Continue, Pivot, or Kill?

Each week in the Tech Exec: The Week That Was newsletter I share my thoughts on a topic that I've worked on or discussed with a client, colleague, or within the CTO community. In issue 2023#06 we consider how to decide whether to continue a project, pivot, or kill it.

Should you continue developing a product (or service, platform, feature, etc), pivot, or cut your losses and kill it? Answer these ten questions to give you the information and context you need to make a value-driven decision.

Why Care?

The sunk cost fallacy is a difficult one to overcome. As is inertia and the potential hit to morale caused by work essentially being discarded. However, continuing projects that no longer (or never!) best serve the interests of the business is not a viable long-term option.

When to Ask?

There is no wrong time to ask these questions, and they are all worth asking at a regular cadence during a project. However, they can be particularly valuable when you get data, or just a gut feeling, that things are not progressing as well as they could be. This could be from budget or timeline overrun, a lowering of team morale, changes to the internal or external landscape, or new knowledge that you have gained through the development process.

Ten Questions to Ask

1. What was the Original Why?

Why was the project started? What business value was it driving? Did it align with the business vision and focus?

2. What is the Current Why?

Does the project still align with the business vision and focus? What business value will be derived from the project? Is the derived value greater than the development and ongoing support costs?

3. How has the competitive landscape changed?

Are there now alternatives on the market that you could purchase rather than build? Will the product give you a competitive edge, or allow you to remain current?

4. What has been learned so far?

What do we now know about the problem space? What have we learned about approaches to complete the project? Are there already shareable artifacts or learnings?

5. What else could we be doing?

If we were not continuing this project, what else could we be using our time and resources for? What is the opportunity cost of continuing?

6. Are we building the right thing?

If the desired outcome is still valuable (the why), is our approach to it valid? What is the minimum we need to have in place to assess value? Are there any other ways to get the same outcome?

7. Do we have the right team?

What are the skills required for the project? Does the current team have the right mix of skills to be successful? If not, what would need to change? Consider additions to the team, training, bringing in external consultants, etc. Complete a skills mapping exercise to identify gaps and opportunities.

8. How committed is the team?

What is the morale of the team at the moment? If energy and motivation are low, why is this? What would need to change to drive engagement? If energy and motivation are high, how will the team be impacted if the project is stopped?

9. What are the risks?

What are the risks to the business if we do not continue? What are the risks associated with the development phase? What are the risks when the product is live? Do we have mitigation plans in place for the most significant risks, and have these been factored into the cost structure? Use a clear, concise, and consistent risk statement format for communicating risks.

10. What is the projected ROI?

If you continue the project, what is the projected Return on Investment (ROI)? How long is the payback period? To calculate the projected ROI you will need to estimate the value derived from the project and divide by the total costs of development, risk mitigation, and ongoing support. If you are an employee, rather than an owner, would you invest your own money in this project?

Making a Value-Driven Decision

Answering the ten questions above will give you the information and context that you need to make a decision whether to continue the project, to make a pivot, or to kill the project.

Only continue the project if it still aligns with the business vision and focus and if it will provide business value. Be quick to kill it if not.

If there are more valuable activities that could be progressed if the team and resources were not focussed on this project, consider other ways to reach the same outcomes, eg buying the capability, or using outside development.

If you were starting from scratch today would you use the same approach? A project inception workshop could help to refocus priorities and identify alternative approaches.

If the project is still valuable but the team is not engaged or making good progress then look at skills gaps and alignment.

Next Steps

You’ve asked the question of whether to kill the project or not, so regardless of the outcome there will be work to do.

Consider doing the following:

• Run a retrospective to learn with the team what worked well and what could have been done differently.
• Communicate and celebrate learnings and successes with the wider business, as well as with the community where appropriate.
• Help all team members to clarify what they learned from the project so that they can tell the story as a success in their careers.

If the decision is to continue the project, you will also want to use this opportunity to refocus the team:

• Help the team to understand the alignment between their work and business value.
• Set the focus on the key priorities.
• Put in place any required training/learning.

What other questions do you ask when considering the future direction for a project? Please share your thoughts in the comments below, and subscribe to Tech Exec: The Week That Was to get notified when the next article drops.

If you would like to discuss exec coaching or fractional CTO services contact jonathan@knowledge.supply.