Killing Zombie Projects

Ahoy legends. Welcome back to Episode Four of the Team Buffalo podcast. Thanks for tuning in. We've got another exciting episode today to take you through a topic that you might not have come across before. And that's what I like to call zombie projects. 

Now, as a leader, we have these tasks that build up around us and for our team, and the in the organisation. But they don't always turn into something alive, they don't always turn into a thing that gets delivered. Sometimes they turn into something far more sinister. So that's what we're going to dig into today. 

Now, let's start with what the hell I'm even talking about when I say a zombie project. It is something that I've seen in pretty much every organisation I've ever worked with most clients. And it's something that kind of you knows has always been there, but you haven't really taken the time to deal with. So a zombie project is this idea, or project or task, or thing or expectation that just groans and grumbles and walks around the hallways of the office. You know, it's the software migration that the company has been talking about for three years, but kind of maybe it's happening, and we've heard things about scopes, but hasn't really happened. Or it's the culture change program around, you know, we're actually going to make this a great place to work finally, we've heard what you've said in the last three years worth of engagement surveys, but we're actually going to do something about it. 

Well, it doesn't look like anything's happening, we just keep hearing about it. Lots of comms, lots of mentions, but no real momentum. And the people working on the project know that it hasn't actually moved, it hasn't turned into anything, they're still kind of in that define stage, or they've defined it, but they haven't actually made any progress beyond the definition. They're waiting for funding, or they just haven't heard anything, or they don't actually even have permission to do the thing. 

Great. So we kind of know what we're talking about when we say zombie project. But what do we do about it? And what's the problem with keeping that alive? So let's start with what's the problem with keeping that alive; this undead zombie that wanders the hallway. And you know, when I do training on this activity, as part of delegation, and time management and accountability, I often use an image of a zombie in business attire, holding a Gantt chart, looking a little bit hopeless and semi-aggressive, and just ready to attack or annoy whatever comes near it. And we don't want that right. 

So what are the symptoms of a zombie project? The first is it never really progresses. It just sits there. It's kind of in stasis doesn't turn into anything. It's concerning that it's there. You know, we've heard about it, but it doesn't move, it doesn't progress. And the second is it maybe doesn't even want to be done or need to be done. You know, someone had an idea a long time ago around, we should start a product that solves this problem for customers because we've heard maybe from one type of customer that they're interested in this. So the team set out did a brief did some work on it. And it just kind of sat there since then. Not great. The third is it isn't focused or directed towards an outcome. And for me, this is one of the most telling signs if I go Alright, look, that things kind of stuck, fine. If we could get that unstuck, what would it actually achieve for us? What would be the net result of us getting that done? Not we'd feel better not we accomplished something, those aren't really outcomes. The outcome we're talking about is something more measurable, something like our customers' experience improves, or the end result for our customers is something that we are quite happy to see because it resulted in revenue increase of x. That's what we're looking for. It isn't just some generic feel-good thing. And then the last is, if you ask most people, what this project is, or if they know that it's a zombie project, they would say, yes, they know it's a problem, but they don't know how to fix it. And maybe they don't have the ability or authority to fix it. You know, maybe they're not in charge and don't have permission to do it. So you've got to sit back as a leader and go, what things are on my to-do list or my team's to-do list. Might these zombie projects look and feel like and how do I get rid of them? That's the next piece I want to get into how do we get rid of them.

To get rid of a zombie project it's not actually as complicated as you would think. You as the leader have to make a plan of action for making a decision to either animate that thing if we're talking about life like Frankenstein bring it to life, and like to actually get momentum and progress as a project, or you have to kill it. Because anything short of either of those will be more stress and more uncertainty. And look in the kind of craziness we're in as modern leaders with technology and you know, that terrible thing that's locking down the planet and everything else. Having uncertainty in places where we can control uncertainty is madness, why put yourself in that position? Why put your team in that position, and why create that stress that's unnecessary. And also, if you've got a boss, it shows clarity of thought to eliminate things that you don't see value-adding, instead of just letting them linger around, and then having some false expectation that maybe one day this will turn into something, it's not what you want, there's no good result of a zombie project. 

So the first is you either kill it, which we've talked about, which means Hey, you know what team, or everyone who's heard about this, or everyone who has been involved at some stage, thank you for your work. Thank you for being aware, thank you for thinking it was important, or being interested in it. But actually, we're going to stop this project, we've decided that it doesn't progress the corporation's agenda or our business's agenda. And it does not create an outcome that we think is worth the effort that you all would have to put into it. So thank you for your time. But for this project, it's done. If you have any questions, come see me. Done, right.

Or the alternative is, you know what, let's bring it to life. What resources do we require? What's the scope? And is the scope clear? You know, what else do we need to do to define that scope? Do our customers have some expectations around? What's the timeline? So this is where you then switch gears into your project management mindset. As a leader, what are the key deliverables I would expect from the team? No, as a leader, I'm not going to do all the work. That's what the team is there for. But I need to have some clear deliverables. And I want to make sure that the project is progressing, I want routine updates, etc, etc. 

If you take that stance on it and treat it like a proper project, rather than an idea that's lingering in the hallways waiting to bite someone for asking the wrong question, then you will get much better progress out of these things. And you'll have less stress about things that are problematic or potentially problematic. 

And the last bit of a zombie project, which I think is worth mentioning, before we talk about an example is this notion, also of what I called the wishing well effect. Now it's not to sound cheesy or anything, but I've legitimately seen this happen over and over and over. The wishing well effect is attached to this right it's you have this kind of zombie project that and it doesn't necessarily have to be a zombie project, it could just be a project that's being poorly managed and not clear in its communication. And the whole wishing well concept is essentially, over time, you will notice that the scope creeps and people are adding more crap to the project that they expect out of it. And they expect benefits that were never part of the project. But the reason for that is it goes on for so long. And the comms are so unclear that people just add their expectations to your project. 

So an example I said I would give you one is let's say, and this is an example I've experienced with multiple clients, so I'm not picking on anyone, but you're going through a massive technology platform shift, you've decided that you're going to rip out the backbone or the main system of your organisation, and you're going to replace it with a new, more modern, more sleek, all the features and benefits type system, you know all the things you're promised by software companies. 

So you set down to do this. And you have a clear scope of works includes fixing things like x and making sure that your CRM works and making sure that your customer service works. And there's some real clear areas. But what tends to happen as the columns are unclear or not well managed is that people then start to bolt on additional things or throw those coins into the wishing well. You know, what I heard from Joe, that the system is actually going to make my job easier by not having me do double entry. That might or might not be true, but you didn't say it in the comms. And it wasn't actually part of the scope. So that's Oh, okay, great. So that happens with one person. Then a few weeks later, another person comes along and goes, Oh, well, I've heard that it will fix the problem I've been having with my emails not syncing with the system. 

Okay, now we've got a real problem because there's two sets of fake expectations or unmanaged expectations that have landed in your project. Now if you think about how that happens over weeks and months, and sometimes years, years on some of these projects, then you can easily see how your project ends up not at all being what people thought it was going to be, and not at all solving even a fraction of the expectations they had put into that wishing well. So then you get to project delivery, the project gets delivered, and people are like, what the h3ll, this doesn't do any of this $hit It was supposed to do what happened like I was, I was told, well, no, they were never told that. But the problem is those expectations were not clearly managed. 

Now, obviously, we do work in the change management space and that's a completely different conversation. But I wanted to make you aware of one of the clear effects of a zombie project not being managed or aggressively, killed off. So going back to that example, that I said, I was starting off with this happened, they and they were rolling out that new backbone system, as you'd call it, or an enterprise architecture system, made the decision to roll that out, kind of covertly. So people did find outright, like people, when you do big things, and $hits happening in your organisation, people find out so if you think you're not going to say something, that's okay. But people just create their own narrative. So what happened? Unfortunately, it was there were really light communications on this very, very light to the point where it's hey, we're going to get a new system. Okay, what's it going to do?
Well, like, we'll tell you what, it's time. So what do you think happened? Over time, people went, well, it will solve this problem, it will do this for me. I've heard it does this. So people were like, Okay, cool. But then also other people were like, it's gonna mean we have to do extra work. And this and we have to do more time to enter this. Well, that might or might not be true, but it isn't something we actually said. 

So now we've got this big problem, right? We've got a bunch of people making up their own versions of the system. And what does that mean for you, as a leader, you will inevitably disappoint some group of people, if not multiple groups of people, because they had a false narrative that wasn't properly managed. And the zombie element of this was that it just went on for so long and it wasn't actually progressing. It sat there for months and months and months, because the leader was busy, and just was something they weren't allocating sufficient time to. So they did the right thing by eventually bringing it to life and putting the effort into it. The problem was they let it wander the hallways for a long time, and infect people with the wrong narrative. 

So I'd encourage you to think about, even just go through your list of projects that are kind of sitting there and things you haven't dealt with and look at what are some of the zombie projects that I've allowed to kind of circle around me and my team? And what can I do to get rid of them, because they don't have to stay that way. If you're waiting on budget approval, go get budget approval, go ask or tell the team you know what, unless we get budget approval, consider this project dead and for now consider it dead because I don't have line of sight into budget approval. I don't know when that's going to happen. You know, if it's something where you don't have the talent to do it, tell the team you know, I'm trying to find the talent. But for now, let's park this project in our minds. There are really easy ways to manage that and really effective ways to do it. But you have to do it, do not just let it wander the hallways and stalk your team. 

So that's today's topic on zombie projects. Thank you for tuning in for Episode Four. If you want to see more of what we're up to and grab more awesome content, tools and episodes, you can follow us on our socials including LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, pretty much everything that you can find on the social media side. And you can also join our mailing list. So if you're not on there, it's a great opportunity to receive weekly articles, updates and cool useful tools. You can hop on our website and join that mailing list at teambuffalo.co. 
Thanks again and keep being an amazing leader.