When your organization has to choose between a project that has a huge benefit but it’s outside your budget, what wins?

Our reader poll today asks: When your organization has to choose between a project that has a huge benefit but it’s outside your budget, what wins?

• Budget beats out benefit – 51%
• Benefit beats out budget – 49%

Budget Wins (Mostly). This poll is split almost perfectly down the middle with half of you saying budget beats out benefits of a project and half saying the benefits of a project outweigh hitting a budget number. While fiscal conservatism and planning are important, I’d argue that if you have a project that will drive incremental benefit beyond artificial and arbitrary budget numbers, I’d err on the side of benefits outweighing budget. You have to factor in the opportunity cost of not executing the project as well. That’s the true cost of hitting a budget number – not just delaying the benefit you’d receive. While it’s a balance, letting budget drive all your decision making can lead to stagnation and missed opportunities. At least challenge how critical hitting the budget number is relative to the benefit and opportunity cost related to the project you’re assessing.

– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC

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These results were originally a SmartPulse poll in SmartBrief on Leadership which tracks feedback from more than 240,000 business leaders. Get smarter on leadership and sign up for the SmartBrief on Leadership e-newsletter.