Project Management
Signs a Software Project Should Be Stopped
Not every project deserves to continue. Stopping early is often cheaper than forcing completion.
Stopping a project feels like failure. But continuing a project that should have stopped is a more expensive failure.
The signs
The real problem has never been re-framed. If requirements still change every meeting after three months, the problem likely is not understood — it is not that features are missing.
Nobody is waiting for it. A system nobody anticipates usually does not get used.
The budget is gone but the scope keeps growing. This is not scope creep, it is a project with the wrong plan from the start.
Decisions are always deferred. Every question is answered with "we will discuss it later". Without decisions, no progress can be measured.
What can be done
We suggest a smaller, concrete step. Instead of the full system, build the single module whose benefit is most obvious. If that module gets used, continue. If not, you have just saved the cost of an unused system.
Stopping is a decision, not a failure
Our most satisfied clients are not the ones with the largest projects. They are the ones who stopped on time from work that turned out not to be needed, and spent the budget on what was genuinely a problem.