Academics and corporate innovators both spend their workdays pursuing breakthroughs that may never materialise. Venturing into unknown territory carries fairly high potential rewards, but also a fairly high risk of failure.
When working on a research project, it can be difficult to decide when to cut your losses. Optimism tells us that just beyond our grasp hovers the solution that will make it all work; pessimism, on the other hand, tells us that the end we have in sight may well be a dead end. We are always aware that every day spent chasing a mirage wastes valuable time and resources. Absent a glaring signpost of failure, how does one know when it makes strategic sense to abandon an idea?
