Fail fast: sunk cost, ego and knowing when to stop

Stopping is a skill. Knowing when to drop a project, a feature or a plan, and doing it early, usually saves more than it costs. Most of us find it hard, because we get attached to our work, and the idea of walking away from it can feel almost unthinkable.

Two things tend to keep us going when we shouldn't. The first is the sunk cost fallacy: the feeling that we must carry on because of the effort or money we've already put in. That effort is spent either way; the only real question is whether the next hour is well spent. The second is ego, which tells us we can't afford to be seen to lose. A lot of this resistance is in our heads, and there are plenty of other reasons we find it hard to stop.

So why try to fail faster? Because time is the one resource none of us gets back, and nobody wants to spend it on something that was never going to work. I've been so focused on making something succeed that I developed blind spots and missed other opportunities. Failure is also a good teacher. It gives you feedback you can't get any other way.

How I try to do it:

• Be honest with myself. Look at a project critically, and early, so problems show up while there's still time to change direction or stop.
• Separate the process from the outcome. Results swing with each success or failure; the process is steadier, and looking at it gives a clearer picture of where things really stand. I wrote more about this in my notes on Think Big.
• Pay attention to what's happening around the work, not just inside it. It keeps me in touch with reality and helps me spot new opportunities.

Failing fast doesn't guarantee success, but it makes success more likely, because each failure teaches something that success can't. It also keeps the most valuable resource, time, from going into goals that can't be reached.