Save money by canceling more software projects, says survey

Enterprises should be more ruthless about cancelling projects. That’s according to project management software company Tempo, which surveyed 667 project planning leaders at the end of last year. It found that those who deployed better scenario planning and acted ruthlessly is assessing a project’s viability would be better off.

According to the survey, 90% of organizations claimed that their projects were aligned across teams. However, Tempo found that expectations didn’t always meet reality: Only 70% of projects delivered a meaningful return on investment, and over 33% of projects were cancelled or stopped early due to misalignment or lack of ROI.

Companies that deployed scenario planning software had a 17-percentage-point advantage in delivering ROI, according to the survey. Paradoxically, those with more mature planning processes cancelled more projects, Tempo said —not through a failure of planning, but because, the more frequently they review projects, the sooner they can see a project is failing and drop it, with their surviving projects being more profitable on average.

In the survey report’s conclusion, Tempo states. “The highest-performing teams aren’t clinging to perfect plans or heroic roadmaps. They’re reviewing frequently, creating alignment across teams, reallocating resources without drama, and canceling projects early when the numbers stop adding up.”