Project Beginning and Project end

I have observed in many of the projects that there is a lot of management focus while the project begins. But as the project comes towards the end, slowly the focus of the management drifts to other issues and other high priority projects at that point of time.  The highly skilled resources and dynamic project leads are slowly pulled out because of their requirement in other projects which necessitates the second in command to step up into the higher role. There are two sides to this.

For the second in command guy who takes over, there is an opportunity to showcase his skills. Thus he gets the benefit of leading a team. And in the way, the management also discovers some budding talent. But this approach may also lead to disastrous situations if the second in command is not capable enough. Though there is a school of thought that, there should be continuous management support and attention for a project from beginning till end, real work and business life priorities necessitates to make such changes and we have to learn to live with the change!