Why bad projects are so hard to kill Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Why bad projects are so hard to kill - Essay Example Bad projects are continued because of charismatic project champions who can easily influence key decision-makers in blindly supporting the project. Royer provides the example of Lafarge, where project members revealed that they immediately supported the project because the project champion believed it to be a future winner (53). When the â€Å"emergence of belief† in the project’s achievements is combined with strong management desire for success, the result is blind allegiance to a poorly-planned and assessed project (Royer 53). The power of charisma and grandeur visions of success can cloud the planning process and omit risk-assessment (Resch 41). Royer notes that some of the negative repercussions of bad projects are: large financial losses and resignation of exit champions. Lafarge lost $30 million (in 1992 dollars) and a new mineral-fillers manager who questioned the bad project’s feasibility (52). This manager represents exit champions who would have encour aged a critical approach in assessing the bad project. Widman provides some positive effects of bad projects, such as leading to new more promising projects. For instance, IBM 7030 or â€Å"Stretch† failed to be a feasible and profitable project, but resulted to the inventions of â€Å"pipelining, memory protection, memory interleaving and other technologies that have shaped the development of computers† (Widman 1). Thus, failed projects can lead to large losses of money and talent, but some can also lead to new