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Should You Resurrect That Doomed Project?

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Newsletter Graphic Advice The PM is IN

Dear Bonnie,
I’ve been asked to relaunch a project that flatlined six months ago. Tasks just…stopped happening. Status meetings turned into ghost towns. So, I stopped managing and reporting on it, and—surprise—no one seemed to care. Now, someone wants me to resurrect it. How do I know if this is a great second chance or a reputation-ruining time sink?

Sincerely, Frustrated and Wary

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Dear Frustrated and Wary,

When people lose faith in a project, they can always find more exciting things to do, like rearranging their pens or watching the air conditioning fluff their colleague’s combover. Before you grab the defibrillator and attempt a project revival, let’s determine if this thing even has a pulse.

  1. Who’s behind this reboot request?
    And I don’t mean the person who emailed you. I mean the real puppet master. If it’s the same folks who let it wither before, be skeptical. If it’s someone new, they might actually have the muscle to keep it alive this time.
  2. How much power do they have?
    Can they actually assign resources and secure funding, or are they just optimistic cheerleaders? Also, are they stepping up to be the project sponsor? If not, brace yourself for another round of the “Let’s-Pretend-This-Is-Important” game.
  3. Are they in it for the long haul?
    A sponsor needs to have three things: commitment, knowledge of what this project is supposed to do, and the stamina to see it through. If they’re just looking for a quick win to impress their boss, you might be saddled with another slow-motion failure.
  4. Does the project even make sense anymore?
    If the business case was weak last time, that could explain why everyone abandoned ship. Check if it’s still relevant. Otherwise it’s a sequel to the “Who Can Ignore This the Longest?” franchise.
  5. What’s competing for resources?
    Are there bigger, shinier projects that will drain away your people and budget the moment things get tough? If your project isn’t a priority now, it won’t be six months from now either—except maybe as a future “lessons learned” cautionary tale.

If, after this reality check, the project looks like it might stand on its own two feet, go for it. But don’t keep your findings to yourself—share them with the key players and team members. If you’re skeptical, they probably are too. Better to address doubts upfront than watch history repeat itself.

Good luck—and maybe keep a eulogy handy, just in case.
Bonnie

 

If you have a project-related question, add it in the Comments section or send me a message on LinkedIn.

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This article belongs to the Bonnie’s Project Pointers newsletter series, which has more than 87,000 subscribers. This newsletter is 100% written by a human (no aliens or AIs involved). If you like this article, you can subscribe to receive notifications when a new article posts.

Want to learn more about the topics I talk about in these newsletters? Watch my courses in the LinkedIn Learning Library and tune into my LinkedIn Office Hours live broadcasts.

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Prioritization? What Prioritization?

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Newsletter Graphic Advice The PM is IN

Dear Bonnie,
I’m working on a project whose budget was cut by 50%. I’ve read that prioritizing requirements is one way to handle this. That way, we can reduce scope by delivering only the most important items. When I asked stakeholders to do this, 90% of the requirements came back as priority 1. They didn’t even have the decency to use priority 2. The few that weren’t priority 1 were labeled priority 1A!

How can I deliver successfully after this budget cut?

Signed,
Beg, Borrow, and Steal?

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Dear BB&S,
Oof! Cutting the budget in half is like ordering a new car and getting a 2010 Honda Civic smelling like cat puke.

You’re on the right track asking stakeholders to prioritize their requirements. But you underestimated their ability to consider everything a life-or-death necessity. You need to give them a prioritization model.

Here are two possible approaches:

1) Pairwise Comparison (a.k.a. The Cage Match Method)

This works well when you have a manageable number of requirements. A lot like an MMA cage match, stakeholders pit each requirement against each other to see who walks out unassisted. When you’re done, the ones with the most victories stagger to the top. Here’s an example:

priority pairwise table

 

 

 

 

 

  1. The lower half of the table is blacked out because all the one-on-one comparisons are completed by filling out the top half of the chart. (Comparing Req 1 to Req 2 is the same as comparing Req 2 to Req 1 so you don’t have to do the comparison twice.)
  2. Counting the votes gives you the priority. In this example, the voting is:
  1. Req 2 = 3
  2. Req 3 = 3
  3. Req 1 = 2
  4. Req 4 = 2
  5. Req 5= 0
  1. Two requirements are tied at 3, and two at 2 but you still have a prioritization. Just compare the tied elements to each other! 
  1. When Req 2 was compared to Req 3, Req 3 won, so Req 2 is a lower priority than Req 3
  2. When Req 1 was compared to Req 4, Req 4 won, so Req 1 is lower priority than Req 4
  1. The resulting priority is:
  1. Req 3
  2. Req 2
  3. Req 4
  4. Req 1
  5. Req 5

This process works if you have up to about 40 requirements. More than that, and you’ll have a spreadsheet that looks like a conspiracy theorist’s string diagram.

2) The “Split in Half – Twice” Technique

If you’ve got a boatload of requirements, this method keeps things under control:

  1. Ask stakeholders to cut the list in half—choosing only the requirements they’d keep if they could only have 50%. After doing this, you have two lists – top half and bottom half.
  2. Repeat the process with each half, splitting the top half into two and the bottom half into two. That gives you four priority levels for the requirements.

This approach is brutally effective because it forces stakeholders to make hard choices rather than clinging to their entire wish list like their teddy bear from childhood.

Give one of these methods a shot depending on how many requirements there are. Besides keeping prioritization from turning into an “everything is critical” party, you won’t have to consider selling your (or better idea, the stakeholders’) organs on the black market to make up the difference.

Cheers,
Bonnie

 

If you have a project-related question, add it in the Comments section or send me a message on LinkedIn.

 

Coming Up

Great project managers and salespeople have a lot in common – the most important being the goal of satisfying the customers’ needs. Join Dean Karrel and I for Office Hours on Friday, March 14, 2025 at 11am MT/1pm ET, we’ll discuss what project managers and salespeople both need to do in their jobs. We’ll also explore how the skills you might consider “pure sales” can help you be a better project manager. As an added bonus, Dean will share some tips on using technology and AI to handle sales activities more effectively. Click here to join!

My updated version of Agile Project Management with Microsoft Project has been published! Click here to watch.

 

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This article belongs to the Bonnie’s Project Pointers newsletter series, which has more than 87,000 subscribers. This newsletter is 100% written by a human (no aliens or AIs involved). If you like this article, you can subscribe to receive notifications when a new article posts.

Want to learn more about the topics I talk about in these newsletters? Watch my courses in the LinkedIn Learning Library and tune into my LinkedIn Office Hours live broadcasts.

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