This quick interview with risk management expert Sue Young gets to the heart of the matter of project failure. Why IT projects fail - Computerworld, 25 August 2003
Q. So why do IT projects fail? A. No one prevented them from failing. We define success as a lack of failure and failure as a lack of success. If you eliminate the possibility for failure, the only possibility you have left is success.
And what about those project reports that don't tell you anything? She says that project reports that aren't written in well-defined, objective terms are guaranteed to sound rosy.
The beauty of a good PM process within any organization, not just inforamtion technology, is the ability to clearly identify the status of the project and clearly outline the greatest known risk factors. With that information in hand, the team (or management, if necessary) can make educated decisions on mitigating the risks before they create problems in the project.