Sunday, November 01, 2009
Raising the Dead: Bringing Failed Projects Back to Life
Web Worker Daily: "Recently, I’ve noticed that more new clients are coming my way with a single request: to help them revive or resurrect a project, web site, or product that has failed in the past. I’m also capable of creating failed projects myself — sometimes I look at my track record and try to fix my worst projects hoping that I can make them better."
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17 comments:
I completely agree with the point of not bringing back old projects just because you have nothing else to do. When we complete a project and are looking for something new, it is tempting to go back to something that we've started in the past and try to fix it rather than create something new. In theatre we often see this with people starting up new companies. Even with all the passion in the world, if there aren't the right resources available or it isn't the right time, the project is doomed to fail again, for all the same reasons.
It's interesting that so many people are apparently going back to failed projects. People tend to be discouraged easily once something has failed, and are reluctant to readdress it. However, with these steps it seems that if something is worth retrying, then it is possible with the right efforts.
This is a process I've visited a few times lately. In my case, it hasn't been failed projects so much as abandoned ones. The biggest lesson I've learned from it is the need to be willing to throw out some previous work. Often, trying to continue on the previous trajectory is insufficient. It's worthwhile to take the failure, learn a lesson from it, and start again from scratch.
I think that resurecting old projects is a stupid idea. Much in the way that people change, the projects and what they hope to accomplish also change. They need to make a fresh start, and although it may be good to look at something you used to have for ideas, the world is changing and something new is always needed. Let that which failed lie in the past, and take the chance to create something new and specifically tailored to your needs.
Resurrecting failed projects is extremely tricky because in order to do it properly it requires a lot of personal evaluation which can be more lengthy and energy consuming than starting a new project. The hope is that you will be able to consciously learn what the mistakes were, and not assume that you have learned the mistakes and have already mentally addressed them.
This concept of revisiting failed projects seems to be taking the concept learning from your mistakes to the logical conclusion. While the points of being careful of what projects you resurrect and that one must be cautious of what one goes back to are well taken and important. However, neither of these points take away the fact that what didn't work a year ago, or maybe even a couple of months, may work beautifully now because those working on it have had more experience, you have tried it once, or the climate around the project or your resources has changes.
It's really interesting to look at these different ways to revive old projects you've been working on, and how to avoid the mistakes that were previously made on them. I think there are benefits to resurrecting these old projects, although they may end up in new forms at the end of the process, but being able to learn from previous mistakes, and turn failures into successes is a great thing to be able to do.
I think there's always something intriguing about revisiting an old project, at least for me, but I never know where to begin. I always want to try to make my work better, but finding the right way to do that so that the project is completely successfully is very difficult. This article had a very interesting perspective on tackling failed projects and I learned some useful tips for the process of completely old work. I will definitely try to put some of the author's advice into practice.
I think that it's really important to go back to failed projects, because it's always good to see what you can do to better them. I know that I am always nervous to go back to a failed project, just because of the fear that it is just going to fail again. There are often projects that I want to go back to because I think that they will help me understand something, but I think that I never actually get myself into the right mindset. I definitely think though that the most important thing to do is to really evaluate whether the project is worth going back to or not, what are the reasons that it failed? It isn't worth wasting your time and energy to have the same project fail on you again.
prI found this article very refreshening, especially because in the environment we work in a lot of times we are forced to discard ideas that were not necessarily bad and a lot of times these ideas or projects never get resurrected. I think it is great advice to consider what went wrong the first times that you attempted to do the project as well as if those elements have changed in a way that would now allow you to succeed at the same project. A lot of times I find that the first time that I try to do something I do not have sufficient knowledge about materials or the process but often times I later encounter someone who has the knowledge that I need to accomplish this project. This article has reminded me to constantly reevaluate the knowledge and resources that I am constantly acquiring in order to see if they can be applied to old ideas in order to make them more successful.
I'm not sure where this slamming of old inventions is coming from, but it really depends on what you're looking at and where you're coming from and what you're planning on achieving. In terms of writing, like scripts and whatnot, it takes me years to finish pieces sometimes, and I love coming back to them and updating them according to how I have changed and how my life has been altered. Of course, you can't always do that...but I going back to old work is something I have always loved to do. However, if you are talking about artwork and design options, you need to let go. Usually, if something isn't working, it's never going to work, and in those cases, it's really beneficial to just abandon them if they aren't going anywhere.
Oh and I did post this comment during interp class but my teacher was late and off doing stuff so technically I was being efficient and not breaking any rules
i think its important to go back on failed projects. Not many people will admit to or even face their failures. it shows a lot about some one's character to go back and do it right. I agree that you need more than just having nothing else to do to resurrect a past project. You need conviction and purpose to make it successful.
I think that revisiting a project can be a good experience. If you feel you have something more to learn from a project, that you felt you didn't explore enough the first time around, going back and taking another stab at it can be valuable. However, sometimes you need to discipline yourself and not keep going back to a project - trying to find something new to learn when there is nothing more that can be.
This article is inspiring in that it gives more hope to a failed project than there is originally. It also approaches reviving projects from a realistic standpoint. It doesn't simply tell us that reviving projects is okay, and we should all do it, it sets up a series of checkpoints that will help make the next undertaking a successful.
This article comes at an amazingly apropos time for writers: November is National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. Even though I've been a participating member for the past three years, I've never achieved the 50,000 word goal. Often writers use the ideas from their NaNoWriMo to fuel other projects with more development time; I've used the month to reexamine older story projects and try to make them work. It's important to be able to analyze one's own work. If you're overly negative, you can't see the parts that could be salvaged; if you're overly protective you can't see the elements that are going wrong. When I was in elementary school, I couldn't stand to keep any of my old projects. As soon as I had grown out of something, I took great pleasure in destroying it. Now I think the library of experiences and ideas I've had is a great place to start from. I have documents of characters and words and locations that I've never found a creative place for, but I can open it up at any time and start taking ideas from it.
The last line of the article is something I really agree with, and I'll copy it here:
"The truth is that it takes a lot of planning, effort and passion to bring an old project back to life. If done right, the attempt is usually worth it."
More people need to resurrect dead projects. Undoubtedly, most probably failed due to a technicallity such as launching beforing defining what marketing segment they work for and how to specialize in focusing on them, not just everyone, which leaves the project open for failed promotion. In addition, for a lot of us playing around with ideas in school we may find that in ten years that some of are ideas now are good, but we lack the wisdom and refined skills to execute it to its potential. What I find interesting in this articles is that the writer did not mention timing around social and poltical climate could have also affected the project. In theatre we see this a lot. For example, Spring Awakening failed when it initially opened but give it 100 or 200 years of whatever it it's a Broadway success. It's just interesting to understand that people have good ideas but they may need other people to get them successfully of their feet and sometimes it's not what you did, it's just timing.
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