Sometimes, You Just Have to Stop...

It is very hard to stop a project at any time, but especially after there are people committed to working on it. Yet less than 5% of product development projects are successful.

Signals

Some telltale signs that the project should not go forward are: unexcited reaction to the 10/10, lack of fiery commitment from the product or project champion, no commitment from a sales team to get the product to customers, little hope of getting investment or resources, and lack of company leadership's commitment to the project.

From the above list, it might seem that those problems could easily kill a project. But since the information that is available early in the development is limited and soft, it’s not hard to explain those problems away as solvable or to just ignore them.

Why You Can't

In a large company a project with these characteristics might get a low priority for investment and might just fade from view. In a small company the investment might not be there to continue. The most difficult problem is in a company where the project isn’t highly regarded, but there are not attractive alternatives. In that case, kill the project anyway and get those resources deployed to look for a great idea.

Financials

Sometimes the worst way to justify a project is with financial analysis. It is too easy to make the answer of new-product financial analysis come out the way that the team or project champion wants it to come out. Financial analysis is necessary but not sufficient to justify a new product.

Do the Right Thing...

Building an environment for the team to freely and openly talk about their collective gut feel about the likelihood of commercial success is a great way to access a project. You will never have all of the facts to make a decision on continuing a project; most projects proceed with less than half the needed facts. I have seen more excellent product decisions made from gut feel than from any kind of financial analysis.