MAIN REASONS
FOR UNSUCCESSFUL
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
PROJECTS
Kerli Metsla
FAILURE OF SOFTWARE PROJECTS
 Highest
probability of being cancelled or
delayed among all business activities
Even if in budget and on time:
low reliability
 + execcisve errors

Capers Jones & Associates 2006
CRITERIAS OF BEING A FAILURE
x

Cancellation

Budget + 30%

Schedule +30%

Missing the planned benefits
Whittaker, B. (1999). What went wrong? Unsuccessful information technology projects
MAIN REASONS

Survey in Canada
A.
Poor project planning
B.
Weak business case & missing components
C.
Lack of management involvement &
lack of management support
Whittaker, B. (1999). What went wrong? Unsuccessful information technology projects.
A: POOR PROJECT PLANNING

Most common
RISK MANAGMENT IN SCHEDULING!
I am not done yet!
What do I do now?
B: WEAK BUSINESS CASE
1. Missing several
immportant compontents
2. Key users do not understand :
 Complexity of the deliverables
„That´s a piece of cake“
 Funding done without enough research to the
importance of the software to the business
„Do we really need this? Who is going to use it? How
much time do we have?“
C: LACK OF MANAGEMENT INVOLVEMENT
AND SUPPORT
Doom from the start!
Leads to:


„ This new thing is complicated. I´ll stick to the
GOOD OLD one.“
„I don´t understand it, let´s change it. Most of it.
OK, all of it. „
OFTEN CONTRIBUTE TO FAILURES




Delivering an untested (BETA) versions of theproject
– full of bugs
Vendors to not deliver on time or at all
Poor estimates and definition of requirements in
project specifications
The bigger the company the bigger the bugdet
overruns (lack of skills or expertise of the project
manager and monitoring of progress)
Whittaker, B. (1999). What went wrong? Unsuccessful information technology projects.
DIFFERENT VIEWPOINTS
EXECUTIVES
Plan not accurate
enough
 Wrong status
reporting
 Poor quality and
reliability

DEVELOPERS
Rejection of accurate
and conservative plan
 Schedule pressure
 Major new
requirements mid
development

Jones, C (2006). Social and Technical Reasons for
Software Project Failures.
THE FIVE ROOT CAUSES
1. Inaccurate scheduling
 Needed before final version
 No historical data
 Changes and addiotions
 Modern estimating tools do not apply well on major
projects
 Executives pressure in changing original schedules
2. Too optimistic status reporting
 Managers not trained enough – too optimistic
 Expected bugs vs actual bugs
Jones, C (2006). Social and Technical Reasons for Software Project Failures
THE FIVE ROOT CAUSES
3. Unrealistic schedule pressure
 External business deadlines sets the terms
 Need to defend original estimates
4. Changes mid project
 Businesses are dynamic
May lead to bankruptcy (UK second largest: Auto
windscreens 2006); Integrated National Crime
Information System (INCIS) project in New Zealand.
Jones, C (2006). Social and Technical Reasons for Software Project Failures
Flyvbjerg, B., Budzier, A.Why Your IT Project May Be Riskier Than You Think
THE FIVE ROOT CAUSES
5. Inadequate quality control
 Fixing bugs : most expensive part + delaying the
project.
„A distressing number of project managers are not
aware that more than 50 years of empirical studies
have proven that projects with effective quality
control cost less and have shorter schedules.“
(Jones, 2006)
Jones, C (2006). Social and Technical Reasons for Software Project Failures
CONCLUSION
HOW TO AVOID MY PROJECT FROM FAILING?
1. Plan the project with management well informed
2. Risk management!
3. Accurate information (research for scheduling)
4. Teamwork = managers + developers (reporting)
5. No large changes mid project
6. Correct status reporting – no „basicly done“
7. Quality control – do not skip or do poorly!
THANK YOU FOR YOUR
ATTENTION
SOURCES:

Flyvbjerg, B., Budzier, A.Why Your IT Project May Be Riskier Than
You Think.
http://hbr.org/2011/09/why-your-it-project-may-be-riskier-than-youthink/ar


Jones, C (2006). Social and Technical Reasons for Software Project
Failures. – CrossTalk: The Journal of Defense Software Engineering,
19(6), 4-9.
Whittaker, B. (1999). What went wrong? Unsuccessful information
technology projects. – Information Management & Computer
Security, 7(1), 23-29.