I've been reading books on portfolio management lately. Part of this research comes from the increasing need of organizations on how to cope with their portfolio of projects and how to transition to a more iterative approach. Or, at least get some grip on the avalanche of projects and to bring some sense to it all.
One of the more interesting pieces of advice I've read was to try and kill each and every project that you have. Meaning, if you can't find an appealing, logical, and measurable reason to keep the project you should kill that project off. And if you think that is common practice, you may be surprised to find that portfolio professionals are just like regular people: they fall prey to, ego, fear of missing out, sunk costs, and any and all other bias like the rest of us.
Basically, we need some help in the killing of bad projects. Bad as in "does not deliver (enough) value". That's where the time bomb comes in handy. You can set it by completing this statement:
One of the more interesting pieces of advice I've read was to try and kill each and every project that you have. Meaning, if you can't find an appealing, logical, and measurable reason to keep the project you should kill that project off. And if you think that is common practice, you may be surprised to find that portfolio professionals are just like regular people: they fall prey to, ego, fear of missing out, sunk costs, and any and all other bias like the rest of us.
Basically, we need some help in the killing of bad projects. Bad as in "does not deliver (enough) value". That's where the time bomb comes in handy. You can set it by completing this statement:
"If _______________ (project name) doesn’t achieve _______________ (directly measurable metric of success) by __/__/____ (specific date less than six months in the future), _______________ (project name) automatically shuts down. We will cease future work on it and the automatic consequence goes into effect and I have to shoot my project in the face (figuratively) and walk away." (courtesy of Henrico Dolfing)
It's important to remember that even if the project is somewhat okay, and you decide to keep it alive for whatever reason, this somewhat okay project is still spending valuable resources that might be better spent somewhere else.