Dakota tribal wisdom says that when you discover you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount.

However, in business we often try other strategies with dead horses. The following has been observed:

a. Buying a stronger whip

b. Changing riders

c. Saying things like "This is the way we have always ridden dead horses - it's our day job"

d. Appointing a committee to study the horse

e. Increasing the standards to ride dead horses

f. Arranging to visit other sites to see how they ride dead horses

g. Appointing a team to revive the dead horse

h. Comparing the state of dead horses in todays' environment

i. Creating a training programme to increase our riding ability

j. Change the requirements of the horse

k. Hire contractors to ride the horse

l. Blame contractors for not riding the horse

m. Harness several dead horses together for increased speed

n. Continue beating the horse

o. Increase resource to improve the horse's performance

p. Get Andersons to determine if an internal or external team is the cheapest method of riding the horse

q. Buy a product to make dead horses go faster

r. Declare that dead horses are cheaper to run

s. Gather a team to brainstorm the uses of dead horses

t. Revisit the performance requirements for horses

u. Promote the horse to a supervisory position

v. Gather all resource with dead horse expertise