Turning runaway software projects around: The de-escalation of commitment to failing courses of action

This paper addresses the costly problem of runaway information systems (IS) development projects, that is, software projects that exhibit significant cost and schedule overruns. Runaway projects are a serious and costly concern for IS management. A survey of 365 executives, conducted by the Standish Group, indicated that in 1995 alone, American companies would spend an estimated $59 billion in cost overruns on runaway IS projects (Johnson 1995).