Is Your Project a Launchpad or an Exit Lounge?
In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, a friend was pulled into a hastily formed response team. The direction for this team changed daily, new tools had to be understood and implemented on the fly, and everything was being made up as they went along.
At the time, she wasn’t sure if it was a career boost or a convenient way to sideline her from a more visible role. Five years on, she’s leading a major transformation program and critical to the organisation’s success.
That messy, uncertain project became a turning point. It highlighted and expanded her capability to thrive in ambiguity. She made herself indispensable for situations that are emergent and unstructured.
Her experience highlights a crucial question for any organisation: do you consider projects a launchpad for growth, or an exit lounge in disguise?
Launchpad or Exit Lounge
Projects are how the future gets made. They introduce change, build new capabilities, and create different ways of operating. They explore ideas and shape what comes next.
Whether you’re redesigning a process, introducing a new product, or restructuring operations, you’re designing and building what the organisation will become. And where you fit into that story.
Done right, a project becomes your passport into the next version of the business.
But there’s an alternative, darker view of projects too.
Sometimes, a project isn’t an opportunity to drive growth but rather a subtle way to move someone sideways. A secondment with no return ticket. A “strategic” initiative with no real future.
It becomes a kind of organisational purgatory.
And if ‘exit lounge’ becomes the dominant narrative about projects then you risk the credibility of your entire change agenda.
If projects are perceived as dead-ends then your best performers will stay clear. They can smell the signs: no executive sponsorship, no real commitment, and vanishing stakeholders.
If your improvement program isn’t staffed by the best people then your organisation will start losing its edge.
The inability to deliver new ways of operating creates a slow fade into disengagement and underperformance. The very initiatives meant to drive the future become symbols of the drift.
Make it a Launchpad
Every project sends a message—not just about what the organisation values, but about where it’s going and who is on the journey.
To make a project a true launchpad, it needs more than a good plan. It needs energy, visibility, and a clear sense of what comes next. Your project needs to:
Connect to Strategy: People want to know that their work matters. Position the project within the business direction and show how success builds the case for what’s next.
Build Capability: Give team members opportunities that grow their skills or broaden their visibility. Launchpads don’t just deliver outcomes, they build people.
Design for Re-entry: Make it clear what happens after the project. Is there a role back in the core business? A bigger opportunity elsewhere? Or be truthful about the uncertainty and focus on the significance of the skills they will build.
Create the Narrative: Frame the importance of the project because if you don’t, people will make up their own story. Create a picture that people want to be part of.
Show Up: Senior leaders don’t have to be in every meeting, but their presence matters. Sponsorship creates energy. Visibility signals importance.
Launchpad or Lounge?
In essence, it's a choice: launchpad or lounge? If a project is unclear, underpowered, and disconnected, people step back. If it’s meaningful, supported, and positioned as a springboard, they lean in.
Something to think about
Don't let your projects become accidental exit lounges.
Are your most significant projects seen as career launchpads?
Are your people supported to deliver, particularly when they are stepping up from an operational role to project delivery?
