Pedro Arantes
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Zombie Projects

Zombie projects are projects that aren't good enough to get resources and bad enough to kill. Many companies starve them for resources because of the sunk cost.
#project-management
#sunk-cost
#work-in-process
#zombie-projects
Zettelkasten, November 16th, 2022.
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Notes

Zombie projects are projects that aren't good enough to get resources and bad enough to kill. Unfortunately, many companies mistakenly starve them for resources, barely keeping them alive, because of the sunk cost. The project managers believe that they can't kill the projects because of the resources they've already invested in these projects.

Projects become zombie projects when WIP becomes high and out of control. When WIP is under control, all projects have good economic value. But whenever WIP becomes high, the economy of holding them changes—the cost increases—, but the managers don't kill the ones that are low priority in the new scenario.

Zombie projects are a huge waste of resources.

Questions

  1. What is the sunk cost, and how does it contribute to zombie projects?
  2. What is WIP, and why does it cause problems when it gets out of control?
  3. How do project managers fail to address the issue of high WIP?
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