{"id":349,"date":"2024-11-15T19:20:00","date_gmt":"2024-11-16T00:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jaysonbrush.com\/?p=349"},"modified":"2026-10-28T15:59:56","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T20:59:56","slug":"when-to-kill-a-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jaysonbrush.com\/index.php\/2024\/11\/15\/when-to-kill-a-project\/","title":{"rendered":"When to Kill a Project"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"lead wp-block-paragraph\">Every organization has at least one project that should have ended months ago. Recognizing when to pull the plug is one of the hardest skills in leadership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Leaders who have been through difficult endings in their own lives often develop a clearer eye for this. When you&#8217;ve experienced firsthand that short-term pain can lead to long-term growth, you stop treating endings as failures. You start seeing them as part of how things get better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Sunk Cost Trap<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We&#8217;ve all been there. A project that made sense when it started has been limping along for quarters. The team is demoralized. Resources are being pulled from higher-potential work. But nobody wants to be the one who calls it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The usual justification: &#8220;We&#8217;ve invested so much already.&#8221; This is the <a href=\"https:\/\/greatergood.berkeley.edu\/article\/item\/how_the_sunk_cost_fallacy_can_drive_bad_decisions\">sunk cost fallacy<\/a> dressed up as responsibility. The time and money you&#8217;ve spent are gone regardless of what you do next. The only question that matters is whether continuing creates more value than stopping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Pruning Framework<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Henry Cloud&#8217;s book <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Necessary-Endings-Henry-Cloud\/dp\/0061777129?tag=jaysonbrush-20\"><em>Necessary Endings<\/em><\/a> offers a useful mental model. Think of your organization like a tree. Healthy trees get pruned. Not because the branches are dead, but because removing some allows others to thrive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Cloud identifies three types of branches:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Dead branches<\/strong>: Projects that have clearly failed. These are easy to cut.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Sick branches<\/strong>: Projects showing signs of decline but still functioning. Harder to cut because they&#8217;re &#8220;not that bad.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><strong>Healthy branches consuming too many resources<\/strong>: This is the hardest category. The project works, but it&#8217;s starving something more important.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Most organizations handle the first category reasonably well. The second and third are where projects go to slowly die while draining resources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Values Filter<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When a project is in the gray zone, data alone won&#8217;t give you the answer. You need a different question: &#8220;Does this still align with our mission?&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This shifts the conversation from performance metrics to purpose. A project might be hitting its numbers but pulling the organization away from where it needs to go. Or it might be underperforming but still central to the mission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The values filter also removes some of the emotional charge. You&#8217;re not saying the project was a mistake or that the people involved failed. You&#8217;re saying the organization has evolved and this no longer fits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Hurt vs. Harm<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ending a project hurts. People put time and identity into their work. Acknowledging that something didn&#8217;t pan out is uncomfortable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But there&#8217;s a difference between hurt and harm. Hurt is the short-term emotional cost of making a hard decision. Harm is the long-term damage of not making it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When you delay a necessary ending, you harm morale across the organization. High performers see resources going to low-potential work. They see leadership unwilling to make hard calls. Eventually, <a href=\"https:\/\/news.cornell.edu\/stories\/2025\/08\/high-achievers-more-likely-bolt-when-top-rankings-are-restricted\">they leave<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How to Do It<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Once you&#8217;ve decided to end a project:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Be direct about the reasoning.<\/strong> Don&#8217;t hide behind vague corporate language. Explain what changed and why this no longer fits.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Acknowledge the work.<\/strong> The effort was real even if the outcome wasn&#8217;t what you hoped.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Move quickly.<\/strong> Prolonged wind-downs are worse than clean endings.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Redeploy the people.<\/strong> Your best people from the cancelled project should be the first ones staffed onto something new.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The goal isn&#8217;t to make ending projects feel good. It&#8217;s to make your organization capable of ending them when necessary, so resources flow to where they create the most value.<\/p>\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Recognizing when a project should end is one of the hardest calls in leadership.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[27,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-strategy","category-technology"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jaysonbrush.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jaysonbrush.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jaysonbrush.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jaysonbrush.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jaysonbrush.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.jaysonbrush.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":485,"href":"https:\/\/www.jaysonbrush.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349\/revisions\/485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jaysonbrush.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jaysonbrush.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jaysonbrush.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}