Like most things in life, the critical choices are not always clear cut. While letting go of dogs that are clearly draining the company coffers and sucking up IT resources is not particularly hard, it is often difficult for CIOs and other executives to cut projects that are performing marginally. But being able to let go is one of the most important functions in the CIO portfolio, according to Thomas Cutting, a senior principal consultant for Keane. In the current edition of CIOUpdate, Cutting suggests that CIOs develop a disciplined and measurable approach to asking themselves the following questions: Is this project good for the company in the long term? Is this project going to save the company money or cost the company money? These questions should be asked frequently and should engage the key members of the IT team. Analysts recommend establishing quarterly meetings to perform audits that determine where each project is in its life cycle and the impact that that ongoing projects are having on the organization. The output from that process is two fold: let go, or if there is some promise, give the project a last chance by creating "Hit Squads" responsible for putting projects back on track.

To read more on project management and when to end a project:
- see the article in CIOUpdate