Escalation of commitment: why we pursue failing projects
Why does a team keep funding a project when every signal is negative? Decision psychology calls it escalation of commitment.
The founding experiment
Barry Staw (1976, Organizational Behavior and Human Performance) shows participants personally responsible for an initial decision reinvest more after failure. It is a student experiment.
The synthesis
Dustin Sleesman and co-authors (2012, Academy of Management Journal) confirm meta-analytically the role of personal responsibility, sunk costs and proximity to completion.
The nuance
Persistence is not always wrong; the problem is having no stop criterion set in advance. (our executive and employee training programmes)
The limit of common practice
Steering committees often review a project with those who launched it, reinforcing commitment.
A practical check in Geneva
At launch, write two or three stop conditions and have an outsider review them at each milestone. Count milestones where the question was genuinely asked. To go further: explore the Project Management training in Geneva, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.
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