Most organizations don’t chase everything because they are careless. They usually do it because the ideas sound reasonable. They may even be reasonably, but that doesn’t mean they’re the best. It is both an art and a a science to learn how to say no. No to bad ideas, which is easy, and no to some good ideas, which is hard. The benefit of rejecting a terrible idea is rarely debated, but there is a cost to rejecting a good idea just as much as there is a cost to implement every good idea.
That cost begins when too many reasonable ideas become active work at the same time. Research on task switching shows that shifting attention between tasks creates measurable loss. The American Psychological Association notes that even a small block caused by task switching can cost as much as 40% of someone’s productive time.1 That matters because organizations do not experience this only at the individual level. When teams are assigned to too many projects, the same switching cost appears across meetings, status updates, decisions, and implementation work.
Research Director and Founder of Connected Commons, Rob Cross, and his colleagues have also written about collaborative overload, noting that in many organizations a small percentage of employees carry a disproportionate share of value-added collaboration. Their research across more than 300 organizations found that 20% to 35% of value-added collaborations often come from only 3% to 5% of employees.2 In practical terms, the people most capable of helping are often pulled into the most projects, which means the organization’s best problem solvers become bottlenecks. A bit of an irony, in my opinion, because that almost single-handedly makes them the worst problem solvers as they continue to create a growing dependency.
This is the hidden cost of chasing everything. It does not always appear immediately on a budget line, if ever. It appears as delayed decisions, fragmented attention, slower delivery, lower quality work, stressed employees (shall I offer, very stressed employees), and projects that keep moving without quite finishing. People look busy because they are busy. The problem is that busyness has been spread across too many directions.
Project portfolio research points in the same direction. PMI-published research on project portfolio alignment found that strategic alignment between projects and the organization’s business strategy has a positive effect on overall portfolio performance.3 PMI’s more recent work also emphasizes that project professionals need business acumen so project outcomes are aligned with organizational value rather than judged only by tactical delivery measures.4
That last point is important because the answer is not simply to work harder or install a better project management system. I became known for saying a few times, when leaders insisted that people simply implement faster, “shall I flog them as well?”5 If the organization is approving too many disconnected initiatives, and the expectation is to just work harder, the problem is upstream from execution. American economist, Michael E. Porter’s famous observation still applies: “Strategy requires you to make trade-offs in competing—to choose what not to do.”6
The best way to overcome the habit of chasing everything is to make project selection consistent before work begins. That means every proposed initiative should be tested against the same questions before it earns a place on the project list. Is this really a project? What problem does it solve? How does it align with strategy? What operational value does it create? Is it feasible with the resources available? Does the financial case make sense?
That is the purpose of the Priority Framework. It does not exist to make every decision automatic, because leadership still requires judgment. Its purpose is to remove as much emotion and reactivity as possible from project selection by ensuring that every initiative is evaluated consistently against the organization’s direction.
When project selection becomes consistent, good ideas can still be declined without treating them as bad ideas. Some ideas are valuable but premature. These are great, because they can be added to the bucket list but de-prioritized until a future state that justifies the time required. Some ideas are useful but misaligned. These are also great, but not for the current state; they go into a hopper of things worther considering much later when major conditions may change. Some ideas are attractive until the organization sees what they would displace. That kind of discipline matters because every “yes” consumes capacity that cannot be used somewhere else. The decision to skip something because the risks and threats outweigh the strengths and benefits is an easy one for teams to accept.
Chasing everything feels productive because it creates motion. Prioritizing feels slower at first because it requires leaders to pause and make deliberate choices. Over time, however, the disciplined organization usually moves faster because its people are no longer carrying the invisible cost of too many directions at once.
1 American Psychological Association on Task-Switching Costs. https://www.apa.org/topics/research/multitasking
2 Rob Cross, Reb Rebele, and Adam Grant for Harvard Business Review on Collaborative Overload. https://www.robcross.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/HBR-Collaborative-Overload.pdf
3 PMI-published research on Strategic Alignment of the Project Portfolio. https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/strategic-alignment-project-portfolio-6387
4 PMI Pulse of the Profession 2025 on Boosting Business Acumen. https://www.pmi.org/-/media/pmi/documents/public/pdf/learning/thought-leadership/pulse/pulse_of_the_profession_2025-1.pdf
5 Tuvok, Star Trek Voyager, S4E7, “Scientific Method.”
6 Michael Porter, Harvard Business Review, “What Is Strategy?” https://cs.furman.edu/~pbatchelor/mis/Slides/Porter%20Strategy%20Article.pdf