Many of us will have seen statistics banding around the Internet illustrating a high rate of project failure. According to a Gartner study, nearly 40% percent of IT projects fail or are abandoned before they reach completion. There are dozens of other statistics quoted on the same subject. But regardless of the figure – it is very high and it is a dark cloud over the project management industry as a whole.

Too many project managers are afraid of being labelled as quitters or failures. It certainly takes more courage for a Project Manager to admit that a project is a failure than to accept it (with no choice) when they finally walk over the edge of the cliff.

To be frank, continuing with a hopeless project is like flogging a dead horse and wasting large sums of money in the process. It does not make very smart business sense.

According to a four-year survey of 672 senior business and IT managers carried out by the Center for Project Management (USA), only around 20% of Project Managers have a process for identifying and cancelling failed projects.

It is natural for most project managers and project teams to have a task-oriented focus. Most project methodologies will anticipate project difficulties and suggest monitoring and controlling processes for the management of change, issues and problems.

But the resulting mindset for the project effort can often be solely focused on getting the project back on track, with complete disregard for any real consideration given to the fact that the project may very well be a dead horse. It is wise to be open to the possibility that the project is a like a horse that will never get on it’s feet again.

It certainly takes courage to prematurely close a project because often you are likely to upset someone higher up the chain of command than yourself. Stopping a project is not for the faint of heart who are afraid to upset the boss, which is why you will often see an independent consultant who is external to company politics often step up to the mark and do the necessary.

There are many large smelly projects that were the brainchild of a C-level executive still laying in dark corners of companies. They have often become irrelevant, expensive and a complete waste of time and effort. No one has the courage to get the executive in question to face up to the fact that their project was not the best idea after all.