Another brilliant article
Ilya, I hope your work at LHS bears fruit soon so that you can get back to writing regularly.
Your last couple of paragraphs are contradictory: cut projects which don't show promise AND support with all one's clout the work that truly needs to be done. With hindsight, knowing which path to take is simple as you beautifully illustrated with the God Father example. Clearly there is no silver-bullet decision tree to follow in the early days. The deciding factors are myriad and nuanced. I have been called to the carpet for defending contentious projects as surely as I have upset colleagues by challenging projects which I don't perceive as adding positive value. Valiantly cutting or defending a corporate initiative can be highly uncomfortable, even career limiting. I tend to base my decisions on cold logic and hard research but I know I need to be more politically aware with such decisions. What advice do you have for determining fight or flight?
