Project Fear and Denial

  Knowledge Management   Lessons Learned   Risk Management   ProjectsAtWork  

Why are we afraid to face the truth about project failures and how can we overcome it? For starters, we need to view failure as part of the learning process, a required step on the road to success.

Since 1994, the Standish Group has been conducting bi-annual studies of IT projects and the success and failure rates for those projects. Dubbed the Chaos Studies, the research is widely quoted as the industry standard, though it has also received a great deal of skepticism and criticism. Since the inception of these Chaos Studies, the reported statistics for projects that “fail, are challenged, or succeed” have been roughly the same (see below). 

The cost of these failed projects and the amount of waste represented is staggering but that is not the point I want to make. The point is fear and denial.

I have been out talking to people about troubled projects and referencing these Chaos Studies.  I have found that very few IT Leaders, CIOs and IT project managers are even aware of these studies and failure statistics. When asked, they do acknowledge that there is a high rate of failures, but they don't pay attention to industry studies on it, nor do they think of it as a call to action as I do. To me this seems the rough equivalent of a pitching coach not knowing the ERA for any of his pitchers…

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