Software development projects are hard to kill. Even when they are ill-conceived, poorly executed, and deliver insufficient value for your company.
Why? Several factors and mental traps can prevent us from shelving projects that need to die.
Sunk-Cost Bias
“We would kill the project if we hadn’t already invested so much.”
Sunk costs have no basis in future decisions, yet engineers, managers and executives fall blindly into this well-documented thinking trap.
This may be the first excuse you hear (or use) to continue escalation of commitment to a bad project.
Debunk this fallacy quickly and move on to the relevant factors.
-Donny
