Want More Speed? Stop Running So Fast — Fix the Portfolio First

If you’ve ever been told to just “run harder” when projects are piling up, congratulations — you’ve experienced one of the most damaging myths in project management. It’s the idea that approving more work means more progress. But as any seasoned PMO leader knows, running faster doesn’t help when you’re running in the wrong direction.

This article draws on a Project Management Mythbusters session with Al Zeitoun, exploring why pressure for speed so often leads to slower, lower-quality outcomes.

You can watch the full session below, or continue reading for the key insights.

The Overload Trap

We see it all the time. A PMO leader told me just yesterday how overloaded their team was — projects piling up, executives pushing for “faster, faster” delivery, and then… complaints about low quality and having to rework projects that have gone wrong.

Let’s do the math: Is it really faster if you have to do it twice?

This isn't a new problem. In fact, 40% of project failures happen before the project even starts — not because teams fail to execute, but because too much work was approved without forcing real trade-offs at the portfolio level. If you don’t get those decisions right up front, you’re setting your teams up to fail.

The Real Secret to Speed: Slowing Down

The best PMOs—the ones that truly move the needle—are the ones that push back, ask tough questions, and slow down decisions at the front door so execution can actually speed up.

Project prioritization isn’t just a nice-to-have — it’s essential. When teams are stretched too thin, it’s rarely a resource problem. It’s a prioritization problem. Speed breaks down when too many initiatives are approved without forcing real choices about what won’t be done.

Saying No Without Getting Fired

Executives love big ideas — but big ideas without prioritization are just a list of wishes. This is where data becomes your best friend: it shifts the conversation from opinion to consequence.

We often illustrate this with a simple exercise: force a few “must-do” executive pet projects into an already full portfolio and see what breaks. In one recent session, the impact was stark — a $200M loss from derailing higher-value work.

The most effective way to educate executives isn’t to argue — it’s to make the trade-offs visible and let leaders own the consequences of their choices.

Culture Eats Tools for Breakfast

Yes, technology can help. AI, PPM software, and better dashboards can bring order to chaos — but they won’t fix bad habits. If leaders still reward saying “yes” to everything and punish difficult trade-off conversations, no tool in the world will save you.

Successful PMOs align leadership around a shared view of priorities, set realistic expectations, and prioritize ruthlessly. Because at the end of the day, PMOs aren’t magical project butlers who just “make it happen.” They are strategic enablers.

This perspective is explored in more depth in Creating Experience-Driven Organizational Culture: How to Drive Transformative Change with Project and Portfolio Management by Al Zeitoun, which looks at how leadership behaviour and decision culture shape portfolio and project outcomes.

The Bottom Line

Want more speed? Stop approving everything at once — and make the trade-offs explicit.

✔ Prioritize first, execute second.
✔ Use data to push back (politely).
✔ Don’t start more projects than your teams can handle.
✔ Culture matters more than tools.

Your Next Step as a Portfolio Leader

If this sounds familiar, the problem probably isn’t execution speed.

It’s that too much work is being approved without forcing real trade-offs — and once that happens, no amount of delivery pressure will fix it.

The longer this goes unchallenged, the more rework, delay, and wasted effort quietly accumulate.

We offer a short, no-prep conversation with a senior advisor to help portfolio and PMO leaders sense-check where overload and misalignment are really coming from — before the next wave of commitments locks them in.

👉 Talk through your portfolio challenge with a senior advisor

The conversation is free, confidential, and useful even if you never work with us.