Managing the legacy of your project

Ending a project is as chaotic an affair as the start up. After the flurry of the beginning and the more measured stage of making progress, we are then faced with wrapping things up.  So what do you want to have as the legacy from your project?

Mostly it's all about figuring out how to keep the website going, debating where to put the useful resources that have been developed, and managing the process of celebrating results and saying goodbye to project teams.  But is this enough?

Project outcomes are good - and always worth advertising.

But what is your legacy? By legacy I mean the long term, sustainable, "thing" that has resulted form your program. Sometimes this isn't seen clearly until years later. There's an excellent paper I commend you to read which covers the difference between people, process and product legacies.  I particularly like the "reuse" concept.

What is disruptive innovation?

A disruptive innovation is not a breakthrough innovation that has taken something and made better.It is an event or product which transforms the entire notion of the experience or product.
We would like disruptive innovation in healthcare, but mostly we do breakthrough innovation - at best.

Listen (<5mins) to the definition of disruptive innovation from the man himself, courtesy of Harvard Business Review (HBR)