Or to learn how to differentiate projects that are within your power to save from those that are not.

If you're a developer, you often can help save projects that are failing because they were poorly outsourced, or handed to the wrong team, or technically flawed. You usually can't save projects that are failing because management never really believed in them, or that are caught in crossfire between conflicting factions on the corporate board, or that have never been funded/resourced at the levels required for success.