Pull the plug?
Why it’s so hard to stop a failing project.
To stay ahead of the competition, companies must keep innovating—constantly searching for new ideas to meet existing or emerging customer needs. By testing, validating, and learning. Many leadership teams have recognized the need to create a sandbox for this: a safe space or setup where there's room to experiment—and to fail. Where concepts grow into pilots. Until, eventually, they still face a selection process, and the moment arrives: what’s the business case? When can we expect a return on this investment? At that point, the ideas—proven or not—are carefully weighed. They’re compared, debated, and analyzed. Meetings are held until a consensus is reached about whether to invest.
It starts with a clear overview
But there’s one critical question that often never makes it to the meeting table: Which initiative will we stop if we decide to start this one? Unless you have the luxury of founding an entirely new company, you’ll always be working with existing budgets and teams. Avoiding overload means finishing—or terminating —projects before starting new ones
Next is applying focus
And that’s where the real challenge lies. When was the last time your organization stopped a project? And no, crisis-driven decisions don’t count. Making tough calls under external pressure is usually manageable. But proactively and critically reflecting on the progress and success of ongoing projects? That’s something we often skip altogether. And when underperformance does come up, the sunk cost fallacy is never far away. Once a significant amount has been invested, disappointing results tend to get rationalized with subjective justifications. The result? Projects continue—even when there’s no customer value.
The last step is building agility.
This blind spot—failing to stop initiatives in time—can be addressed by implementing effective Strategic Portfolio Management. Our methodology links decision-making on new investments directly to the existing portfolio of ongoing projects. This shifts the conversation from whether to invest to what to prioritize. So if you want to start something new but haven’t completed anything yet, the logical next question becomes: What are we going to stop? Stopping creates breathing room. It opens up space. And if you’re willing to make room for experimentation, you should also be willing to make room to accelerate your strategy execution.
Stoppen geeft lucht. Er ontstaat ruimte. En als je ruimte kunt maken voor een proeftuin dan wil je ook ruimte maken om je strategie executie te versnellen.
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Written by our founders, Linda Kester (scientifically true) and Sonja Schasfoort (proven in practice).