Your Company Needs to Focus on Fewer Projects. Here's How.

Harvard Business Review

2 days ago

In almost every organization I've advised, I've encountered the same problem: far too many projects, and far too few that truly matter.
A CEO of a global nonprofit association once told me—half joking, half frustrated—that his company had 900 employees but more than 1,200 active projects. 'It's madness,' he said. 'But people love launching projects. It feels exciting. It shows progress. Stopping them? That's uncomfortable. It feels like failure.'
This story is far from unique. Across the industries I've worked in—global consumer brands, leading pharmaceutical companies, financial institutions, large infrastructure firms, and even business schools—the same pattern emerges. Banks run hundreds of competing digital initiatives; consumer goods companies stretch their scarce innovation talent across dozens of 'priority' launches; health care and life sciences firms keep long-running research or compliance programs alive long after their usefulness has passed.
But hidden within this challenge lies a powerful opportunity: when organizations are brave enough to focus on fewer, higher-value initiatives, the payoff can be remarkable. Energy, budgets, and talent stop being diluted and start flowing into the projects that truly matter—accelerating delivery, boosting morale, and creating a stronger sense of shared purpose. Based on my experience, most organizations could cut 50% of their active projects tomorrow without any negative consequences. In fact, in some cases, trimming 70% would make them faster, more focused, and more effective.
And yet they don't. In a June 2024 survey conducted for my upcoming book, Powered by Projects: Leading Your Organization in the Transformation Age (HBR Press, January 2026), only 8% of organizations conduct monthly project reviews, 44% stop projects only occasionally, 26% rarely, and 7% never stop them at all.
This obsession with starting everything is more than inefficient; it is strategically dangerous. In today's project economy, value is delivered primarily through initiatives and transformations, but that doesn't mean that more projects are better. Bloated portfolios dilute resources, slow decision-making, and prevent organizations from focusing on the projects that could truly move the needle.
The first rule for thriving in this new reality is simple: Kill more projects. But here's the catch—everyone knows this, yet few know how to do it. They fear the politics, the tradeoffs, and the uncomfortable conversations, so the overload continues, quietly draining focus and momentum.
Building the Habit of Stopping
Launching projects is fun. Kickoffs generate energy and visibility. Meanwhile, killing projects feels quiet, awkward, and politically charged. It's no wonder that organizational overload is common, and why, despite recognizing the problem, leaders struggle to stop projects even when the case to do so is obvious.
There's the sunk-cost trap: 'We've already spent too much to quit, and we're almost there.' Also reputational risk, emotional attachment, pet projects, vanity projects—we all know them when we see them. The problem isn't awareness, it's human nature and ingrained organizational habits.
Annual reviews and a stated commitment to keeping project portfolios small may help around the edges, but these approaches fail to deliver true organizational focus. A senior finance executive at a European industrial group once admitted to me: 'We do big portfolio discussions once a year, but by then it's too late. Zombie projects keep running because nobody wants to be the one to stop them.'
Those zombie initiatives that drain resources without delivering value are deadly. They slow down strategic transformations and exhaust teams. Breaking this cycle requires more than better governance—it demands new habits and cultural shifts.
Over the past two decades, as I've advised executives across various industries, I've developed and observed seven practices that consistently yield results. These are practical habits that organizations have adopted to transform how they prioritize, govern, and ultimately stop projects.
Each of these principles lessens the psychological challenge of stopping projects—and ensures these decisions are as deliberate and celebrated as starting projects.
1. Make continuation a conscious choice.
In most companies, projects continue simply because no one challenges them. Effective organizations flip this default.
At a global food company I advised, project reviews stopped being passive reporting exercises. Sponsors were no longer allowed to 'update' leadership with progress charts; instead, they were asked a single, pointed question: 'If you had to defend this project to the board today, would you still recommend it?'
This forced sponsors to think like investors, evaluating future value instead of rationalizing past effort. Leaders told me that this small change triggered 'the most honest conversations we've ever had about our portfolio.' Within six months, 20% of projects were stopped or significantly re-scoped, releasing millions for digital upgrades that had been stalled for years.
2. Create real tradeoffs.
One reason portfolios swell is that leaders rarely have to make hard choices. Budgets stretch, priorities multiply, and every initiative finds a way to survive.
A telecommunications company I worked with broke this pattern by introducing 'project trading sessions.' Every business-unit leader was given a fixed 'budget' of talent and funding, with one rule: To launch a new initiative, they had to stop or 'sell' an existing project of equal value.
The process wasn't just financial—it was psychological. Leaders had to publicly justify why a new project was more valuable than one already underway, creating an actual marketplace for priorities. After one session, a senior executive admitted: 'I realized I was defending projects I didn't even believe in anymore, just because nobody ever asked me to choose.' Within a year, the portfolio shrank by 35%, and execution speed for key strategic projects improved significantly.
3. Stop treating every idea as a project.
Many organizations reflexively elevate too many opportunities into formal projects, complete with steering committees, governance meetings, and complex documentation. This clogs portfolios with initiatives that should have been quietly tested—or quietly abandoned.
One health care and life sciences company I advised created small cross-functional 'squad teams' to explore new opportunities for 30 to 60 days. These squads had a simple mandate to test the strategic relevance and potential impact of an idea before requesting project status.
The result? About 40% of ideas were dropped after this initial assessment, saving thousands of hours and keeping the organization focused on high-value initiatives. Leaders described it as 'one of the most liberating changes we've ever made.'
4. Time-box projects to three or six months.
Long, open-ended projects are where focus goes to die. They create sunk-cost inertia, locking organizations into outdated priorities.
An energy corporation I worked with shifted to a time-boxed approach: All new initiatives were structured as three- or six-month projects, with continuation decided at the end of each cycle.
This made it easier for executives to pivot—or stop—without political fallout. Leaders could simply say, 'This cycle ends here; we're redirecting resources elsewhere.' The approach gave the company remarkable agility; for example, when customer behavior shifted sharply during a regulatory change, the firm was able to redirect investment within weeks, something that would have been unthinkable under its old multi-year programs.
5. Reward leaders who stop, not just those who start.
In most organizations, careers are built on launching new initiatives, not ending them. High-performing companies change that narrative.
At a global luxury company I advised, the CEO added a new KPI to senior leaders' scorecards: resources freed from low-value initiatives. Leaders had to publicly share, every quarter, which projects they had stopped and how those resources were reinvested.
At first, executives were skeptical. But within two cycles, the mood shifted—leaders began competing to demonstrate their strategic judgment. One senior executive proudly told me, 'Stopping that big IT project freed 15 engineers; they're now accelerating our core digital offering. That's the impact I want to be known for.'
Stopping became not a failure, but a career-enhancing signal of good leadership.
6. Spot weak projects early.
The longer a weak project drags on, the harder it becomes to stop. The best organizations identify underperformers before they consume significant resources.
A mid-sized European biotech firm I worked with used three simple early-warning signals: declining sponsor attendance at key meetings, repeated re-baselining of schedules, and falling stakeholder participation. If a project triggered two of these, it faced an automatic 'continuation challenge'—a structured review where leaders had to justify its survival.
About 15% of projects were stopped early through this process, freeing capacity for new strategic priorities. The key wasn't sophisticated analytics, it was clear rules and the courage to act on them.
7. Restaff your people to your most strategic projects.
One of the biggest reasons leaders hesitate to stop projects is the fear that doing so will lead to layoffs. When that risk is removed, the psychological barrier to cutting low-value initiatives drops dramatically.
At a global bank I advised, hundreds of IT and operations staff were tied up in outdated compliance projects that no longer matched the regulatory priorities of the year. Rather than cut those roles, the COO launched a 'safe landing' program: Every person from a stopped project was guaranteed placement on one of the bank's top 10 strategic initiatives within 30 days. This policy not only retained valuable skills within the bank but also fostered trust. Teams became more willing to recommend ending projects once they knew it wouldn't put colleagues at risk. Swift, deliberate restaffing turns endings into accelerators for what matters most.
Winning by Stopping
What these practices have in common is not better tools, but a mindset shift. Stopping projects isn't about cutting headcount or shrinking the organization—it's about sharpening focus and amplifying impact.
When organizations streamline their projects, transformation accelerates, strategies are achieved faster, and people are more motivated and productive. Energy flows to the work that truly matters, and success becomes more visible and contagious. It leads people to feel prouder to be working for your organization.
At your next portfolio meeting, resist the instinct to ask, 'What should we start next?' Ask instead: 'If we could only do half of what we're doing now, which half would we keep?' And then act on that answer. Because in the project economy, winning doesn't come from starting more—it comes from stopping what no longer matters and relentlessly focusing on what does matter.