What are the Common Reasons Why IT Projects Fail?

List of Reasons for it Project Failure
Jaap de Jonge, Editor
Hi Gowtham, your list is looking like a very good start of this discussion. Did you compile it from own experience? Any sources you used to back up your list? Please add that to make this discussion even more interesting. WBR.

On #6 of List of Reasons for IT-Failure
Mahmood Azizi, Member
Hi Gowtham, thanks for sharing your views, I suppose the root cause of failure of IT projects is that there is a gap between the perceptions and concepts of the programmers/analyst team and the stakeholders requirements. It is very hard to translate business requirements to IT concepts.

On #6 Common Reasons for Project Failures
Sabareeshan C.K., Member
I agree with Mahmood that the primary reason for failure of IT projects is poor understanding & scoping of the customer requirements.
IT projects are aimed at delivering intangibles that enable customers to perform better. More often than not, the customers' wants do not match with what they actually need. The project manager and his team should therefore define the customer's requirements and scope them clearly that the acceptance criteria is transparent and unambiguous.

What are the Common Reasons Why IT Projects Fail?
Erkan Gulec, Member
In my opinion,
- First is not having a good reason for doing the project. This is related to project's expected benefits.
- Second is having poor quality professionals in the project (specifically project board and project manager).
- Third is all about managing resources: cost, time, quality, scope and risks. Obviously this requires a cross-functional, capable project team and relevant resources. What a project will and will not deliver must also be crystal clear to as many project stakeholders as possible (ideally all).

Reasons Why IT Projects Fail
Jacqueline E. Dennis
The reasons why IT project fail has been published by the Standish Group in their Chaos report about every two years, since 1994. The last statistics that I have from 2004 include the following top 10:
1. User involvement
2. Executive management support
3. Clear business objectives
4. Experienced project manager
5. Minimizing scope and requirements
6. Iterative and agile processes
7. Skilled resources
8. Formal methodology
9. Financial management
10. Standard tools and infrastructure.

Discussion on Failure of IT Projects
Gowtham Podapati, Member
@Mahmood Azizi: thanks for your reply. But do you really think there is a vast difference between theoretical concepts and practical implementation of IT. In my opinion it's due to "skills that don't match with job requirements" such a lack of technical expertise, communication gap between clients and people who are working on the project like developers, designers etc.

Failure of IT Projects
Mahmood Azizi, Member
Hi Gowtham, yes you are right, lack of skill is one of the reason but as per the case there are many reasons that can affect on it, such as, not paying attention to details (hidden and dark angels), inflexibility of it products in comparison of actual work and so on. This is my experience for home made IT projects.

Why IT Projects Fail
Jacqueline E. Dennis
With all due respect, the response I gave is not theoretical. It is based on feedback from IT project managers worldwide. The Standish group collects the data and publishes it every 2 years.

Failure of IT Projects
Mahmood Azizi, Member
Hi Gowtham, will you compare MS-Project software with Primavera. The 1st one was designed and developed by IT specialists, and the 2nd one by planning specialists. If you are familiar with them you will understand my words better.

Consistent Failures of IT Projects
Grynberg, Member
The problem is not so much that IT projects fail in the first place but that such failure has become a norm over time.
If there is no incentive/constraint to improve nothing will change.
And that's my assessment after 17 years in IT, 15 of which in France and in the banking sector.

Common Reasons for Faling IT Projects
SURENDRA GANGADHAR YERNAL, Member
Hi Gowtham, in my 15 years experience in Manufacturing and IT, I have seen that quite often the customer expects too much without knowing the requirements of his organization and without knowing the approximate capabilities of the software. I have been implementing bespoke ERP software in a variety of industries like plastics, heavy engineering, consumables, automotive, food, packaging etc.
I always suggest the customer to initially understand his needs and the software possibilities/capabilities.

Why so many IT Projects are Failing?
Mau Chi, Member
In my experience, lack of communication is the root cause of project failures.
Beware, there can be a lack of communication, and there can be a lack of willingness to communicate in the first place.
There can be several causes involved fro the lack of communication, mostly the fear to "ask too much" (often to the customer, but to technical staff as well). This creates a confusion where everyone has bits of information, but never the whole picture.