🧟‍♂️ Zombie Projects: Green Status, Dead Inside

You know the type. They shuffle through governance, devour capacity, and somehow never die. They’re not failing loudly enough to stop… just draining the team.

Five signs you’re funding the undead:
• Benefits were never owned by operations (no one can name the post-go-live owner).
• RAG is “watermelon”; green slides, red reality; status is opinion, not evidence.
• Capacity is invisible: your best people are everywhere and nowhere.
• The value case hasn’t been updated since approval; decisions dodge the gate.
• Work continues because “we’ve come this far,” not because the next milestone protects value.

How to put a zombie down (humanely) using our Strategic Change Framework:

1. Re-diagnose the problem with a single truth set (facts before advocacy). If the problem has shifted, your project should too or stop.
2. Re-test the concept & value case. If desirability/feasibility/viability no longer hold, pause. No “maybes.”
3. Plan for a decision, not motion. Install explicit stop rules and decision rights before more spend.
4. Control with evidence. Replace theatre reporting with a cadence that surfaces variance early and ties vendors to outcomes, not effort.
5. Transition benefits to BAU or don’t proceed. If benefits can’t be owned and measured post-go-live, that’s your red flag.

Why this matters: Zombie projects quietly erode trust, burn scarce talent, and crowd out the few initiatives that could actually move the dial. A disciplined stop is not failure; it’s leadership.