Should organizations kill underperforming initiatives quickly rather than let them run to completion or give repeated chances?

Pat Grady · Jul 8, 2024

The default for any experiment should be that it gets killed unless it is a wild success — the burden of proof sits on the experiment, not on those who want to shut it down.

Most companies do the opposite and keep going unless something is an abject failure, which lets mediocre efforts persist

40:09 Default to kill experiments unless they are a wild success

David Meyer · Nov 1, 2023

When you kill work or change targets, you must explicitly name the loss and give people space to mourn it, or you get churn later

People put a bit of their soul into what they build, so being told to toss it out is painful; if you assume they'll process it themselves you're lost and they conclude management is bananas

21:06 Explicitly name the loss and give people space to mourn killed work

Antoine Le Nel · Oct 18, 2024 · hedged

An organization's agility can probably be measured by how quickly it kills projects rather than how many second chances it gives them

At King the cutting decisions got slower over time as people kept giving projects another chance

4:16 Agility is measured by speed of killing projects not second chances given

Antoine Le Nel · Oct 18, 2024

You should kill underperforming marketing campaigns mid-flight rather than letting them run their course and doing a retrospective

When generic creative was clearly failing after two weeks it was obvious it would never pick up, so there was no reason to let a three-month TV campaign finish

12:02 Kill underperforming campaigns mid flight rather than let them run to completion