Leadership Agile Development Management 3.0

Escaping the Sunk Cost Trap: Why Gehtsoft Stops “Project Rescue” Sooner Than Most

Svetozar Eliseev

28 Nov 2023 — 1 min read

The sunk cost fallacy—the irrational tendency to continue investing in something just because you've already invested a lot—is a common trap in software development. As BuiltIn explains, it warps rational decision-making, keeping teams locked into failing systems, bloated codebases, and outdated assumptions.

Gehtsoft CEO Ivan Gekht puts it bluntly: “If a project requires constant rescue, it’s not a project. It’s a hostage situation.”

At Gehtsoft, we’ve seen high-stakes clients burn through millions chasing sunk costs. Our approach? Identify the inflection point early—stop patching what should be replaced, redirect energy into validated architecture, and move fast toward value.

This isn’t just philosophy. It’s an engineering decision-making discipline. And it saves real money.

Read the full article here: The Sunk Cost Fallacy — BuiltIn

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The Real Management Failure Is Not Lack of Frameworks. It Is Ideology Replacing Operational Judgment.

Risk Management under Real Velocity: Push Detection Downstream, Limit Blast Radius

AI and the missing first step in learning

Code Is No Longer the Bottleneck. Now What?

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