I had a conversation with a client last week where he referred to the history of a project and the perception of it as "flaming bag of poo". It was a lighthearted conversation about a serious issue.
In the beginning it was a great project with lots of excitement and ownership on the part of IT. Eventually it started to have issues and the return looked weaker, so IT went to the business to find some other value to increase return and value.
After a while though the project became "a bag of poo". No one wanted to touch it. I guess some of us with dogs may pick up our own and carry the bag, but not many of us would pick up someone elses bag.
Because of the issues and so forth over time finally it became the flaming bag of poo it is today. So who wants to stamp out the fire to then pick up the bag of poo. Wow. How did we get to here and how do we get out?
We really need a breakthrough so that the love comes back. This is where Breakthrough approach and aiming for smaller faster immediate value needs to come. But how do we get people to step up to want to solve the problem? Good question, it comes back to readiness. What is going to make everyone ready to solve this "flaming bag of poo". Not sure. But an interesting conversation all the same.
Reminds me of an idea that a fellow who was expert in project management had in diagnosing a project in difficulty.
He would ask the question “Who Cares?”
The answer to that question often reveals why projecs are in difficulty.
Another idea is when a product designer comes up with a design they usually test it with a prototype. When people come up with a design for a new system we expect it to work the first time. We never consider a design protoype, production prototype or any kind of prototype or trial.