The ways to cancel a project

There may be “fifty ways to leave your lover”, but many organizations can’t find even one way to cancel or suspend a project. Despite often being ‘the right thing to do’, cancelling a project – or even suggesting that a project should be cancelled – is typically an act of intelligent disobedience. Having a sound, substantial rationale for recommending the cancellation of a project can help.

Here are some commonly accepted reasons for cancelling or suspending a project:

• Key Stakeholders are not “bought in”. Not only is this a very good reason for project cancellation, but they can also provide you with assistance and support when recommending the cancellation. By the way, this does not necessarily mean the project is not a good idea; it just means important people that are critical for the project’s success aren’t behind it. Time to cancel or suspend the project and regroup.

• Current business priorities do not support moving the project forward. Business is fluid, and project portfolios need to be fluid as well. If sponsorship, business expertise or technical team members aren’t available to move the project forward it is time to confirm the priorities driving their workload. If their other activities are legitimately of higher importance, it is time to cancel or suspend the project. A project in this situation is a burden and a distraction, versus a vehicle for driving business value and it should be taken off the table.

• Reacting to a sudden, new business pressure is the “agile” thing to do. I don’t mean running an agile project here; I mean being able and willing to change directions quickly in response to differing business needs. Having the patience to change gears on one item (suspending a project), and “embracing the urgency” to launch a different project or initiative can demonstrate a dedication to your business’ success that many people are unwilling, or find it difficult, to support.

• Key stakeholder’s expectations are not aligned. This situation is often a silent project killer. Debates that need to be held don’t occur and, after wasting too much time and money, a project dies a fiery death as progress is halted when senior leaders expect the project team to do different things, or place emphasis on different activities. (See our “What we need is a good ole’ knock down debate” blog entry) Projects in this state should be suspended until alignment is reached, or killed if that alignment cannot be achieved and signed off.

• The project just isn’t heading in the right direction. Our colleague Peter Harrison is fond of saying,” it is not the dollars you HAVE spent, it is the value you will get from the NEXT dollar you will spend that should drive your decisions.” If the project is not moving forward on a path towards delivering business value, you need to correct its course or cancel the project. This is the most difficult of cancellation reasons, as it is frequently perceived as a defeat, and could jeopardise jobs. However it is the high integrity thing to do…PMI members-check your ethics commitment here! If the project is not helping the business, and you continue to pursue the project, you may not be acting in a “high integrity” fashion.

Intelligent Disobedience Leadership delivers workshops on innovative leadership and increasing the productivity and effectiveness of your leadership team.  For further information, email us at info@intelligentdisobedience.com