Portfolio Mondays · Stealable one-pager

Kill, Pause, or Fund Gate Card

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Five questions, one page per item, so a gate can force a real kill, pause, or fund call after kickoff, not just before.

From Stage Gates That Can Actually Say No, a Portfolio Mondays episode on Portfolio Intelligence. Watch on YouTube

Item name

Sponsor

Decision owner

Gate date

1Is the value case still true? What changed since the last gate?

Original value case (one line)

Value case today (one line)

What changed

2What does this item depend on, and what depends on it?

Pull it from the portfolio dependency view. A green project with a red neighbor is still a portfolio problem.

Direction	Provider	Consumer	Date needed	Owner	ConfidenceH / M / L
Inwhat it needs
In
Outwhat needs it
Out

3What capacity does it hold that something else is waiting for?

Capacity held (roles or teams)

Who is waiting on it

4What silent exceptions exist?

Type	What moved	Was this decided?yes / no
Scope
Spend
Time

If the answer is no, it is drift, not progress.

5Kill, pause, or fund? Pick one.

Kill

Stop, release the people onto named work, keep the lesson.

People released to

Lessons captured

Pause

Freeze with a way back in.

Restart trigger

Restart review date

Fund

Continue, and write down what this yes takes from something else.

Next gate date (required)

Cost of this yes (what is delayed, shrunk, or stopped elsewhere)

Decision owner

Next gate date

No pass with conditions unless it has an owner and a date. Without both, it is a silent exception wearing a suit.

Worked example (fictional)

Item: Customer self-serve portal rebuild
Sponsor / owner: Customer support sponsor · Decision owner: portfolio lead
1. Value: Original: cut support volume in half. Today: support volume barely moved, and features kept expanding.

Direction	Provider	Consumer	Date needed	Owner	ConfidenceH / M / L
In	Identity platform team	Portal rebuild	Slipping	Rebuild lead	Low
Out	Portal rebuild (shared auth pattern)	Partner API gateway cutover	Waiting	Gateway lead	Low

3. Capacity held: Two platform engineers. The patch window and the gateway both need them.
4. Silent exceptions: Scope grew twice with no new sponsor yes (decided: no). Spend ran past the last funded envelope (no). Time slipped three months (no).
5. Honest calls: Pause: restart trigger is a rewritten value case; restart review in six weeks. Or Kill: release the two engineers to the patch window and capture the lesson. Fund works only if it names what the gateway and the patch window lose. No free yes.

The card does not pick for you. The sponsors and the portfolio lead make the call in the open, then log it with an owner and the next gate date.

Optional: let AI draft the pack

Paste this with your updates. AI assembles the evidence. Only people can say no.

Help me prepare a Kill, Pause, or Fund Gate Card for [item name].
From the status updates, RAID entries, dependency view, and plan pasted below, draft:
1. The original value case and today's value case, one line each, and what changed.
2. Dependencies in and out: provider, consumer, date needed, owner, confidence, exactly as the sources state them.
3. The capacity this item holds and who is waiting on it.
4. Candidate silent exceptions where scope, spend, or time moved with no logged decision.
5. Any sunk cost language (keep going because we already spent).
Quote the source line for each claim. Mark anything missing as "needs a human."
Do not recommend kill, pause, or fund. Do not assign owners or set confidence.

[paste updates here]

Kill, Pause, or Fund Gate Card · scottpresley.net/tools/gate-card · Portfolio Mondays on Portfolio Intelligence · AI drafts. Humans decide.