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 injurious 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 supported 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 heed desire for succeeder, 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 omit risk-assessment (Resch 41). Royer notes that some of the negative repercussions of bad projects are swelled financial losings and resignation of exit champions. Lafarge lost $30 million (in 1992 dollars) and a new mineral-fillers passenger car who questioned the bad projects feasibility (52). This manager represents exit champions who would have encouraged a fine approach in assessing the bad project. Widman provides some positive effects of bad projects, such as leadership to new more promising projects. For instance, IBM 7030 or Stretch failed to be a feasible and profitable project, exactly 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 also lead to new