Know When It’s Time to Pull the Plug on a Project

We’ve all continued to work away on projects that we know are ultimately dead in the water.

If you’re a manager, how can you recognize sunk-cost initiatives — and actually stop before wasting more resources?

Start by ensuring that even big decisions are reversible. Recognize business plans for what they really are: experiments.

Break large, risky gambles into a series of smaller tests. Clarify your hypotheses, the best ways to test them, and the metrics. That will signal whether to persist, pivot, or pause.

Then, implement systems & strategies that make visible to yourself and other managers what work is being done and how it’s going. This will help you recognize which initiatives are actually adding value, and which aren’t.

Finally, keep a list of other projects you want to do, and set a rule that you can’t launch anything until you’ve finished or stopped existing projects. The fear of missing out on something better might help you overpower that feeling of disappointment over something that didn’t pan out.

Pulling the plug is always hard, but knowing how and when to do it will help your team become more adaptable, innovative, and resilient in the long term.