> Stake-driving when you intentionally under-estimate costs so that you can get the project started by telling politicians that it won’t cost that much. Once yo

> Stake-driving when you intentionally under-estimate costs so that you can get the project started by telling politicians that it won’t cost that much. Once you get a legislature ‘put the stakes in the ground,’ it becomes too politically difficult to kill. You can tell the politician that, well, you’ve already put so much into the project, there were unforeseen costs, yada yada, you might as well finish it by topping up the amount needed. This form of political accounting means cost overruns aren’t actually mistakes, they are more a subtle form of accounting fraud perpetrated on decision-makers too embarrassed to admit they were snookered. Fascinating stuff. This also applies to software project (mis)management