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 self-aggrandising 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 support the project because the project champion believed it to be a future winner (53). When the emergence of belief in the projects achievements is combined with strong oversight 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 pull out 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 film director who questioned the bad projects feasibility (52). This manager r epresents exit champions who would have encouraged a critical approach in assessing the bad project. Widman provides some arbitrary effects of bad projects, such as leading to new more promising projects. For instance, IBM 7030 or Stretch failed to be a feasible and profitable project, entirely resulted to the inventions of 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 besides lead to new