Mustering the Courage to Pull the Plug on a Good Project Gone Bad

As a 12- or 13-year-old Boy Scout (many moons ago), I was on a fishing trip with my troop in a wilderness region of the Uintah mountains of Utah. Our goal was to fish the isolated high-mountain lakes for fresh rainbow trout. At the time, my father had a very nice four-piece fishing pole that I "knew" would be perfect for the trip, so I "borrowed" it. We had a great time. Until the morning I cast out into the lake and the two end pieces of my "dad's" pole shot off after my bobber and the bait.

The weight of the pole took the line right to the bottom, where it snagged. No matter what I did, I couldn't free the line. Normally, I would have jerked it free and just left the hook at the bottom—but it was my dad's pole, and I wanted to save it instead of explain why I only brought home half of it. Panicked, I stripped down and jumped into the icy-cold water of the lake and tried to follow the line to where the snag was. Within a few seconds, the freezing, snow-fed lake water took my breath and I started to struggle.

When my Scoutmaster noticed what I was doing he sharply told me to turn around and waded in after me. He picked me up, blue and shivering, carried me back to camp and built the bonfire of all bonfires to warm me up. Looking back, I'm sure he saved me from what could have been a disaster.

Successfully managing project based work sometimes requires that project managers recognize when good projects have gone bad and possess the courage to "cut bait" before too many resources are needlessly put in jeopardy. Jumping into the lake, hundreds of miles from a hospital, is a risk I probably wouldn't take again—and probably wouldn't have been encouraged by my Scoutmaster either.

Regardless of your particular work management methodology, project management best practice suggests that the criteria for pulling the plug on a DOA project should be determined prior to the project beginning. What's more, the "firing squad" should be identified before the project begins too. Sometimes in the heat of battle, it's difficult to dispassionately consider discontinuing a project in trouble.

I didn't want to explain to my Dad what happened to his fishing pole—but continuing down the path I was on lead to nowhere but disaster. Mustering the courage to discontinue a project that has nowhere to go is difficult, but profitable portfolio management requires that we sometimes make hard decisions before we end up frozen and blue at the bottom of a nameless lake.

About this Author: As an "accidental" project manager and marketing veteran with over 25 years of experience, Ty Kiisel makes the concepts and best practices of web-based project management accessible to both the expert and novice project professional by weaving personal experiences, historical references and other anecdotes into daily discussions around effective leadership approaches that maximize the effectiveness of project teams. Ty is also the host of the popular podcast, TalkingWork.com.