The question nobody asks about a paused project

First sent as "Three weeks, one sold-out print run, three copies left." The signed-copy giveaway has closed. Get the book.

Three weeks ago the ebook went out and the paperback was politely postponed by a broken printing machine. I promised I'd use that.

Here's what's happened since. The ebook hit No. 8 in Amazon's business new releases. The paperback sold out before its official publication date, so a reprint is being quoted.

First, the useful bit.

The question nobody asks about a paused project

Every organisation has a list of work that's "on hold". Nobody looks at it. It isn't a backlog, it's a graveyard with the gates left open.

When I ask teams about these projects, the conversation always goes the same way. Is it cancelled? No. Is it happening? Also no. So what is it? A pause. Since when? Nobody's sure.

That's polite postponement, and the reason it survives is that it never gets asked a direct question. So here are two.

One: if this shipped next month, who would notice?

Not "who would benefit" or "who asked for it". Who would notice. Name them. If you can't, the project has no customer, and a project with no customer isn't paused. It's dead and nobody's said so. Kill it, write one line about why, and free the people attached to it.

If you can name them, go to question two.

Two: what's the smallest version of this that those people could use?

Not the version in the business case. The smallest one. Most postponed projects were scoped at a size that needed a budget cycle, a steering group and a tailwind. That's why they stalled. Cut it to what three people could ship in a fortnight, and watch how much of the original "blocker" list simply stops applying.

If there's still a real blocker at that size, you've found the actual problem. Deal with that. Everything else was scope.

Two questions. Ten minutes. Every project on the hold list either gets a decision or gets smaller. Both are better than where it is now.

Run the two questions on yours. Then tell me what happened.