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Killing IT Softly cont..
Escalating Costs
Above all the spiralling costs are key; cost over run is the most visible and often sighted for shutting down projects. Mostly because the cost element is in many software projects the only tangible aspect, stakeholders keenly monitor it. You need to ensure that you are looking back at the original ROI, if during the project implementation you spend an increasing proportion of the expected ROI then you need to ask if the then remaining benefit is worth the spend. If the level is unacceptable then you need to kill the project
The technical obstacles are normally less of an issue - as long as the customer is willing to throw money at the project. If you have a big enough budget there are very few problems that can't be overcome, the key to great project management is to solve these problems with the least expenditure.
When faced with a problem you can choose to hurl a bunch of resources at it or do nothing. Yeah, sounds crazy but it is sometimes the best option. Ultimately it all comes down to money.
You need a clean kill, don't under estimate the effect on morale or sense of failure this may cause.
Clean Kill
When you make the decision to give a project the axe, the CIO will play a crucial role not only as the executioner but one of the messengers needed to explain how and why this has happened.
The way the project is terminated is dependant on whether the project is to be permanently closed down or shelved until the economic situation changes to be more favourable. On rare occasions you will find that projects are abandoned on due it poor management or performance, purely a larger or global initiative supersedes the project objectives. You must be very clear why the project is being shut down and make sure it is never a knee jerk reaction.
Team Moral
Many projects terminations can be deeply unpopular and be very damaging to staff moral. When you kill a project you will face a great deal of unpopularity, the greater the level of senior sponsorship you have the easily the situation will be. A sense of failure among the project team can permeate the business which is often behind low morale within the company. You must communicate the reasons across the entire business and get support and buy-in again from the executive management team. The result of killing a project can be devastating for those involved; you need to consider how you are going to lift the spirits post shutdown.