IT Project FailuresMichael Krigsman

June 18th, 2008

15 non-technical reasons IT projects fail

Posted by Michael Krigsman @ 7:28 am

 A study of IT “abandonment” reported by the British Computer Society (BCS) reinforces the notionthat IT projects fail primarily for non-technical causes. Such quantitative research is important inhelping managers understand the business, organizational, political, and cultural dimensions behindfailed projects.

Here’s the BCS list of “key reasons why projects get canceled:”

Business reasons for project failure1.Business strategy superseded2.Business processes change (poor alignment)3.Poor requirements management4.Business benefits not clearly communicated or overstated5.Failure of parent company to deliver6.Governance issues within the contract7.Higher cost of capital8.Inability to provide investment capital9.Inappropriate disaster recovery 10.Misuse of financial resources11.Overspends in excess of agreed budgets12.Poor project board composition13.Take-over of client firm14.Too big a project portfolio15.

This list is all about management, focus, and planning. IT projects also collapse when stakeholdersand participants don’t properly manage time, scope, and costs (considered the triple constraints of 

15 non-technical reasons IT projects fail | IT Project Failures | ZDNet.com http://blogs.zdnet.com/projectfailures/?p=837&tag=rbxccnbzd1

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project management).

Reinforcing this point, the BCS article adds:

Our evidence suggests that the culture within many organisation’s is often such thatleadership, stakeholder and risk management issues are not factored into projects early onand in many instances cannot formally be written down for political reasons….

Leadership and cultural issues are hard to measure and quantify, so many organizations simply ignore these most common sources of IT failure. Given this, it’s not surprising the sinking ship of highIT failure rates continues to plague business.

Michael Krigsman is CEO of Asuret, Inc., a software and consulting company dedicated to reducing software

implementation failures. Click here to discuss this post with him on Twitter.

See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.

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15 non-technical reasons IT projects fail | IT Project Failures | ZDNet.com http://blogs.zdnet.com/projectfailures/?p=837&tag=rbxccnbzd1

2 of 2 29/7/2008 14:32