The difficult project to postpone is usually a good one.
In “Growth through Focus,” Sanjay Khosla and Mohanbir Sawhney argue for concentrating effort where it can matter. An organization that keeps adding initiatives may appear energetic while making its strongest capabilities harder to build.
A useful conversation is not “Which projects are good?” Many are. Ask instead: which projects reinforce the direction we chose, and what capacity will each one consume? A capable team can still be unfocused if it spreads its best people across unrelated priorities.
Try setting a short list of active priorities, then name one attractive project that will wait. If the team cannot identify anything it is willing to postpone, it may not have made a real choice yet.
Name the people whose time will become available, and what they will do with it. Otherwise, the priority list has changed but the workload has not.
Source: Growth through Focus