What To Do When They Kill Your Project

At some point, it’s going to happen. You’re going to get put on an exciting new project, that you pour your heart and soul into, only to have the heart ripped out of it.

Everyone works on projects that get killed. Sometimes it’s a good thing (even if you don’t see it at the time), and sometimes it’s a short-sighted decision. Sometimes they kill the project right away and sometimes they let the project slowly die on the vine, withered by a lack of resources or stalled decision-making.

I’ve had a lot of them killed (like most of them). I never know the appropriate response to what feels like, at the time, a very personal emotional attack. I’ve watched corporate colleagues shrug it off and move onto another assignment like nothing happened. I don’t know how they do this (I suspect it’s because they weren’t ever emotionally invested). For most intrepreneurs, regardless of why or how your project meets its demise, it hurts. It’s emotionally devastating. (Just thinking about this gives me a headache.)

I still don’t know the appropriate way to respond to the death of a project. Here’s what I’ve learned, from personal experience, doesn’t work: yelling, name calling, crying, pointing fingers, sending angry emails to the CEO, and saying nothing.

What does work? I don’t really know. I’d love to hear your suggestions in the comments, but here’s what I’ve come up with so far:

• Do you fight to save the project? Only if you really think you’re only a few months away from achieving success. You might be able to buy a few months (big companies usually can’t move any faster than that anyway), but if the project is on shaky ground and there’s no clear path forward, you’re probably better off focusing your energy elsewhere.
• Is the project the only reason you were at the company? If so, and there’s nothing else of interest going on at the company, update your resume, give your notice, and get out of there. But do it with grace and don’t burn your bridges.
• What went wrong? Do a postmortem. Get lots of feedback on this, and be brutally honest with your team and your leaders. Don’t make this about airing grievances, make it about learning so you don’t make the same mistake again.
• How do you deal with the pain? You can’t stop it, so don’t try. Find a way to vent; grab drinks with a friend, exercises, write and delete several angry emails, write a cathartic blog post…

The thing to remember is that this isn’t a personal attack. They’re not trying to ruin your life.

But I’ve also found that this video of Alan Rickman always makes me feel better.

I’ll detail the many ways in which projects die and how to avoid them in another post, but right now I feel like writing some angry emails and deleting them.

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Originally published at tacanderson.com.