Trimming project spend often causes more harm than good. From misaligned resourcing to skipping change support, these “savings” can derail delivery. These five strategies help preserve value when cost pressure is high.
When budgets tighten, projects are usually one of the first areas to come under pressure to make things work with less. Headcount is reduced, scope is trimmed and external spend is put under the microscope. However, it’s often the way savings are made – quick decisions under pressure – that introduce more risk than they remove.
Plenty of projects start with reasonable budget intentions, only to be undermined by compromises that looked sensible on paper but created delivery drag, scope churn or expensive rework. What looks like a smart saving early on can derail momentum just as the stakes (and the sunk cost) start to climb.
Here are five strategies that can help project delivery leaders navigate cost pressure without falling into the trap of false economies.
Don’t measure value by the hour
Hourly rates can be deceptive. While they’re a standard part of the project delivery model, they don’t tell you much about value being delivered. What looks like a lower-cost option on paper may not be the best value when you factor in handovers, delivery delays, or unclear accountability due to lack of expertise or domain experience. Partners who price around delivery outcomes, rather than time, bring a different kind of commitment and a clearer sense of what’s being bought.
Shared-risk models and milestone-based pricing with someone who matches your organisation’s expertise can move the conversation (and the ROI calculations) away from day rates and toward value. In most cases, this approach delivers better outcomes than trying to build equivalent capability internally – especially if that internal capacity is already stretched thin.
Stop bending your people to fit the work
It’s a trap delivery teams know well: the project needs a senior project manager, but the only available resource is someone from another stream, or someone internal who’s “keen to step up.” What starts as a practical workaround becomes a costly compromise when things start to drift, or issues that could have been managed early by someone with better expertise begin to escalate.
Misaligned capability in projects doesn’t always look like a problem at the start, however it rarely ends well. And by the time it’s clear the resourcing wasn’t right, the fix is rarely quick, and never cheap.
When you want to offer internal staff a chance to step up, be prepared and to invest in them with supporting resources and assurance – and budget for it accordingly. Take it as an opportunity to provide them the time, support and ability to become more valuable to your organisation in the long term.
Automate where it costs you most
For delivery leaders still doing most things manually, nothing causes more pain than the time and resource costs that go into administrative tasks. Who amongst us looks back with any fondness on the late nights devoted to updating dashboards, chasing status or formatting packs? In our experience, it’s not uncommon for 30-40% of a week to be spent on manual coordination that could be automated with the right tools and reporting structure.
It’s easy to say “we don’t have budget for tooling”, but think of it this way: if your project managers, sponsors or delivery leads are spending hours every week on tasks that software could handle faster and more reliably, the trade-off starts to look questionable.
Strategic investment in automation tools like Smartsheet can make a real difference in reducing admin drag, freeing your people to focus on the work that only they can do. Consider the tangible benefits of increasing actual project management time from 50% to 90% by automating administration. With the efficiency gains and reduced risk that brings, can you really afford not to?
Sequence for impact over convenience
When cost is under the microscope (and even when it’s not), it’s smart to lift scope decisions out of the delivery layers and into a commercial conversation. If you try to deliver everything at once, especially across a constrained portfolio, effort will be spread thin as pressure builds, priorities blur and decisions get rushed.
Sequencing work to unlock the highest-value elements first, while pausing or shelving non-essential components, focuses effort and creates early momentum. It’s not a new idea, but it’s often overlooked in environments where everything feels important and nothing feels negotiable.
For leaders, a well-timed project portfolio review can help recalibrate scope and focus across competing initiatives.
Protect the work that protects the outcome
When costs need to come down, the first things to go are often testing environments, change support or early-stage quality assurance. These things are easy to cut, but hard to recover. What looks like a low-impact saving can quickly turn into confusion and rework that eats into future sprints or support budgets.
Often these cuts are false economies – the first cracks that show when teams push into release before they’re ready. If you want delivery to land cleanly, the upfront work that supports stability needs to be protected, not pared back.
Sometimes the cheapest way to deliver is to build it once, test it properly – and land it well.
Be deliberate, not reactive
Ultimately, controlling delivery costs requires a critical and strategic hand. It means being clear-eyed about where the real risks lie, and making calls that protect momentum, not just margin.
When compromises are made deliberately and with a view to long-term value, they can work. However, when they’re made on the fly – and without proper scrutiny – they usually cost more than they save.
Quay Consulting is a professional services business specialising in the project landscape, transforming strategy into fit-for-purpose delivery. Meet our team or reach out to have a discussion today.
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