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Why most IT projects fail

March 15, 2010 By Sam Narisi 1 Comment

Organizations lose a lot of money every year because of IT projects that collapse before they’re complete. Why does that happen?

Usually, because the projects are too complex, says IT expert Robert Sessions in his new report “The IT Complexity Crisis: Danger and Opportunity.”

Just how costly is IT failure? Sessions estimates U.S. businesses lose $1 trillion each year because of failed projects.

According to Sessions, the goal of any IT project should be “to design the least complex architecture possible that solves the business problem.” He says most projects fail because they lose sight of that goal.

Read the report here.

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  • spintreebob Schmidt

    Several thigs drive the obsession with designing a complex system.
    -Our culture assumes more is better. If something succeeds we assume more will have even better results. If something fails, then we assume more is needed. The result is more complex systems.

    -There is an irrational bias against the dumb terminal mainframe system. If two tiers is good, then n+x tiers must be even better.

    -Vendors convince the buyers for customers that every niche of complexity must be filled with a product category. Rather than have a single integrated system with software and hardware designed to work together, vendors benefit from products that lack capabilities because they can then sell additional products to fill those vacancies.

    - If I have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. If I have my favorite language everything looks like a problem for that language. Analysis and design has the wrong focus.

    The IT system for a medium sized or big business has only 3 necessary parts:
    -The workstation with browser and hardware and software typical of a workstation.
    -The database server with the DBMS and hardware and software typical of a database server.
    -The network to connect the workstations and database servers.
    These three elements can do virtually everything a business needs done.

    The sole reason for the middle ware of servers, routers, load balancers, Java, VB, COBOL, Perl, etc is to do the rare thing that the DBMS and workstation cannot do, or to do what it can do cheaper or faster than the DBMS and workstation. Thus design should start with the basics and only bring in the extras when they add value.

    But most analysis and design is the opposite. They think the JAVA, VB, COBOL, etc is the heart of the system. They design and build for it. The workstation and database become incidentals tacked on at the last minute.

    This irrational design approach is a major reason for the unnecessarily comples IT hardware and software systems we see.