Need More Innovation? Kill More Projects

A great many projects should end, but never do. Instead, they linger, consuming resources long after their core value has been delivered. Why does this happen? Often, it’s inertia, projects stay alive simply because they exist. Other times, it’s the sunk cost fallacy, where teams continue investing in something simply because they’ve already spent time and money on it. No matter the cause, the result is the same: outdated initiatives continue while higher-value opportunities get sidelined, or companies keep hiring because the people they have are focused on relatively low value work.

Leaders should cultivate an environment where teams are frequently restructured to align with the highest-priority initiatives.

Opportunity Cost

Every project requires attention, funding and bandwidth. Keeping a low-impact project alive means saying no - whether explicitly or implicitly - to something else. The problem is that companies rarely pause to evaluate whether a project still deserves its place in the portfolio. Teams become attached to their work and the idea of stopping feels like admitting that what they are doing is not valuable. The reality though is that killing projects isn’t about failure; it’s about strategy.

When organizations hold onto projects that have outlived their usefulness, they limit their ability to pursue new, high-value initiatives. By being more intentional about ending projects, companies can redirect talent and resources to efforts with greater impact.

Why Projects Linger

A few common reasons why companies struggle to shut projects down:

Identity: Projects become someone’s identity. A team or leader may feel personally tied to the project and resist shutting it down because it reflects on their work.
Lack of a structured review process: Many companies lack a formal system for evaluating whether projects should continue.
Fear of disrupting teams: Shutting down a project can mean restructuring teams, which may feel disruptive and uncomfortable.
Sunk cost fallacy: Teams hesitate to end a project because of past investments, even if those investments no longer justify continuing.
Misaligned incentives: Some employees define their own success by the size of their team or the number of ongoing projects, making it against their interests to shut anything down.
Problem ownership mentality: Teams and their projects are effectively the owners of particular problem spaces. Ending a project can feel like leaving an issue unaddressed, but is it the most important problem to address? That’s why leaders must step back and stack-rank problems and projects the same way they would prioritize issues and tasks.

When It Is Time to End a Project

Organizations should periodically assess their projects with a few key questions:

Would we fund this project again today? If it didn’t exist, would it be worth starting now?

Is this project still aligned with strategic priorities? Businesses evolve, and some projects that made sense six months ago may no longer be relevant.

What is the opportunity cost? What higher-impact work is being delayed or underfunded because of this project?

Are we iterating just because we can? Sometimes projects keep going simply because they are already in motion, not because they are still adding value.

Reshuffling Teams: A Healthy Practice

Just as projects shouldn’t last forever, neither should some teams. When organizations become comfortable with shutting down projects, they also become better at restructuring teams to fit evolving priorities. The best companies are dynamic, regularly realigning people and resources to match what’s most important.

One key challenge is that some employees see bigger, more critical problems they want to solve, but they haven’t been explicitly asked to do so. In many organizations, this leads to turf wars over problem ownership. For those without much authority, shifting their focus to a problem someone else "owns" can be difficult. This is why leaders and middle managers need to be proactive about facilitating change, helping people transition from lower-value projects to more pressing needs without unnecessary friction.

There’s another major advantage to encouraging project turnover: your best people gain broader experience and stronger networks. Employees who have worked across different parts of the company (or industry) bring invaluable perspective. Their varied experiences and cross-team connections make it far easier to navigate complexity, break down silos and get things done. Instead of viewing project transitions as disruptions, organizations should see them as opportunities to build more well-rounded, effective teams.

Organizational Flexibility

Ending projects is only half the equation. Organizations must also ensure that talent is redeployed effectively, preventing unnecessary "business as usual" work from accumulating. Leaders should cultivate an environment where teams are frequently restructured to align with the highest-priority initiatives. This means ensuring:

Project closeouts are paired with intentional team reassignment. When a project ends, team members should be placed into work that aligns with evolving company priorities, not left in limbo or reassigned to low-impact maintenance work.

Ongoing work doesn’t persist just because it exists. Many organizations accumulate busywork simply because it was once part of an initiative. Leaders should challenge whether legacy workflows still serve a valuable purpose.

Flexibility is a core value. The best organizations actively manage their workforce in response to changing priorities, making adaptability a key leadership skill.

Employees see change as opportunity. When people know they will be given high-impact assignments as priorities shift, they become more open to change and less resistant to project closures.

The best project managers and business leaders aren’t just good at starting projects; they’re good at killing them when the time is right. By actively evaluating ongoing initiatives and maintaining a flexible approach to team structuring, organizations can free up resources, avoid wasted effort and maintain a sharper focus on their most important work. Ending a project isn’t failure, it is the sign of a company that knows how to prioritize and remain agile in a changing landscape.

Our mission is to empower organizations by fostering cultures of clarity and transparency, engagement and collaboration. Through innovative tools, best practices and partnership with leaders, we strive to unlock the competitive advantages inherent in healthy organizations.