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I've worked with several managers and developers who had a difficult time killing
cancelled projects. One developer was so enamored of a project, that even after he
was laid off from the company, he returned on his own time to complete the project!
You might think he was a giving helpful person -- and you'd be right. But his
continued work on the project, even for "free," cost the company time in
support of his "free" work.
If your company has canceled a project, then work to stop the project. When I help
managers cancel projects, we discuss how they will manage the cessation of work.
- First, explain to the people on the project why you're canceling the project
and what happens to them. People want to know that you appreciate their efforts.
And they want to know what work they'll be doing now.
- Give people time to clean up their work before starting on their new work.
That means checking in the code that's checked out with comments that explain
the state of the code, or noting on a design which alternatives were under
discussion, or which tests were or were not completed. Cleaning up work is
not the same as finishing up work, so I recommend this step take less than
a day to perform.
- Cancel all meetings associated with this project. Once people clear their
schedules of these project-related meetings, they'll see other time they have
available for the new work.
- Assign someone to handle the inevitable questions about the canceled project,
preferably someone high up in management. If a technical person has the project
information, he or she might start working on it again. If a manager is assigned
to be the point person, the manager is less likely to start working on the project.
- If you're canceling a project that's had some substantial work (sometimes as
little as a few weeks or more), take the time to perform a project retrospective
and see what people learned from this project.
- Start people on their new project as soon as
they've cleaned up their work.
Canceling a project may not be fun for you. But if you cancel the project cleanly,
you won't have to do it again -- and you'll be helping the company move forward.
Johanna Rothman can be reached at jr@jrothman.com. This article reprinted with permission from
the Pragmatic Manager.
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