A stopped programme still deserves an accurate account

## Compare the next commitment with its alternative

The decorative ceramic variant had spent one crore seventy lakh rupees and was asking for a further two crore sixty lakh rupees. The earlier work had been a reasonable exploration of an adjacent opportunity. At the next decision point, however, the programme competed directly with industrial wear development and test-method needs that better fitted the company's intended position. I recommended stopping it. The question was what the next commitment would achieve compared with the work it would displace, not whether the previous expenditure could be made to feel worthwhile.

The programme sponsor believed one more stage would unlock the opportunity. I wanted that argument heard properly. A stopping recommendation should not win merely by describing the alternative as irresponsible attachment to sunk cost. The sponsor knew the technical progress and could explain what remained possible. My responsibility was to place that proposal beside the other demands on the same engineering capacity. The business had to choose between credible uses of scarce people and facilities, and the preferred route needed to be justified in that wider portfolio.

This is where a development leader can make the discussion too narrow. A programme may have an attractive next experiment when considered alone. It can still be the wrong commitment if another obligation has become more important or if the company's position has changed. I asked the executive team to examine the industrial work that would wait if the decorative stage proceeded. That made the opportunity cost concrete. It was not an abstract argument that focus is desirable; it was a choice about the work the business could fund and staff next.

CEO Farhad Qezvani supported closure after reviewing that choice and its consequences. The decision did not establish that decorative ceramics could never become a successful business or that the original investigation had been foolish. It reflected the proposed next stage against our priorities at that point. I wanted that distinction in the account because retrospective certainty can discourage useful exploration. If every stopped programme is described as an obvious mistake from the beginning, teams learn to defend the past instead of bringing forward evidence that should change the future decision.

## Explain the decision to the people carrying it

Fourteen engineers were reassigned. Nine moved into industrial wear development and five into test-method work. Those were specific next responsibilities, not a general promise that their skills would remain valuable somewhere. A closure affects people who have invested attention and professional judgement in the programme. They deserve to understand why the business has chosen a different use of their effort. I wanted the explanation to acknowledge the work already done while being clear that the next stage would not proceed.

The reassignment account concerns those fourteen moves. It is not a wider claim about employment across the company. That boundary matters because a carefully managed programme closure can acquire a reassuring statement broader than the evidence supports. I can explain where this group went and why those assignments mattered to the industrial portfolio. I should not use that information to imply that every organisational consequence was known or that no other employment question existed elsewhere. A precise account is more respectful than an expansive assurance that the programme record cannot establish.

We retained technical learning and relevant records under the appropriate ownership. Closing the commercial route did not make the investigation worthless, and it did not remove obligations around the material already produced. I wanted the team to distinguish what could inform later work from what had actually been qualified for another application. Reuse of learning still needs judgement. A result obtained for the decorative variant should not be transferred into an industrial claim without examining whether the conditions and question remain relevant.

The new assignments also needed to be realistic. Moving nine engineers into industrial wear work does not create an instant completed programme. They need to understand the application, the existing team's decisions and the evidence still required. The portfolio benefit was the deliberate allocation of capacity, not an immediate output claim invented at the point of reassignment. I wanted management to follow the receiving programmes on their own terms rather than assume the closure automatically delivered every benefit anticipated in the recommendation.

## Keep the financial language honest after closure

The one crore seventy lakh rupees already spent remained sunk. The proposed two crore sixty lakh rupees next stage was not approved. I did not call the latter a realised saving or add it to operating profit. It was expenditure the business had considered and declined. Those distinctions can be lost when a closure is reported as a cost-reduction success. A director needs to understand whether management has recovered money, reduced an existing obligation or chosen not to make a new commitment. They are different financial events.

Keeping the language accurate does not make the stopping decision less valuable. The company preserved capacity for priorities it considered more important and avoided taking on a proposed stage that no longer justified its place. That is a legitimate management result without turning an unapproved budget into cash earned. I prefer to explain the decision through the resources and obligations it changed. The board can then judge whether the choice was sound without relying on a headline figure that combines unlike categories.

The experience also made me want continuation conditions discussed at the start of adjacent programmes. The team should know what evidence would support another stage and what portfolio conditions could change the decision. Those conditions cannot predict every future circumstance, but they can make the review less personal. A recommendation to stop can then refer to the agreed question and the changed context, rather than arrive as an unexplained verdict on the team's competence or the sponsor's original judgement.

Our decorative programme ended after one crore seventy lakh rupees of expenditure, with the proposed two crore sixty lakh rupees stage declined and fourteen engineers assigned to industrial wear and test-method priorities. Learning remained available under appropriate ownership; the earlier cost remained spent. That is the account I would want a board to examine. Responsible development leadership includes the ability to stop, but also the discipline to describe the closure accurately. The programme should leave a clear explanation of what changed, where the people went and which claims the financial result can actually support.