The problem with most of these "pet VP" projects is that there's never any clear link to the external market. Who are they benchmarking against? What are their

The problem with most of these "pet VP" projects is that there's never any clear link to the external market. Who are they benchmarking against? What are their performance targets? As a result, you get a team who's only deliverable is "PowerPoints that go up and to the right, compared to last week." And the project soldiers on, because to can it and admit failure would embarrass someone. If it's the CEO, even worse. Which is maybe explainable for a brand new technology (say, Palm with handwriting recognition), but less so when there are serious competitors out there with known performance levels.