Introduction

setting the scene

• For every beginning there must be an ending
• But we don't like to talk about that
  • Thousands of books in print about how to start a business
  • Only a handful about how to pass one on or wind one down
  • And many of those are really about how to sell out at the right time
  • Because mortality scares us
• Preparing for the end can make it less painful
  • And less likely: if we think about how things might end, we might be able to prevent some endings
  • It also helps make what happens before then more enjoyable

Two Kinds of Ending

• Deliberate closure
  • You made the decision yourself
  • Or have enough advance notice to make plans
  • You can learn as you go and make changes along the way
• Abrupt closure
  • Short notice, and usually not your decision
  • You only get one shot at it and aren't able to make changes as you go along
• We want the former, but often have to deal with the latter
• [Wilson2014] outlined how research software engineers should organize their projetcs
• [Wilson2017] was in part a rebuttal
  • Most people don't have time to do everything the "right" way
  • By which we usually mean "their employers don't give them enough time"
  • So comparing what they do to "best practices" is as unfair as comparing what a surgeon does at leisure in a well-equipped hospital to what a paramedic does at a crash site
• This workshop addresses both cases
  • Vaida has time to plan and to correct things that she initially gets wrong
  • Liam only has time to do a few things, and will not be able to go back and fix anything he doesn't get right

The Survival Arc

• [Ripley2008] synthesised research on how people behave when disaster strikes and identified a three-stage survival arc:
  • Denial: refusal to believe that the situation is as serious as evidence suggests
  • Deliberation: a period of paralysed uncertainty about what to do
  • Decision: action, which may or may not be correct
• The denial phase usually consumes far more time than people expect
  • Thinking through the scenario before it happens dramatically shortens it
• The period between a credible sign that a project is in trouble and the first concrete closure action will be longer than planners assume, particularly under abrupt conditions
  • Rehearsal converts a novel emergency into a recognized pattern and shortens denial
• Business owners who were satisfied with their exits had started planning years in advance [Burlingham2014]
  • The most common mistake is skipping early stages because they feel premature

What We Can Hope For

• The sunk cost fallacy keeps projects alive past their useful life
• [Weitzel1989] describes a five-stage model of organisational decline:
  • Blindness: warning signs go unrecognised
  • Inaction: signs are seen but nothing changes
  • Faulty action: the wrong remedies are tried
  • Crisis: resources are depleted and options close off
  • Dissolution
• The moment when shutdown becomes undeniable is rarely the moment it became inevitable: the warning signs were there earlier [Whetten1980]
  • Recognizing which stage a project is in determines which interventions are still available