# Project Stop-Decision Protocol

**Use:** a portfolio decision aid for a project or programme that may continue, reset/reframe, pause, or stop. It is not legal, accounting, procurement, employment, regulatory, safety, or contractual advice.

## 1. Trigger the review

Initiate an investment review when a strategic objective changes; a critical assumption fails; the remaining cost, schedule, risk, or benefit case materially changes; an external dependency changes; a material control concern emerges; or a more valuable alternative requires the same scarce resources.

## 2. Prepare a future-only option case

Do not use money, time, or effort already irrecoverably spent as a reason to continue. Record it for financial accountability and learning, then compare only the remaining implications of four options.

| Option | Describe | Future evidence required |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Continue | Deliver the approved scope with stated recovery action | Remaining cost/time/risk, refreshed benefit case, dependencies, capacity, and confidence |
| Reset/reframe | Change scope, delivery model, sequencing, or benefit path | New objective, revised option case, credible feasibility, governance, funding, and transition |
| Pause | Preserve a viable option while deferring commitment | What is preserved, cost of holding, expiry/restart conditions, controls, and review date |
| Stop | End the investment and transition or decommission responsibly | Exit cost, contract/people/service/asset/data consequences, residual benefits, and learning transfer |

## 3. Challenge the case independently

Ask a reviewer outside the delivery chain to test:

- Is the strategic problem still real and owned?
- Are remaining benefits attributable, measurable, and still worth the remaining effort?
- What would the organisation forgo by allocating the same funding, people, attention, and time elsewhere?
- Which assumptions would change the preferred option, and what evidence would test them?
- Are future costs, risks, and exit consequences complete—or merely lower because they are unknown?
- Does the recommendation protect the original decision rather than explain the next one?

## 4. Record the decision and transition

Record the accountable authority, options considered, future-only case, independent challenge, chosen outcome, dissent, conditions, budget/capacity release, transition owner, stakeholder communications, legal/procurement/HR/security/privacy reviews, benefits/asset/data handover, and next review date.

## 5. Learn without rewriting history

Capture what changed, what was known when, which assumptions failed, what could have been detected earlier, and which assets, knowledge, or relationships remain useful. Do not use the lessons record to assign blame or make the original approval appear irrational with hindsight.

## Source frame and limits

This protocol is a Strategica synthesis informed by [HM Treasury’s *Green Book*](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-green-book-appraisal-and-evaluation-in-central-government/the-green-book-2026), the [NAO’s work on projects leaving the major-projects portfolio](https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Projects-leaving-the-Govenment-Major-Projects-Portfolio-Summary.pdf), [programme resets](https://www.nao.org.uk/insights/lessons-learned-resetting-major-programmes/), and [assurance for high-risk projects](https://www.nao.org.uk/reports/assurance-for-high-risk-projects/). It must be tailored and reviewed for the organisation, mandate, investment, contract, people, service, data, and regulatory context.