Great post. A key point you don't bring up is the aftermath, even if you do deliver. Especially in non-tech companies there still remains the tendency to view these projects as "done" after the end of the project/MVP etc., with no understanding that sites need ongoing maintenance and improvements. And that this work is still considerable.
Agreed, especially for MVPs and "phase 1" projects.
At my current company, it's reached a point where we flat out reject product proposals for features or changes that would need to be hacked together for an MVP without a time commitment from all necessary stakeholders on how it will properly be implemented for phase two (iff phase one is a success). It's amazing how quickly "critical" features become irrelevant to product when they understand even half the amount of work required to properly implement them.
That reminds me of that scene in the series Chernobyl where the main scientist briefs everyone on the cleanup effort and ends with something like "The first battle is won and now begins the long war" with everyone being suitably cold in their response.
I get the same response sometimes when I talk about the long tail of maintenance at work.
