Death marches in my experience are always reflective of companies that take on excessive 'debt' in the more general sense. This may take the form of accepting

Death marches in my experience are always reflective of companies that take on excessive 'debt' in the more general sense. This may take the form of accepting too much money from investors or making big future promises to customers or shareholders. When this debt is too extreme it manifests itself into a death march which is just a frantic move to satisfy the debt that was probably unrealistic in the first place. Its similar to somebody who buys a house outside of their means and then has to work 2 jobs to afford it.