Project Management Tool - Types of projects
| Type of Project | Description |
| Dinosaur | Huge & lumbering. Impossible to control. It usually
becomes obsolete before realising its purpose. Reasons for destruction are never clear. |
| Hit & run | A short, seemingly purposeless exercise that is over before anybody even realised it had begun (many women recognise this particular characteristic, for reasons that the authors have found difficult to identify (or admit to)) and before the project plan has been agreed. |
| Damp squib | A project that fizzles out after the first project board meeting because the project board is bored. Or fail to turn up. |
| Black hole | A project that seems to consume vast sums of money and boatloads if resource and nothing ever emerges from its clutches. |
| Gridlock | A project that never goes anywhere because it is always tied down in meetings and decision moments to decide if another decision moment needs to be created. Often accompanied by detailed status reports that identify the status of all status reports. |
| Virus | Begins as a single project and develops into a full grwon programme that devours the whole organisation. |
| Sure thing | Perceived as being absolutely infallible, see also black hole, gridlock, virus & hot brick. |
| the Banker | That once only, usually miniscule, project that you bring in on time (well almost) which allows you to continue forever as a project manager. It's called the banker because it's your ' ace in the hole ' whenever you're asked to name one, just one, successful project that you've managed. It also sounds similar to your nickname. |
| Hot brick | A project that is a hot issue in the organisation and for which success is critical. Failing to secure project success is a ' career limiting move '; wise project managers throw this sort of project from one to another like a hot brick. |