# Your Project Is 6 Months Late. Do You Fix It, Replace It, or Kill It? A project is months late, over budget, and everyone keeps saying it is “almost there.” What do you do when you have 48 hours to decide whether to keep funding it? Use a simple framework: STOP Freeze new commitments long enough to stop throwing money at the problem automatically. SEE Find out what is actually true. What was promised? What was delivered? What has already been spent? What still has to be spent? Is the problem technical, leadership, scope, vendor, or strategy? Then ask the uncomfortable question: If we were starting from scratch today, would we still choose to fund this project? RESET Within 48 hours, make a real decision: Continue with a new stepwise plan, milestones, clear ownership, and kill criteria. Replace the leader, vendor, or execution model if the project still makes sense but delivery is the bottleneck. Stop if the economics or strategic reason for the project no longer holds. The key rule: Past spending is not a reason to spend the next dollar. And the first 48 hours are not about fixing the project. They are about deciding whether the project still deserves to be fixed. Sonny Saggar, MD Professional Problem Solver NewPhysician.org Canonical URL: https://newphysician.org/difficult-problems/episode/your-project-is-6-months-late-do-you-fix-it-replace-it-or-kill-it-k7s6GuOfRO0/ ## Related public resources - [Difficult Problems archive](https://newphysician.org/difficult-problems/) - [Watch on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7s6GuOfRO0) Published: 2026-08-30 Category: AI ## Related topics - [Business & Turnaround](https://newphysician.org/topics/business-and-turnaround/)