saying "Yes this is the project you gatekeepers feel is worth resourcing but we people who have to do the work of delivering it feel it will be better if......
Done in the right way with the right CO-CONSPIRATORS/ ADVISORS the doom projects can be exposed and, more importantly a more important replacement can be slid onto the stage in place of it. All it takes is good storytelling!!

Posted by Jim Rait at March 27, 2007 6:04 PM

I think the OLPC project is surely a doomed project. What do you think? Check this out:
http://blog.amusecorp.com/index.html/86

Posted by Vasu Srinivasan at March 31, 2007 2:32 PM

I have learned through experience that when I see my organization's chief product failing, it's time to leave. I think I've finally mastered the art of not waiting till the place goes bankrupt...

Posted by Jane at April 23, 2007 6:00 AM

This might very well be the stupidest comment I have ever read. Of course every project that matters is “doomed”. Projects are all about change, and change only happens with leadership, vision and tenacity. “An object at rest stays at rest”. When you are trying to make a genuine change (ie: a change that is worth a damn) the world is going to fight you every step of the way. All the experts will tell you your idea is doomed for a thousand different (entirely rational sounding but probably bullshit) reasons, and all the silly little people of the status quo with smirk, sneer and snicker at you for trying to knock them off their perch. The only projects that everyone knows will succeed up front are the ones that don’t matter. If you are not at least 80% certain that what you are doing is going to go down in flames, then you are wasting your life on pointless crap.

Posted by John Gregor at June 20, 2007 8:51 PM