Why Do Information Technology Projects Fail?

Abstract With developing technological possibilities, IT projects are becoming increasingly ambitious in both goals and scale. Although technology itself is enabling easy management of project execution, failure can still occur, particularly with respect to an ample number of unique projects. It is argued here that the ampleness and uniqueness of projects provide criteria for such projects to be treated differently from smaller-scale enterprises of the same type. Gaps can be identified in the literature with regards to exact definitions of project success and failure. It is proposed that three main issues can impact a project's ecosystem and determine its failure, namely, uncertainty, volatility, and unknowns. Based on these aspects, future project performance can be estimated and correspondingly managed. At the same time, retrospective assessment of success or failure may be made rigorous based on exact definitions. Two case studies of major technological projects are presented and discussed here as examples of theory application.