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5-POINT SUMMARY FOR BUSY CEOs:

1. The Morning Land Defined: Projects drift into a zombie state—not dead, not fully alive—consuming resources without delivering corresponding budgeted value.

2. The Warning Signs: Initiative drift, project phasing, shifting goalposts, fading executive sponsorship, and "next quarter syndrome" all signal entry into the morning land.

3. The Hidden Costs: Beyond wasted capital, morning land projects create opportunity costs, talent drain, and strategic incoherence.

4. The Rescue Operation: Some projects can be salvaged through 'lifecycle governance' ruthless refocusing, while others need a merciful end—the key is decisive action.

5. The Prevention System: Implementing lifecycle governance creates early warning mechanisms and clear decision pathways to prevent initiatives from drifting into the morning land.

Welcome to the Morning Land

Every organisation has them. Projects that aren't dead but aren't fully alive either. Initiatives that continue to consume resources without delivering corresponding value. Teams that keep working without clear purpose or measurable impact.

I call this state "the morning land"—a place that feels like the beginning of something, but never quite becomes anything. It’s a foggy twilight zone between vibrant execution and proper termination

The morning land is a comfortable place. Nobody has to make difficult decisions. Nobody knows who owns the original assumptions or has to admit failure. Nobody has to have uncomfortable conversations about wasted resources or invalid assumptions.

It's also extraordinarily expensive.

How Projects Enter the Morning Land

Projects don't suddenly appear in the morning land. They drift there gradually through a series of small compromises and missed decision points.

Here's how it typically happens:

1. Initiative Drift

The project starts with clear objectives, timeframes, and metrics. Then market conditions change. Competitors make unexpected moves. New technologies emerge. The original assumptions that justified the initiative become outdated.

Instead of pausing to reassess, teams adjust their work incrementally without revisiting fundamental questions about purpose and priority.

2. Shifting Goalposts

As initial targets become clearly unreachable, new forecast or objectives emerge. "We may not be delivering the original ROI, but we're building important capabilities for the future." The metrics that would trigger a kill decision get redefined or replace with vaguer measures.

This isn't always cynical. Teams genuinely believe in what they're building. But without rigorous lifecycle assessment against original business cases, metrics become increasingly elastic.

3. Fading Executive Sponsorship

The executive who championed the initiative moves to a new role or leaves the company. The new leader has their own priorities. The project loses its vocal advocate but retains enough institutional momentum to continue.

Without clear ownership at the executive level, no one asks the hard questions about continued viability.

4. The "Next Quarter Syndrome"

Teams promise that meaningful results are just one more quarter away. Then another quarter. Then another.

The cost of continuing seems less than the cost of stopping, especially when accounting for sunk costs (despite what economists tell us about ignoring them). So the project continues its slow drift through the morning land.

5. The Fear of Failure

Nobody wants to be associated with a failed initiative. Nobody wants to tell their teams that months or years of work need to be written off. Nobody wants to admit they were wrong about market needs or technical feasibility.

So projects that should be killed linger on, draining resources that could be deployed to higher-potential opportunities.

The Staggering Costs of the Morning Land

The costs of the morning land extend far beyond wasted capital:

Opportunity Costs

Every dollar and every hour spent on morning land projects is a dollar and hour not invested in high-potential initiatives. In a resource-constrained environment (which is every environment), this opportunity cost is often the largest expense.

Talent Drain

Your best people get stuck working on initiatives that won't deliver meaningful impact. They know it. You know it. But the pretence continues. The result is disengagement and eventual departure of key talent.

Strategic Incoherence

As morning land projects accumulate, your strategy becomes diffuse and unfocused. Resources spread too thinly across too many initiatives, preventing any single priority from getting the concentration needed for success.

Decision Paralysis

Organisations that tolerate the morning land develop a culture of indecision. Teams learn that mediocrity is acceptable and that hard choices can be perpetually delayed.

Market Irrelevance

While you're supporting zombie initiatives, competitors focused on fewer, more vital projects race ahead. By the time you realise the cost of your morning land portfolio, the market may have moved beyond your reach.

Conducting a Morning Land Audit

The first step in addressing this problem is visibility. Most CEOs are shocked when they conduct a thorough Lifecycle audit of their initiative portfolio.

Here's how to assess if you have a morning land problem:

1. List all active initiatives consuming significant resources
2. For each initiative, ask: What lifecycle stage is it in? Is it meeting its original objectives and timelines? Have the assumptions in the original business case been validated? If we were making the investment decision today, would we make the same choice? Does it have a clear, engaged executive sponsor? Can we articulate, in simple terms, how this initiative supports our strategy?
3. Be brutally honest about the answers

In most organisations, 20-30% of initiatives will clearly fall into the morning land category. Another 20-30% will show warning signs of drifting in that direction.

Performing Rescue Operations

Not all morning land projects need to be killed. Some can be rescued through decisive lifecycle intervention.

For projects worth salvaging:

1. Ruthless Refocusing

Lifecycle review. Strip away everything that doesn't directly contribute to core objectives. Eliminate nice-to-have features. Focus on the minimum solution that delivers business value.

2. Clear Success Criteria

Establish non-negotiable metrics and timeframes across the lifecycle. Make it clear that failing to meet these targets will result in project termination.

3. Renewed Executive Sponsorship

Assign a senior leader with the authority and commitment to make tough decisions. Make there accountability for entire lifecycle and results explicit.

4. Resource Recommitment

If the project truly matters, give it the resources needed to succeed at the current lifecycle stage. Half-measures simply prolong the journey through the morning land.

For projects that should be terminated:

1. Clean, Decisive Endings

Don't let projects die slowly through gradual resource starvation. Make a clear decision to end the initiative and communicate it transparently.

2. Harvest the Learning

Conduct a thorough Lifecycle post-mortem focused on learning, not blame. Document the lifecycle insights that can prevent similar failures in the future.

3. Redeploy Resources

Move people and capital quickly to higher-potential opportunities. Demonstrate that ending projects isn't about punishment but about maximising impact.

4. Celebrate the Decision

Recognise leaders who have the courage to kill underperforming initiatives. This signals that you value good lifecycle decision-making over perseverance in lost causes.

Preventing Morning Land Syndrome

While rescuing projects from the morning land is important, preventing them from drifting there in the first place is even more valuable.

This requires implementing a lifecycle governance framework that creates:

1. Regular Assumption Testing

Review the foundational assumptions of each initiative at regular intervals. When key assumptions prove invalid, trigger an immediate lifecycle reassessment of project viability.

2. Stage Gates with Teeth

Establish clear Lifecycle stage gates with specific criteria for proceeding. These shouldn't be bureaucratic checkboxes but meaningful decision points with real consequences.

3. Executive Accountability

Make senior sponsors explicitly accountable for the continued lifecycle relevance and performance of their initiatives. Rotate sponsorship formally when leadership changes occur. Someone should always own the project or asset lifecycle end to end.

4. Celebration of Intelligent Failure

Create a culture where killing failing projects early is rewarded, not punished. Share stories of leaders who had the courage to end initiatives when evidence suggested they should.

5. Resource Flexibility

Build the organisational lifecycle capability to rapidly shift resources from underperforming to high-potential initiatives. This requires both process mechanisms and cultural norms that support fluidity.

Microsoft's Morning Land Exodus

Microsoft offers a compelling case study in escaping the morning land. Under Steve Ballmer, the company had accumulated a significant portfolio of zombie initiatives—from Windows Phone to the Zune music player to various failed social networking attempts.

When Satya Nadella became CEO, he led a systematic exodus from the morning land. He didn't just kill underperforming products; he implemented a governance framework to prevent new initiatives from drifting into zombie status.

Microsoft established clear "kill criteria" for all major initiatives. They created executive review boards with the explicit authority to terminate projects. They built resource redeployment mechanisms that allowed talent to flow quickly from ended projects to growing opportunities.

The results speak for themselves. Microsoft's market cap has increased from around $300 billion when Nadella took over to over $3 trillion today. The company transformed from a slow-moving Windows company to an agile cloud and AI powerhouse.

This wasn't just about making better bets. It was about systematically preventing projects from lingering in the morning land, consuming resources that could be deployed to higher-potential areas.

Implementing Lifecycle Governance

The key to preventing morning land syndrome is implementing robust lifecycle governance—a structured framework for managing initiatives from conception through retirement.

Effective lifecycle governance includes:

1. Clear Ownership

Assign specific executives as lifecycle owners for major initiatives, with accountability for results and authority to make decisions.

2. Regular Health Assessments

Conduct structured Lifecycle reviews of all initiatives against original business cases and current market realities, not just execution metrics.

3. Decision Forums

Create Lifecycle governance bodies with explicit authority to continue, redirect, or terminate initiatives based on lifecycle performance.

4. Resource Reallocation Mechanisms

Build processes for quickly shifting people, budget, and focus from underperforming to high-potential areas.

5. Learning Systems

Establish mechanisms to capture and apply Lifecycle insights from both successes and failures to future initiatives.

Skyjed: Your Universal Lifecycle Governance

At Skyjed, we've built a platform specifically designed to help organisations prevent and address morning land syndrome through effective lifecycle governance.

Our solution provides:

• Structured frameworks for lifecycle health assessment
• Early warning indicators when initiatives begin drifting
• Decision support tools for rescue or termination
• Cross-functional visibility into initiative performance
• Knowledge capture and transfer mechanisms

Our customers have reclaimed millions in wasted resources by identifying and addressing morning land projects, and prevented countless more from drifting into zombie status.

Schedule a free morning land Lifecycle audit for your organisation by contacting us at info@skyjed.com or visiting skyjed.com.

My wrap up is - you simply can't afford to let valuable resources remain trapped in the morning land of zombie initiatives. The companies that win are those that can quickly identify, address, and prevent morning land syndrome through effective lifecycle governance.

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Each week, I explore different aspects of lifecycle management - from preventing morning land syndrome to implementing AI governance to creating more sustainable operating models. It's practical insight from the trenches of helping organisations across industries transform their approach to lifecycle governance.

Until next Edition!

Cheers

Leica

"The morning land is comfortable but costly. It's where initiatives go when no one has the courage to admit they've failed or the clarity to see how they can succeed. Breaking free requires both rigorous governance and cultural willingness to face reality, even when it's uncomfortable. That's the essence of effective lifecycle management."

Contact Skyjed today for a personalised demonstration.

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