This is not about PPC, Pay-Per-Click. I’m not here to sponsor all Google Executives more than needed. No, what I’m talking about here is a simple decision needed at every review: Persevere, Pivot, Cancel.
In a good monthly review with your teams on the key objectives, breakthroughs of the year, it’s always good to challenge your teams on what they think they should be doing. In their action planning, or problem solving, what are the KPI’s telling them? What are customers saying? Are they getting somewhere, getting closer to the solution, are they adding more value for the customers and the business?
When asking those questions, ask them to respond as one of three options:
1. Persevere
Yes, data and customer feedback tells them they are getting somewhere. They’re not there yet, but the are on to something. The should continue, persevere with their quest.
2. Pivot
They’re kind of stuck after running the first few experiments. Data is not conclusive and customer feedback is mixed. But they have more ideas, more hypotheses to test based on customer insights. They should pivot and start running their next experiments.
3. Cancel
The team has exhausted all options, all ideas and come to the conclusion that the problem might not be worth solving, the world has changed in the meantime or that the willingness to pay just wasn’t their to build a proper business case. Cancel! Abort! This is where both teams and leadership need to stand up, stand out and look at the data. Look at what customers are saying. And if the road is leading nowhere, have the balls to shout it down. Cancel the project, forget about the sunk cost and redirect your brilliant team to another customer problem to solve. There’s no point throwing good money after bad money.
