**1. Introduction**

*'There are many ways to make large software systems fail. There are only a few ways of making them succeed'.*

Capers Jones (2004)

The primary question of this research is why. Why, despite all of the experience; the research, the training, the consultants and software companies focusing attention and billions upon billions of dollars expended, IT projects continue to fail. Despite a significant body of research into the contributory factors (reasons) of these failures little consensus exists [1] as to both the rate of actual failure or even how to measure failure.

© 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons © 2018 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Given the immense cost of these high levels of failure [2, 3], it is puzzling that greater progress has not been made to ensure that IT Projects are more consistently delivered to specification and customer satisfaction.

over-time and deliver less than what was required. Cobb has argued that 'we know why projects fail' suggesting that there is a failure to transfer that knowledge into practice. The US military has questioned that premise and intimidated that it is possible that no paradox exists at all, but in fact we simply have not yet identified why IT projects continue to fail [11].

Situational Incompetence: An Investigation into the Causes of Failure of a Large-Scale IT Project

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.76791

31

The primary focus of this research was to address the lack of clinical studies in the literature on IT project failure, and to understand the failings that have occurred in a 'sticky, practice-

The primary case study documents comprising the raw data collection were drawn from two

**1.** the published files of the Queensland Commission of Inquiry into the Queensland Health

**2.** documents obtained under Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to the Department of

The total number of pages of witness statements amounted to 3850. In addition there was a collection of project documentation gathered through Freedom of Information requests that

The data and its collection were independent of the researcher and have been drawn directly from the project and from a Government led inquiry into the project. Witness Statements were

The data collection was rigorous and extensive, with thousands of pages of material examined thus supporting 'triangulation and sampling' [14]. The large amount of data collected allowed the researcher to minimise influences that might occur in a small data-set. The large volume of both project data and witness testimony ensured that bias had been removed from the source data (as far as practicable), and that subsequent observations could be compared and contrasted across the multiple statements and project records providing, as far as pos-

Information Technology projects fail, and the cost of these failures is staggering [4, 15–18].

The Standish Group [18] has found that for 'development projects that exceed \$100 million in labour costs, only 2% are successful, meaning on time and within budget. Another 51% are considered challenged or over budget, behind schedule or did not meet user expectations.

This concern has been highlighted and repeated for more than 40 years [19–26].

Health Queensland, and to the Queensland Treasury Department.

exceeded 5000 pages of emails, reports, project plans and other data.

taken under Oath by representatives of a Court.

sible, a balanced perspective to emerge.

The rest, 47%, are seen as outright failures' [6].

**4. Findings**

**3. Methodology**

based problem' [12].

Payroll Project [13], and

sources:

One of the reasons for explaining this high rate of failure is that it has been assumed that IT project failure is due to shortcomings in generic project management capability, rather than due to attributes of IT projects in particular. For example, 'most of the improvement efforts have focused on advancing variations of the traditional project management paradigm, such as (that which) is embodied by the Project Management Body of Knowledge' [4].

Two questions arise regarding IT project failure research. First, why is the success rate of IT projects so poor? And secondly, why, despite the efforts of many, the situation fails to improve? This problem is known as 'Cobb's Paradox' [5], which states: 'We know why projects fail; we know how to prevent their failure—so why do they still fail?'. Cobb made the observation in 1995 while attending a presentation by the Standish Group (authors of the Chaos series of reports) while working at the Secretariat of the Treasury Board of Canada. Cobb's observation that 'we know why projects fail' should not be taken in a literal, completely black and white sense, rather it should be considered to be a reference to the collective body of expert commentary, opinion, research and project practitioners that have offered solutions. Despite the successful implementation of major IT projects, repeatable success continues to be elusive [6].

Cobb was not alone in observing that there is a great deal studied and written about project failure, and that consulting firms propose methodologies and remedies but little actual progress appears to have been made. The International Federation for Information Professionals (IFIP) Working Party 8.6 ran a conference to address this specific issue asking 'why our scholarship has not been more effective. Is the fault one of theory and inadequate understanding? Or is the problem one of knowledge transfer, the failure to embed research knowledge in the working practices of managers and policy-makers' [7].
