Kill the Zombie Projects: Stake It Through the Heart

There's a project in my client's company that’s been lurching along for two years, slower than an office printer on a Monday morning. It started with good intentions. A beautiful vision presented in a conference room with leaders who have a bias for innovation and a dangerous shortage of follow-up questions. Everyone nodded. Someone important loved it. It got a budget, a timeline, and that special kind of organizational momentum that feels unstoppable.

Except it stopped. 

Now it's a zombie project, and it's eating everyone's brains.

The Undead Initiative

Zombie projects shuffle  through organizations, draining resources and morale, leaving you busy but mysteriously unproductive.

Zombie projects are the unquestioned "yes," born for a market that’s moved on, a team that’s changed, or a world that pivoted while we were still making slide decks.

They survive because killing them feels harder than watching them stagger around. And because admitting they're dead means admitting we were wrong. 

What It Costs to Keep the Dead Alive

I watch leaders exhaust themselves trying to breathe life into initiatives that died quietly somewhere between conception and reality. Sometimes leadership means grabbing the metaphorical stake, looking the project in the eye, and saying: “Not today, my little friend.” Kill it, and the energy was trapped in maintenance mode gets released for real creation. 

Lisa Bodell’s Kill the Company, has a gem: ‘Kill the Strategy.’  It’s corporate spring cleaning, get the team in a room and decide which reports, projects, and processes deserve a swift, merciful end. By asking, “If we were starting fresh today, would we still do this?,” leaders uncover the zombie projects so that better decisions, and better work, can emerge.

Which projects in your world are still staggering around and what would it take to finally put them down?