• Home
  • Agile Services
  • Scaled Agile
  • Delivery
  • Consulting
  • Capability Uplift
  • Training
  • Services

PM Partners

  • What We Do
  • Success Stories
  • Insights
  • Resources
    • Capability Hub
    • eBooks & White papers
    • Checklists & Infographics
  • Contact
  • Training Courses

    TRAINING DELIVERY

    • Course List
    • Group Training
    • Course Schedule
    • eLearning Courses
    • Specials and Promos

    LEARNING PATHWAYS

    • Scrum and Agile
    • Project and Programme
    • Business Analysis

    MOST POPULAR

    • Scrum Master Certified (SMC™)
    • Agile Project Management
    • PRINCE2®
    • Project Management Fundamentals
    • Business Analysis Fundamentals
    • Leading SAFe® 5.1

    POPULAR PAGES

    • Corporate in-house training
    • Training reinvented
    • Training schedule
    • Room hire
  • Project Delivery
  • Project Management Consultants
  • Agile Services
  • Scaled Agile
  • Capability Uplift
  • Home
  • Insights
  • Beware the ‘Zombie Project’
May 22, 2022

Beware the ‘Zombie Project’

Beware the ‘Zombie Project’

Wednesday, 01 January 2020 / Published in Uncategorised

A zombie project is a project that refuses to die, no matter what goes wrong.

Need more information to spot the un-dead in your project portfolio? Here’s how Tech Republic[1] defines it:

“…an initiative that lost its way and careened out of control, but, due to the difficulties associated with admitting failure, limped on for years, wasting resources and careers along the way.”

Yikes — wasting careers!

No one wants that to happen. Here are several ways you can make sure ‘zombie’ projects stay away for good, no garlic necklaces required:

Always Ask Why

A Girl’s Guide to Project Management[2] implores you to always consider the power of “why”:

“Like the zombies in films, they are mindless,” blogger Elizabeth Harrin writes. “The project managers and the teams leading them don’t ask the basic question – why? Why should we do it like this? Why are we doing this project at all? If these projects can’t be rescued and turned into something useful, they should be closed. After all, they are sucking up valuable resources that could be put to better use working on something else.”

Beware the Small Successes

A 2017 Forbes article[3] rightly points out that if zombie projects were truly DOA, someone probably would have acted already.

“The more insidious zombie projects trundle along indefinitely, hitting the narrow milestones they require to keep going but failing on strategic objectives. They have enough life in them to be a drain on the organisation’s resources, but they never have any real possibility of becoming a driver of profit and growth,” the article goes.

Don’t be OK with Mediocrity

This is the sly cousin to the zombie project that succeeds at small but ultimately inconsequential milestones: the overall “mediocre” project. Ultramarathoner and entrepreneur Joel Runyon forces projects out of the mediocre zone with something he calls a “time bomb”[4] Here’s the text of the exploding deadline pledge he makes to himself:

If _______________ (project name) doesn’t achieve  _______________ (directly measurable metric of success) by __/__/____ (specific date less than 6 months in the future), _______________ (project name) automatically shuts down. I’ll cease future work on it and the automatic consequence of goes into effect and I have to shoot my project in the face (figuratively) and walk away.

Tough love in action.

Know the Stakes Can Get Really, Really High

Low-level failure can be scary enough, but in case that’s not enough, it might help to remember there are those true high-profile failures, some of which could have sprung from the records of zombie projects someone should have killed a while back.

  • A $110 million Integrated National Crime Information System. Abandoned in 1999 at $40 million over budget.
  • TiVo’s non-working Caspa download service.
  • The government’s $1.35 billion contribution to ultra-fast broadband with few connections to show for it.

Now that you’re armed with enough knowledge to keep zombie projects at bay in the future, don’t forget you still may have to hit the kill switch in the present. What’s the best way to do that:

    • Don’t equate shutting down a project with failure. It takes courage to make this call.Tweet: Don’t equate shutting down a project with failure. It takes courage to make this call. https://ctt.ec/sxMC9+ [@PMPartners]
  • Document learnings. Every stumble is an opportunity to share wisdom.Tweet: Document learnings. Every stumble is an opportunity to share wisdom. https://ctt.ec/8l8TN+ [@PMPartners] Don’t sweep all you’ve discovered under a rug. Pay it forward.
  • Keep perspective. At the end of the day, no one is perfect. That goes for you and your team. If you feel yourself getting too emotional, enlist someone outside of the project to help you make the call.

Above all, know that despite their ultra-scary name, zombie projects can be useful wake-up calls for vigilance and that’s always a fantastic (and living) reminder to heed.

Our Portfolio Management and Governance services help you maximise the value of your projects and programmes. We provide a holistic view of all project and programme work, analyse value, priority, capacity and capability to enable key decisions.

Contact us today on 1300 70 13 14.

[1] https://www.techrepublic.com/blog/tech-decision-maker/develop-an-it-project-recovery-plan/
[2] https://www.girlsguidetopm.com/zombie-projects-and-how-to-kill-them/
[3]https://www.forbes.com/sites/workday/2017/07/05/when-killing-a-zombie-project-is-the-best-way-forward/#bc094ca59684
[4] https://impossiblehq.com/how-to-kill-a-project/

What you can read next

Project Portfolio Management
PMI® PMP® Certification – Benefits For You & Your Organisation
Portfolio Management… Is it just doing the ‘right’ programmes & projects?

GENERAL ENQUIRY
1300 70 13 14

CONTACT US
Send a message

FOLLOW US

Subscribe for industry news and insights
Registered Project Management Education Provider

PM-Partners group is a DASA training partner, a Project Management Institute (PMI)® Global Registered Education Provider (R.E.P), an APMG-International Accredited Training Organisation (ATO), an AXELOS Certified Partner, an accredited partner of PeopleCert (Partner ID: 3800), an Endorsed Education Provider™ (EEP™) for the International Institute for Business Analysis™ (IIBA®), a Scaled Agile Silver Partner and a Microsoft® EPM Solution Partner. PMI, CAPM, Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM), PMP, Project Management Professional (PMP), PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP) and PMBOK are registered marks of the Project Management Institute, Inc. PRINCE2®, AgileSHIFT®, MSP®, P3O®, MoP®, ITIL® and PRINCE2 Agile® are registered trade marks of AXELOS Limited, used under permission of AXELOS Limited. All rights reserved. The Certified Partner, Partner Programme Logo and Swirl Logo™ are trade marks of AXELOS Limited, used under permission of AXELOS Limited. All rights reserved. AgilePM®, AgilePgM®, AgileBA® and DSDM® are registered trademarks of Agile Business Consortium Limited. All rights reserved. APMG International Change Management, APMG International Facilitation and APMG International Lean Six Sigma are trademarks of The APM Group Limited. All rights reserved. The APMG-International AgilePM, AgilePgM, AgileBA, Change Management, Managing Benefits, Facilitation, Lean Six Sigma and Swirl Device logos are trademarks of The APM Group Limited, used under permission of The APM Group Limited. All rights reserved. SMC™ and SPOC™ are trademarks of SCRUMstudy. Scaled Agile Framework® and SAFe® are registered trade marks of Scaled Agile, Inc. IIBA®, the IIBA® logo, BABOK® Guide and Business Analysis Body of Knowledge® are registered trademarks owned by International Institute of Business Analysis. CBAP® and CCBA® are registered certification marks owned by International Institute of Business Analysis. Certified Business Analysis Professional™, Certification of Competency in Business Analysis™, Endorsed Education Provider™, EEP™ and the EEP logo are trademarks owned by International Institute of Business Analysis.

Privacy Policy | Sitemap | Timesheets | Terms & Conditions | Capability Hub
Copyright © 1996-2022 PM-Partners Group. Delivery Advisory Capability. All Rights Reserved.

TOP