Is it still worth doing?
Projects often obsess over spreadsheets, timelines, and budgets. So much so that they are used as the principal measures of success; “Are we still on schedule?”; “Are we still on budget?” are questions that get asked time and again. Yet measuring projects by time and cost is like trying to measure a company's success purely by its operating costs while ignoring its revenue and profit. They don’t tell the whole story.
As a former project and programme manager I realise that time and cost metrics serve important budgeting and resource allocation purposes. I also recognise that they're easy to quantify, aid stakeholder communication and help to identify efficiency problems early. However, they should not be the primary measure of project success.
The Planning Fallacy, tells us we're hopelessly optimistic about project timelines and that’s assuming that they are planned properly in the first place (which most are not!). But the misplaced optimism is also a symptom of a deeper truth: most organisations are measuring the wrong thing.
The real measure of a project isn't the resources it consumes but the value that the change creates. When we fixate on time and cost, we optimise activity for predictability instead of possibility. We choose safer, incremental improvements over transformative or lasting change.
These are the things that fundamentally affect how people view the project and ultimately how it’s led. The best projects are a result of the person that leads it and the environment they create for others to do great work. However, this is only possible if the project team believes that what they’re building can deliver the expected value.
And when the key project metric becomes “Is it still worth doing?” then the focus shifts to where it needs to be: value creation.
For example, consider a project to automate a company's customer service processes. Through traditional metrics:
Original budget: £500,000
Initial timeline: 6 months
Current status: 2 months behind schedule and £200,000 over budget.
But through a value-creation lens, we see:
Customer wait times reduced from 15 minutes to 2 minutes
Customer satisfaction scores increased by 30%
Service agents now handle 3x more inquiries
Expected revenue increase of £2M annually from improved customer retention
Competitors are still struggling with 10+ minute wait times, giving us a market advantage.
When measured by time and cost alone, this project would be labeled a failure. But by focusing on value creation, we see it's delivering transformative results worth far more than the additional time and money invested. The key question "Is it still worth doing?" is answered with a clear yes — the value created (£2M annually) far exceeds the cost overrun (£200,000).
Of course critics will argue that this is a simplistic example and that value creation is often harder to track and measure than time and cost. This is true — but difficulty in measurement doesn't justify ignoring it. Instead, we should develop better frameworks for assessing and tracking value creation. Not crossing our fingers and hoping that endless activity will produce the desired results.
Projects, by their nature, introduce uncertainty into timelines and costs. This isn't a flaw to be eliminated, but rather a signal that meaningful change is happening. The key is to shift our perspective. Instead of asking “Are we on track?” we should be asking “Are we creating enough value to justify continuing?”. And whilst the sunk cost fallacy may eat away at the conscience of senior leaders, the value-creation question must prevail.
When projects are measured by their impact rather than their adherence to initial estimates, organisations can focus on what truly matters — delivering meaningful change that drives lasting value.
So ask yourself, honestly, is the project you’re working on still worth doing?
