Comments on: Peter Drucker and abandoning projects

By: TheoRadical » Blog Archive » How to Grow

TheoRadical » Blog Archive » How to Grow — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 00:06:49 +0000

[...] comes from the perspective of business growth. However, I think it has wider applications, even to personal and spiritual growth. But, on with [...]

By: Vitaly

Vitaly — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 16:10:53 +0000

John,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on my question.
In my case, there are no losses to cut (though, no big profits to rip either). I just feel it’s time to move on, but don’t want to deprive myself of that little income I have before I decide what to do next.

By: John

John — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 13:49:48 +0000

I think what you describe would be abandoning features of a project without abandoning the entire project. Or cutting your losses — we’re going to go ahead and sell it and make what money we can, but we’re not going to invest in promoting it.

For internal projects, I’ve seen situations where it’s OK to abandon a project, just not OK to say that you’re abandoning it. Sometimes people don’t really need or want the final result of their project, but they want to know somebody’s working on it. So the project stays on the books but nobody work on it any everyone’s happy.

By: Vitaly

Vitaly — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 13:35:43 +0000

Would stopping further development and support of a software product, without publicly announcing that it’s been discontinued and still let people buy the product qualify as abandonment/killing?
I mean, when you buy a product (not necessarily software one), you pay for the features you get now, not for the features you might receive in the feature, unless otherwise explicitly advertised.

By: Stephen Walker

Stephen Walker — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 12:48:13 +0000

As a former software engineer for a telecom company, I recall many colossal projects that merely enhanced features of dubious value, and yet came with huge price tags for the consumer. We had to wonder, “Who will pay for this over-priced feature?!” and “How much is this project costing the company?!” Voice-activated dialing, etc. etc.

Naturally, we appreciated the work while it lasted, but I would have been prouder to work on smarter, more helpful, more efficient projects that would stand the test of time.

By: Gene Harris

Gene Harris — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 03:51:36 +0000

I think the economy is going to force a lot of businesses to re-think abandoning projects, business lines, you name it.

I hate to be cynical, but organizations change when they feel the heat, not when they see the light.

By: Getting stuff not done | There Is NO Box

Getting stuff not done | There Is NO Box — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 03:46:41 +0000

[...] Turns out Peter Drucker was a proponent of getting things not done, by simply abandoning them. John D. Cook makes a note of this here. [...]