Top reasons why IT Projects Fail and how to save your project

There are many reasons why IT projects fail. Be it an IT consulting Project or IT implementation project. The most important reason why projects get screwed up is first due to People and then Technology.

You need right people, right skillset and people with good mindframe. Second factor is Technology you need to decide on a technology by looking at the requirements and how efficient the application will be, Using linux or windows should not be a problem. The end result should be getting the most out of the technology, reducing cost and making project extensible easily if client wants to make some changes or add features at a later date(This happens most of the time). All people should work in the same direction that is to use this agreed upon techology. For eq. For a web app project Perl guy says do it in perl, PHP guy says do it in PHP and manager says JAVA. Seriously I have seen people do all this bullshit. For a sucessfull project People and Technology should work in tandem with each other or else the project is screwed.


I came across a blog about project management and one post which i liked was about the project failures. I am posting the points below, there are Six of them, Top failures according to me out of the below six reasons are 3, 4 and 6: -



1. Intent Failure - Occurs when the project doesn’t bring enough added value or capability to beat down the obstacles inherent throughout the process. This suggests the original intent of the project was flawed from the beginning.
2. Sponsor Failure - Occurs when the person heading up the project is not actively engaged and/or does not have the authority to make decisions critical to project success.
3. Design and Definition/Scope Failure - Occurs when the scope is not clearly defined, so the project team is unclear on deliverables.
4. Communications Failure - Occurs when communications are infrequent or honest discussion of project problems and issues are avoided.
5. Project Discipline Failure - Occurs when process/project methodology is allowed to lapse so that the mitigation factors inherent in the process are never used.
6. Supplier/Vendor Failure - Occurs when the structure of supplier /vendor relationships doesn’t allow for communication and adjustments.

So friends lets keep these things in mind when starting a project and avoid the potential traps.