In 2003, the American author Marx Brooks wrote a New York Times bestseller book The Zombie Survival Guide where he detailed plans for citizens to survive zombies uprising and attacks. In 2010, the critically acclaimed TV horror drama The Walking Dead depicts a post-apocalyptic where a group of survivors fight omnipresent zombies.

But what about another kind of Zombies? A real one. Those failed projects that still drain time and money as no one in the company has the courage to put an end to them?

How to recognize walking dead projects?

The first step toward protecting yourself from a zombie project is to recognize it. That’s not an obvious task as you might have been working for long time on such a project without knowing it were already dead. Here are some key clues that may help you :

• A zombie project often runs out of budget and exceeds deadlines.
• It fails to deliver expected value.
• Chances are that the walking dead project is protected by some manager in the top management. In this case, it becomes particularly lethal.
• The project is preventing you from focusing on your core business.
• The project becomes a source of continuous stress for you, your colleagues or your employees.

How to deal with zombie projects?

When you are facing a zombie project, you should think of one of the three following strategies :

Kill it

If you have total control over the project, then kill it. It’s not easy as you might have spend a lot of time and money on it, but remember that’s it’s virtually a dead project and all you have to do is give it the coup de grâce.

Fight it

Sometimes you don’t have enough power to kill the zombie project. In this case, you should try to fight it. First, you have to draw a detailed picture of the project: its genesis, its development, people working on it, how much resources is it consuming, etc. Then, try to convince the project stakeholders of your point of view. Be careful, some people will not like your attitude as they may see it as an attempt to question their competency. Be tactful.

Avoid it

As Homo-sapiens, we are genetically programmed to react to threats with a Fight-or-Flight response. It means that if we are not able to fight the attack or the enemy, we are going to flee it. That is also true when it comes to zombie projects. If none of the preceding strategies can be applied, then the best move would be to avoid it. Try moving to another team or even changing job. It may be hard, but it’s better than getting stuck with a dead project.