{
  "id": 7956096,
  "title": "Approving a Project Cost Nothing, So We Approved Everything",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/17/approving-a-project-cost-nothing-so-we-approved-everything",
  "topic": "business",
  "section": "Business",
  "published": "2026-09-17T05:00:44.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Dev.to",
    "slug": "dev-to",
    "url": "https://dev.to/serguey_shinder_4ab9b87b1/approving-a-project-cost-nothing-so-we-approved-everything-472l"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "At the start of the year, there were forty-one active projects. However, the department could realistically handle only twelve projects simultaneously with its current workforce. This overcommitment was unprecedented. Each project was evaluated individually by the investment committee based on its merits and budget. The committee never considered capacity as a factor because no such figure was recognized, and a strong business case was difficult to refuse without valid reasons.\n\nThis overcommitment led to a slowdown across all projects, as each required only a fraction of a person's time. Consequently, the timelines for these projects doubled, causing the assumed benefits to diminish while the work was ongoing. The allocation of attention was determined by the most persistent request, resulting in the completion order being unrelated to the projects' value.\n\nA critical realization was that no projects were halted. This occurred naturally when employees were reassigned elsewhere. Initiating a cancellation required explicitly stating that an approved project was incorrect, which is challenging to do within an organization. As a result, the portfolio expanded, with a third of the projects being essentially inactive for months while still being considered live.\n\nTo address this issue, a capacity statement is now published, detailing the number of available team members by month. Projects are either assigned to staffed or unstarted categories, creating a visible queue with an order of operations. Starting a project necessitates identifying what must finish or be paused. Reporting is based on work started versus work finished, rather than the traditional percentage complete, which can increase indefinitely without delivering tangible results.\n\nIn the first quarter, four projects were stopped, six were deliberately paused and documented, and nine were completed. Three of the four stopped projects lacked a sponsor. Prioritization involves deciding what should wait, a decision that should be permitted.",
  "summary": "We had forty-one live projects at the start of this year. A realistic assessment of what my department can run concurrently, with the people we actually employ, is about twelve. Nobody had ever decided to overcommit by that margin. The investment committee assesses each case on its merits, one at a time, against a budget. It has never assessed a case against capacity, because no capacity figure…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}