No one likes to fail. No one likes to admit that they went wrong. That's why sometimes we keep trudging on with a doomed project for a long time, before we finally accept that it has failed.

We can see this more clearly with software and product development: the product launch keeps getting pushed back, the features included in the product keep getting reduced.  Development teams seem to be spending more time fixing the product that building it. On the human side, the people working on the product are no longer proud to say they are on the team. They start looking more like prisoners than professionals.

The excuses start flying. It's nobody's fault if the product is late. Marketing says it's the development team's fault for not building a good product; development points the finger back at marketing for ever-changing requirements.

The fact is, no one wants to hear that the project has failed. It's not failing right now. It failed a few weeks (or months, or years) ago, but no one wanted to hear it. And now the organization is stuck with a very big money pit. That money pit is often the reason why the failed project keeps on. After all, so much money was invested on that product, no one wants to write if off as a loss.

The fact is, the earlier you can face the truth about a failed project, the less money, time and effort you will loose.