Hi Pedro,
Without knowing the details of the project discussed, I always ignore the emotional aspect of the decision making and focus on the math. Are there other projects that have a higher ROI? When judging a project, I look at the ROI in the “good times”, ROI in the “bad times” , and ROI during “average times”. Then do the same math on all of your other options. I ran this analysis on a few large projects for Fortune 500s and we realised that we held onto a poor performing project because we felt that we invested so much into it already. Reality was that the poor performing project only had a 5% ROI in good times and was completely underwater in bad times. Wasn't worth the long run effort. We also compare ROI to the cost of funds = what would the bank pay you if they held your cash in a CD? That would be like 2-3% in today's markets. So in other words, if your project cannot out perform a CD, get out of there.
Natalie Minh