Question

As the manager of a doomed project, articulate your top three priorities for planning the cancellation of the project. Justify each priority.

Answer 1

Risk Management Plan

Create a risk management plan before entering in to the project implementation. Find out the critical phases in each stage and valuate in percentage. If the overall percentage is more than half, suggest the management to cancel the project before fall into the bad situation.

Whistle Blowing

Listen to the whistle blower on beginning stage itself. Let have a meeting and start brainstorming of the failure causes to meet the necessary plan. If the plan breached our expectation or budget is lead to loss.

Do not be offended if managers that are more senior suggest calling in a consultant to get a second opinion or to assist in generating options to project cancellation.

Customer Consulting

When explaining the situation to customers, present the problem in non-technical language, offer your conclusions and recommendations. If you have a recovery plan, present the options along with their associated cost and schedule implications. If you identified salvageable elements from the project, describe how those can be polished and delivered.