Direction Over Magnitude
It is usually better to have a lower-velocity project working on the right things than a higher-velocity project pointed at the wrong goal.
This is why investing in direction-setting — figuring out what to work on, keeping goals clear, realigning when things drift — has a higher return than optimizing throughput once you're pointed somewhere.
The delegation implication
When people run subprojects, they consume substantial IC bandwidth (tracking others, delegating work, unblocking, communicating). Their individual output drops. This is expected and usually worth it — because a correctly-pointed lower-velocity effort beats a fast effort working on the wrong thing.
The practical consequence: when deciding whether to delegate project management, the question is not "will this person's individual output drop?" (it will). The question is "does having someone correctly orient this project matter more than their IC contribution?"
For projects where execution quality depends on working on the right things at the right time, the answer is almost always yes.
The scope of "direction"
Direction errors compound silently. A team that's 20% off-bearing doesn't notice until they've traveled far enough to see the gap. A team that's checking direction frequently — via plan-for-victory, ooda-loop-for-projects, and good goal-setting — catches drift early and corrects cheaply.
Related: directly-responsible-individual making-success-inevitable