Why IT projects fail?

Introduction
There are many causes of project failure and every failed project will
have its own set of issues. Sometimes it is a single trigger event that
leads to failure, but more often than not, it is a complex entwined set of
problems that combine and cumulatively result in failure. Generally
these issues fall into two categories. Things the team did do (but did
poorly) or things the team failed to do.

Based on reviews of the projects in the Catalogue of Catastrophe and

discussion with more than 500 people involved in real life projects, the
following list documents 101 of the most common mistakes that lead to,
or contribute to, the failure of projects:

Fig(1): seven reasons

 Poor Requirements.

Requirements define the functional and physical needs of a

product. In a sense, requirements serve as the roadmap for product
development, providing product development teams guidance for
what is expected of the product. While there is a tremendous
amount of work involved, putting together a list of requirements is
actually the easier part; it is managing those requirements that
becomes complicated and often where things fall apart. In fact, as
Christopher Lindquist states in CIO Magazine, Fixing the
Requirements Mess, As many as 71% of [embedded] software
projects that fail do so because of poor requirements management,
making it the single biggest reason for project failure.

Lack of leadership.

Too often, technology projects are deemed IT projects and

relegated to the IT department, regardless of what the project
actually is. But for any project to work, it needs strong leadership
from the top down. If a project doesnt have buy in and support from
C-level executives as well as specific department leaders, its hard to
get employees on board and hard to know who is in charge when
leadership questions arise.
 Insufficient communication.

As I mentioned above, someone on the tech team needs to be able to

explain the project details regularly to the non-tech executives and
other involved parties. Its vital for someone on the team to have
strong visualization and storytelling skills in order to communicate
clearly and regularly whats happening with the project.

Lack of accountability.

When projects are dubbed IT projects and left to the IT

department, theres also a lack of accountability that can develop.
Executives may wrongly believe that they cant understand whats
happening, and leave it to the tech guys to figure out. This is a
mistake. If your tech team cant adequately explain whats
happening on the project or why its needed, thats a huge red flag.
And if the executives arent driving the project and holding the team
accountable, it can easily spiral out of control.
 Poorly defined (or no defined) outcome.

Believe it or not, one of the more common problems I see with

both technology projects and data projects is an ill defined goal or
outcome. A company will say they want to improve customer
service, for example but no one ever bothers to say what that
looks like. Shorter call times? Fewer calls? Higher customer
satisfaction? How will you know when youve succeeded? If you
dont know, youre doomed to failure.

Lack of user testing, or failure to address feedback.

The thing about technology projects is that ultimately, theyre made

for people, not machines. A lack of real-world user testing before
launch is a common problem. The data scientists, programmers and
engineers think they know what users want, but users may have an
entirely different set of needs and problems. Once user testing is
conducted, the project has to prioritize addressing the feedback, or
the end user wont be happy and ultimately wont use the
technology created for them.
 Poor Project Handling

Mishandling of projects is another issue that takes your project one-

step closer to failure. There are many reasons for poor project
handling. One of them is inexperienced and non-certified project
managers. Lack of skills among the team members can also hinder
your project progress.

It is important to conduct weekly or monthly meetings, monitor

project progress regularly and hold your team members accountable
for what they are doing. Keep things organized and work towards
the achievement of a common goal. Identify issues and take concrete
steps to solve these problems so that they could not affect your
projects negatively.
 Case Study

Project Name: Doel laptop

Place: Bangladesh
Date:(2009-15)

The government project for supplying laptops at low prices has

nosedived recently with sales falling drastically and production
completely halted.

However, statistics have shown that state-owned Telephone Shilpa

Sangstha Ltd (TSS), the company in charge of producing and
distributing the laptops, has managed to sell only 204 laptops in June
and July. The total proceeds from the sale of these laptops has been less
than Tk9m.

High-ranked officials of the production plant have informed that there is

not much chance of any increased sale because production has been
stopped. They also said fund constraint has severely crippled the project
with TSS failing to inject any money to save it.

Bangladesh Government invest a lots of money in every laptop

production to provide the people in a low price. But that project got fail
due for bad configuration.After analysis a issue come and that is the Bad
configuration. (RF-1)
 Project Name: The California Department of Motor
Vehicles(DMV)
Place: USA
Date:(1987-1993)
Cost: $44 million

The California Department of Motor Vehicles has spent $44 million

over the last six years on a computer modernization project it now
admits is a hopeless failure, prompting the Legislature to order an
investigation.
DMV Director Frank S. Zolin, who has been on the job since 1991, said
Tuesday that the project got off on the wrong track and that he has ended
it.
A report by the independent legislative analyst's office said the DMV
didn't understand the technology and mismanaged the project.
According to DMV officials, however, the programming language of the
DMV system was not compatible with later developments in technology.
Assemblywoman Brown, a committee member, said she believes the
issue went unnoticed by the Legislature because the DMV was under no
requirement to periodically advise the Legislature on the status of the
project.(RF-2)
 Project Name: The passport office
Country: United Kingdom(UK)
Date:(1999)

In the summer of 1999 the failure of the Passport Offices new IT

system caused huge delays in the issue of passports, several hundred
people were unable to travel, and phone lines were
continually congested.

A report on the problem blamed over-optimistic planning of the

implementation of the new system. The cost of producing a passport also
rose. A risk had been taken by introducing the new system in 2 of the 6
passport offices before it was properly tested.

The report into the failure highlighted:

failure to assess the time needed by staff to become familiar with

new manual and computerised systems
unrealistic risk assessment and insufficient contingency planning
a failure to communicate effectively with the public at a personal
level, by phone and through the media (RF-3)
 Project Name: British Home Office
Country: United Kingdom(UK)
Date: (Mar 2014)
Cost: $291.41M

With changing security threats, securing a countrys borders has

become an ever increasing priority. The United Kingdoms efforts to
secure their borders has suffered a significant set back after the now
cancelled e-Borders project has resulted in a 224M settlement in
favour of the suppliers of the system.
Problems continued for a number of years and following the election
of the new Conservative government in 2010, the Raytheon contract
was terminated. Although the project itself soldiered on, continual
failures to deliver resulted in the project itself being cancelled in
March 2014. The projects requirements have now been reallocated to
other ongoing initiatives or projects as the UK government continues
its efforts to achieve the goals originally set back in 2003.
Lack of control over procurements. Failure to establish appropriate
benchmarks against which to track project progress and vendor
performance. Failure to engage appropriate Subject Matter Experts
during procurements. Failure to define and stabilize requirements.
Under-estimation of complexity. Politics. (RF-4)
Our observation:

By studying these four cases, we identify the main reason or

problem of those project failure are given below:

Doel Bad configuration or poor requirements, user testing,

financial problem etc.
DMV Poor project handling, poor requirements etc.
Passport Office Lack of communication, poor requirements,
undefined outcome or goal etc.
British Home Office Undefined outcome or goal, Poor
requirements etc.
We can clear to know about the important reason for project failure
by drawing pie diagram with percentage__

Figure: Percentage pie diagram of IT project failure.

 How to avoid project failure
Project managers can easily reduce the risk of failure by
identifying the common reasons that pave the way for project
failure. They will have to take steps to prevent these factors from
casting negative shadows on their projects. If you want your
project to complete on time, then you will have to deliver all the
required resources to project managers and prevent project creep
from getting out of control.

Keep things organized and avoid mismanagement. Ensure that all

your team members are on the same page and united for a common
cause. Involvement of stakeholders is critical to your project
success. All this will go a long way in helping you in reducing the
chances of project failure.

Reference:
http://archive.dhakatribune.com/technology/2013/aug/31/government
%E2%80%99s-laptop-project-crash-lands/
http://articles.latimes.com/1994-04-27/news/mn-
50941_1_modernization-project
https://jiscinfonetcasestudies.pbworks.com/w/page/59388795/Why+Pr
ojects+Fail:+The+Passport+Office
http://calleam.com/WTPF/?p=6773