Project Termination Modes
Project Termination
All projects have fixed start date and completion date. Project termination is a process that occurs whether a project is successful or not. PMI strongly recommends to follow this process for each project. The major aim is to document the “lessons learned” and store it in the organizational process assets.There are various business, technical and political reasons to terminate a project. In this post I will focus on the different ways to close or terminate a project. They are as follows,
- Extinction
- Addition
- Integration
- Starvation
The following are the possible reasons for which a project may be terminated
by Extinction
- The project has successfully completed scope and the client has accepted it.
- It has been superseded by the external developments like technological advancement, market crisis etc
- It has failed to achieve it’s goal.
- It has no longer support from the Senior Management.
It is also sometimes referred to as “termination by murder“. The important point to notice is that all project activity ceases in this kind of termination.
by Addition
- The project is a major success. It becomes the formal part of the parent organization.
The transition or transfer of the resources such as the project personnel, materials and equipment to the newly created unit within the parent organization.
by Integration
- The project is successfully completed. The project product is integrated to the operations of the client.
This is the most common mode and most complex operation. The resources are released and disturbuted in the parent organization.
by Starvation
- The project is terminated by budget decrement.
- It is also known as withdrawal of “life support”.
The reason of this termination is generally to shadow the failure of non-accomplishment of the goals. This can save face of the senior management and avoid embarrassment.
Oct 9th, 2008 at 9:18 am
“Termination by Murder”
I supported a marketing group for a while. They had a cost plus agreement with their customer. The problem is that the project they were working on did not meet any one’s needs. It is very difficult to be brought in to “audit” that type of work effort. This project was very inovative and cutting edge on the business ordering process but our customer was in logistics/wharehousing of automobile parts. This group believed that if they built it a “buyer” would come.
My report to my stakeholder was that the “project” had been operating with any stakeholders, without a charter, and without a defined scope. If he was willing to continue to support experimentation in business process models then this group needed him as their stakeholder.
The project was disbanded with-in weeks & the “scientists” were found more productive lives. This issue is that there was no post mortem on the work. They might have had some useful ideas to be applied. The whole effort definitely should have been reviewed to reveal how a non-supported project ever had been started.
Even “skunk work” project have stakeholders & have a charter & scope.
Oct 9th, 2008 at 7:36 am
Super post Biswamohan.
Termination though painful, questionable and possibly failure of some stakeholders needs to be done if the project does not turn out to do what it is intended to do or if it adds no value to the organisation. In my opinion, this need not be necessarily turn out to be an embarassment to the management.
In fact in the organisation where I was working earlier, we had t terminate the implementation of a business process automation package because we did not analyse the capabilities of the subject package and some of us did not too much of tinkering with the package in the process of customising it. This meant that the organisation lost quite a tidy sum and we were put back by almost 9 months in the whole schedule. But if we had not terminated the project, the company would have landed up with much bigger losses in its operation.
Oct 9th, 2008 at 5:08 am
Great post Biswamohan! Starvation is definitely the worst option in my opinion. If a project needs to die for whatever reason, just do it and divert the resources and funds elsewhere so they can make a positive impact on the organization. With proper portfolio management in place, I can’t see this ever happening.
The only instance I can see would be where a piece of the project still has a beneficial ROI attached to it, but the rest of it can go. Still, this would be purposeful with no intent to shadow a failure from senior management.